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This Is TASTE
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If you're a fan of smart and lively conversations about food, home cooking, and culture, this is the place. We interview the most interesting characters in the world of food, media, and cookbooks and release episodes several times a month. The program is hosted by TASTE editors Aliza Abarbanel and Matt Rodbard, and is sometimes recorded live at Rizzoli Bookstore in New York City.
Visit TASTE online: tastecooking.com
740 Episodes
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Our friend Tanya Bush is back. The Brooklyn-based pastry chef, writer, and co-founder of Cake Zine visits the studio to talk about her incredible debut book, Will This Make You Happy: Stories & Recipes from a Year of Baking. It’s part coming-of-age memoir, part baking book, and the rare cookbook that is also a page turner. In this episode we get into the year of Tanya’s life that inspired this book and get into what is exciting at Tanya’s restaurant, the acclaimed Little Egg.
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Ham El-Waylly is a chef, recipe developer, and video creator based in New York City. His New Orleans–style seafood restaurant Strange Delight is a Brooklyn favorite, but his wonderful new debut cookbook is decidedly for the home cooks. Today on the show, we talk about how the book draws from his fine-dining background and third-culture childhood—growing up with Bolivian-Egyptian parents in Doha, Qatar—with lots of hot takes about cooking tools, cross-culture cooking, wrestling, and more.
Also on the show Matt has a great conversation with Paula Houde, Executive Director of The Trotter Project. We talk about her time working alongside the legendary chef, and some great scholarship opportunities for culinary arts, hospitality, and agricultural students. Applications are open now.
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It's the return of Food Writers Talking About Food Writing. Every couple of weeks, Matt invites a journalist to talk about some favorite recent food writing as well as their thoughts on the industry as a whole. In today's episode, we talk with Emma Orlow. Emma is a founding journalist at Caper, the new food media startup covering the restaurant industry and food culture with a fresh set of eyes. We talk about why she joined the team, what Caper is doing differently, and this exciting era in food journalism. We also discuss some recent food writing that caught our attention.
Discussed on the episode:
My Dinner Date With A.I. [NYT]
Would You Wait 8 Hours for This Waffle? [New York Magazine]
Uncovering an Underground Cheese Sample Sale [Caper]
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It was a lot of fun having David Cho in the studio. David is a longtime media executive, having helped launch The Awl and Grantland. He’s also a pretty great guy to talk about restaurants with, and we do that. We also discuss Postcard, a new restaurant discovery tool and community. Matt's a user, and thinks it’s a great way to organize the restaurant recommendations that are constantly flowing through our world through a simple interface. We talk all about that and much more.
And before that it’s the return on Three Things. Aliza and Matt discuss: A scene check at New York’s new favorite wine bar, Stars, and Easy Joy Dim Sum & AYCE Hot Pot. Also, we have a new favorite boxed cake mix: Oh So Easy. And we make visits outside of NYC to Golden Russet Cafe & Grocery, No Comply Foods, Zinnia’s Dinette, and Random Harvest Market.
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Santiago Perez is the founder of Santo Taco, a new taqueria with two locations in New York City. Born and raised in Mexico City, he made his name in NYC working as a partner alongside chef Enrique Olvera in opening Cosme, Atla, Los Angeles’s Damian, and Mexico City’s Pujol. Now he’s bringing underrated tacos like steak trompo to NYC. Today on the show, we talk about going from fine dining to fast casual taquerias, his favorite spots in Mexico City, and more.
Also on the show, Matt has a great conversation with Daisy Alioto. Daisy is the cofounder and CEO of Dirt and the cohost of the podcast Tasteland with Francis Zierer. It was fun to discuss her work at Dirt as well as her thoughts on paywalls, newsletters (when is it too much?), and food media tapping into live programming.
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Read these stories on Dirt: Life and death at BalthazarSoftware as a Style
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What does it feel like to run some of the country’s buzziest restaurants, with razor-sharp points of view and terrific cooking? Our friend Simon Kim shares his story while completing the Resy Questionnaire. Simon runs COTE Korean Steakhouse, a joyous restaurant with locations in New York, Miami, Las Vegas, and Singapore. He’s also behind Coqodaq, which, since opening in Manhattan in 2024, has changed the conversation around Korean fried chicken. This talk is honest, inspiring, and shows how Simon is one of the brightest stars in American restaurants.
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Our old friend Deuki Hong joins Matt in this episode for a really fun conversation. Deuki is the chef-partner at Sohn in San Francisco, an all-day café and community space in the city’s Dogpatch neighborhood. It’s such a cool place, and we talk all about it. We also reflect on the publication of Deuki and Matt's first book, the New York Times Bestseller Koreatown, released ten years ago today. We talk about where Korean food was then, and the exciting moments over the past decade that we’ve had a front row seat for.
Also on the show Matt has a really fun conversation with Anthony Randello-Jahn, known widely as social star Donut Daddy. They talk about his new cookbook and so much more.
Buy: Koreatown and Koreaworld.
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Maxine Sharf is a culinary creator and recipe developer who is passionate about bringing comfort, confidence, and community to cooking. She takes inspiration from her diverse background as Korean, Chinese, Russian, Romanian, and Polish with a California upbringing. She left her ten-year career in tech to pursue her mission to help others feel less intimidated in the kitchen, and she writes about it in her debut cookbook, Maxi’s Kitchen.
And at the top of the show, Aliza talks about my recent trip to Taiwan, covering many stops along the way including: Ron Museum, Moon Moon Food, 詹記麻辣火鍋-西門大世界, 阿仁甕缸雞-名間店, and Shanghai Hao Wei Soup Dumplings.
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It was so great having Marcus Samuelsson in the studio. Marcus is one of America’s finest chefs, born in Ethiopia and raised in Sweden before, at age 24, being named executive chef of New York’s Aquavit and soon becoming the youngest ever to receive a three-star restaurant review from the New York Times. That was 1995. Today Marcus runs restaurants around the world, including the iconic Red Rooster in Harlem. He’s also involved in building community as much as developing dining concepts, and in this episode we talk about New York in the mid-’90s, building a restaurant for Harlem, by Harlem, and his various projects helping the food community.
Apply for the Rise Residency.
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Ifrah F. Ahmed is a Somali-born, Brooklyn-based writer, chef, and artist whose work centers around food, history, culture, memory, and migration. For years, she’s been sharing Somali food through her pop-up Milk and Myrrh and as a contributor to New York Times Cooking—and now, she’s releasing a gorgeous debut cookbook, Soomaaliya. It’s a pleasure to have Ifrah on the show to talk about the joys and challenges of translating an oral tradition into a cookbook, the rich legacy and influences of Somali cuisine, and much more.
And at the top of the show, Aliza talks about my recent trip to Tokyo, covering many stops along the way including Ramen Jazzy Beats, Nasu Oyaji, Laekker, and the Mori Art Museum.
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Michelle Rabin is a Canadian food stylist and recipe developer who has worked as a culinary producer on shows like MasterChef Canada. She also appears in the terrific fever dream of a cooking show Just a Dash alongside Matty Matheson, now playing on Netflix. We love this show, and I love how Michelle speaks about making the leap from working behind the scenes to being on camera. Just a Dash is weird, visually creative, and highly entertaining, and we talk about how the show got made as well as her budding career as a “constipation consultant.”
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Elyssa Heller is the chef and owner of New York’s remarkable sandwich shop and slushie seller Edith’s, with locations in Williamsburg and the West Village. I love these restaurants for their singular point of view. They’re part modern Jewish deli, part downtown all-day café, and fully Elyssa. I really enjoyed catching up about her journey to opening Edith’s, her time working in professional candy sales, and how she thinks about tapping into her Jewish identity with foods honoring the past.
Also on the show we have a great conversation with Gráinne O'Hare, author of a terrific novel, Thirst Trap. We talk about the food scene in Belfast, and what it takes to write a great food scene in fiction.
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Alex Raij is the chef and co-owner of New York’s Txikito, Saint Julivert Fisherie, and La Vara, restaurants singular in their approach and wide reaching in their fandom. On this episode Alex takes the Resy Questionnaire, and we learn about her journey as a chef, what inspires her Spanish-inflected cooking, and her big hopes and dreams for the industry she cares so deeply about.
The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers – not of Resy—and do not constitute professional advice.
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Fidel Caballero is the chef-owner of Corima in New York City, a progressive Mexican restaurant located in Chinatown with one Michelin star. Fidel is also behind the hit burrito shop and bakery Vato, which has become the talk of brownstone Brooklyn and well beyond. In this episode, Fidel shares his journey from Mexico and El Paso to China, the Basque region, and finally New York City. Fidel is a rising star, 20 years in the making, and it was great to hear his story.
And before that Matt recaps recent visits to Santi, Cove, and Samwoojong, all in New York City.
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It was really great having Ben Liebmann in the studio. Ben is a television executive (we love his show Omnivore) and writer who spent seven years as chief operating officer at Noma, growing the business from a single restaurant to a diversified hospitality group. We really respect Ben’s take on restaurant trends, hospitality tensions, and the media landscape. We talk about it all, as well as going over a few predictions for the year ahead.
Also on the show, we catch up with Troy Chatterton. Troy is opening a cookbook store in New York’s East Village. Wild Sorrel Cookbooks will focus on books for the home cook, and they have launched a Kickstarter that you should check out. Support Troy and the team!
Listen: René Redzepi
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Eric Kim is a writer and columnist at the New York Times, and he’s working on some exciting new projects. Eric is one of our favorite guests, and we cover many topics of the day in our conversation, including some of his latest writing, what he’s cooking, where he’s dining out, and his essay collection Spaghetti Junction, which will be released next year. We also discuss Food52, which recently announced its bankruptcy and quest for new ownership, and Eric's time working there. A terrific conversation.
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Luca Servodio is a guy who knows his way around Los Angeles restaurants. In 2021, he reviewed 100 Los Angeles pizzas in 365 days through his LA Countdown Instagram account, and he followed up by taking on 100 taquerias in 2022, 100 epic LA sandwiches in 2023, 100 iconic LA noodle dishes in 2024, and 100 burgers in 2025. Today the LA Countdown is a community that is home to The LA Food Podcast and other projects. In this episode, we talk with Luca about his 2026 plans to tackle LA as well as some of his favorite restaurants, chefs, and underrated spots. We also discuss Noma’s forthcoming pop-up in the city and how he approaches building a growing media company.
Also on the show Aliza catches up with Adele Blanton and Elliott Rosenberg. They are the cofounders of Waiting, a new print magazine about artists working in NYC’s food and beverage industry. They’ve released three issues in their first year, a huge accomplishment, and today on the show, we chat about how the magazine started and how it’s growing.
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Jerrelle Guy is an award-winning author and celebrated food photographer. A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, she received her master’s in gastronomy from Boston University and was nominated for a James Beard Award for her debut cookbook, Black Girl Baking. She is back with a terrific new book, We Fancy, and we hear about her interpretation of fancy, as well as how she thinks about developing recipes for all styles of dining.
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Scott Conant is a James Beard Award–winning chef, TV personality, and pasta sauce savant. Matt still dreams about the Scarpetta spaghetti. It was a lot of fun having Scott in the studio to talk about his time coming up in New York City restaurants and why he decided to launch a food company, Martone Street, and compete for attention on the highly competitive tomato sauce shelf.
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Brooks Reitz writes the wonderful newsletter A Small & Simple Thing, which has become one of our favorite reads. He also runs restaurants in Charleston and New Orleans, including Leon’s Oyster Shop, Little Jack’s Tavern, Melfi’s, and the Bell. In this conversation we talk about Brook’s unique worldview, built around restaurant hospitality, tastemaking (the not annoying kind), and design. We talk about the recent British Invasion for restaurants in America, and his acquisition of the Houston’s / Hillstone training manual.
And before that we have a great conversation with Johno Morisano and chef Mashama Bailey, partners at The Grey, an acclaimed and progressive restaurant located in historic downtown Savannah, Georgia. In this interview we chat with the pair about how they think about the big picture (together) and bounce around menu ideas (sometimes, not together). It’s an enlightening and entertaining conversation about collaborating in a modern dining setting.
The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers – not of Resy—and do not constitute professional advice.
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