Culinary Characters Unlocked

This special bonus episode comes from the folks at Gravy, a production of the Southern Foodways Alliance. Gravy shares stories of the changing American South, and in this episode, producer Eve Troeh takes us to Brennan’s, an iconic restaurant in the heart of New Orleans’ French Quarter, where spectacle and tradition come together over a flambé pan. At Brennan’s, servers don’t just deliver dessert; they ignite Bananas Foster tableside in a performance perfected over decades. But behind the fire and flourish is a demanding skillset and an old-school apprenticeship that’s anything but simple. We meet the servers who’ve mastered the flame, and explore how this tableside ritual continues to evoke an era of elegance, even as restaurant culture evolves. For more stories from the South, follow Gravy wherever you get your podcasts or visit southernfoodways.org.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ali Clem says she was shocked when her La Barbecue restaurant in Austin, TX was recently awarded a Michelin star. She was mentored by members of a legendary Texas barbecue family, the Muellers of Louis Mueller Barbecue in Taylor, Texas and married founder Louis Mueller’s granddaughter, LeAnn Mueller. They worked together until Mueller’s untimely death and Clem now runs the restaurant alone, honoring the legacy of Mueller and her family through the barbecue she is making today. And unlike many in the barbecue world in Texas, she is excited about pushing the envelope, experimenting with new flavors and dishes, even making pickles and the Korean favorite, kimchi.     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Chang siblings, born in Peru, emigrated to the U.S. as children, and now living in Miami, have locked up the James Beard award for Best Chef South for two straight years. Valerie won last year for her cooking at her Peruvian restaurant, Maty’s. Her older brother and co-owner Nando just won the 2025 award for what he does at his restaurant within that restaurant, the Michelin-star-winning Itamae AO. It is a ten-seat counter at which he serves his interpretation of the Peruvian-Japanese cuisine known as Nikkei, based mostly on raw fish and highlighting bold flavors. Chef Chang did not attend culinary school. In fact, he began working in restaurants to subsidize a music career that he pursued throughout his twenties before turning to the culinary side full-time.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Born in Cannes, France, and raised in a food-centric French-Italian family, Nicholas Fanucci has run some of the greatest and best-known restaurants in America, including the French Laundry, Bouchon, Le Cirque, Le Bec-Fin, and more. Previously, he worked in Europe at legendary establishments including Alain Ducasse’s Louis XV. The restaurants he has worked at have amassed a total of more than 20 Michelin stars. His journey has been remarkable, including one arc that took him from GM of The French Laundry, to cooking in a food truck, to his current incarnation as the owner of two restaurants in L.A.     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chef Yotaka Martin had never heard of the James Beard awards until she was nominated for the 2024 competition. She grew up in a small village in the north of Thailand and has only been in the U.S a few years. But she is well aware now. She didn’t win last year but she was just named the 2025 James Beard Best Chef Southwest for her cooking at the Phoenix restaurant Lom Wong, which she runs with her husband Alex. They met after he visited Thailand while in college and fell in love with the country, then with her. Their travels throughout Thailand and elsewhere in Asia fueled their mutual love of food, and they developed a vast knowledge of regional dishes rarely seen in the U.S., which they now feature. They are committed to spreading not just food knowledge but also cultural understanding and encouraging the enjoyment of food to bring people together, which is a hallmark of Thai cuisine.       Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Acclaimed Philadelphia restaurateur Tyler Akin recreated his childhood memories by re-opening the restaurant where his family celebrated big occasions—the Green Room, in the Hotel DuPont in Wilmington,Delaware.  He grew up watching his southern grandmother in the kitchen. He went to law school (his father was a lawyer and later a judge) but dropped out to attend culinary school. His talent was obvious — he staged at José Andrés Minibar in Washington and worked for other noted chefs before opening a variety of restaurants with cuisines and influences from Corsica, Sardinia, Croatia, Israel, France, Vietnam, Thailand, and more.     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chef Suzette Gresham has been a pioneer in fighting for the place of women in the long-male-dominated world of high-end cooking for forty years. And she’s also one of the greatest chefs working today. She holds two Michelin stars at her San Francisco restaurant Acquerello, where her seasonal tasing menus sparkle with the freshest, often unusual, dishes such as rabbit- mortadella filled cappellacci and quail with fennel confit. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Food and Wine’s list of America’s top restaurants for 2025, Canlis came in at number two. That, after decades as a Seattle landmark and a nationally known pinnacle of fine dining. It is also a time of great challenge for Canlis – a new Executive Chef; the departure of Mark’s brother, who had been his business partner for twenty years; and the tough post-covid economic environment that has hit the restaurant industry extremely hard. Yet Mark Canlis says he is not concerned – rather, he is committed to continually raising the bar in both food and service. And he is strikingly candid on a wide range of subjects – from food critics (he says they are too focused on the food as opposed to the overall experience) to a highly publicized lawsuit that accused Canlis of exploiting workers and misleading diners, accusations he vehemently denies, insisting that his restaurant has been at the forefront of improving worker pay by replacing tipping with a service charge.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Born and raised in Japan, Chef Julia Momosé developed a respect and love for hospitality watching her mother entertain at home. Her motivation for entering the culinary world was a visit she made to a bar in Kyoto watching the bartender hand making ice spheres for use in drinks. She pursued that newfound passion while attending college in the U.S., working at bars and local restaurants, before making a big name for herself as a bartender in Chicago, working for celebrated chefs and restaurateurs at Michelin starred restaurants, before opening Kumiko, what she calls a dining bar, pairing cutting edge drinks with Japanese food that goes far beyond sushi and ramen, and earned a Michelin star there. Recently, she’s taken on an even greater role—when health issues forced her Executive Chef to step down, she took his place, and is getting fabulous reviews, including from the Michelin Guide. And Kumiko has now won Outstanding Bar in the 2025 James Beard Awards.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pioneering chef Jordan Kahn holds Michelin stars at two different Los Angeles area restaurants— two stars at Vespertine, and one star at Meteora.  Appropriately, the Michelin Guide calls his rise in the food world “meteoric.”  Kahn worked under legendary chefs Thomas Keller and Grant Achatz before striking out on his own, He is known for crafting not just a meal, but a multi-sensory experience intended to connect the diner with the natural world,  featuring a range of what he calls “exceptional ingredients” ranging from algae, ancestral grains, and wild herbs and flowers, to inventive creations of local seafood, quail, wagyu beef, and more. And each dish — and meal —is intended to tell a story, often historical, even ancient, through the selection and juxtaposition of ingredients and cooking methods. Kahn also has a third restaurant, Destroyer, aimed at recreating the vibe of historic café society in Paris.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chef Anita Jaisinghani grew up in India and, while she loved food, she didn’t make it a career at first. She became a microbiologist, worked in that field when she and her husband moved to Canada, and only decided to enter the restaurant business when they moved to Houston. There, she opened what she describes as an Indian diner, Pondicheri, and in the space above it, a bakery, infusing even traditional baked goods such as croissants with Indian spices and flavors. She has received multiple James Beard Award nominations, include one for her cookbook, Masala: Recipes from India, the Land of Spices. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Laurent Tourondel is a Michelin star winning French chef who opened an affordable New York steakhouse, Skirt Steak, that became a Tik Tok sensation. Born in Auvergne, France, he has worked all over the world in a storied 40-year career (and even says his time in Moscow was a great culinary learning experience). He has earned a Michelin star, three stars from the New York times, founded the BLT Restaurant Group, and now owns LT hospitality, running a range of restaurants including Skirt Steak, which exploded on Tik Tok after being discovered by a couple of influencers. And he has some great advice for home cooks on making the perfect steak and burger. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Marisa Baggett had never seen sushi, never tasted sushi, when a customer asked for it at her Starkville Mississippi café. And that launched her quest to master the age old Japanese culinary tradition, graduating from the California Sushi Academy, and championing creativity that remains true to the fresh and local soul of sushi, such as her southern influenced sushi made with ingredients including pickled okra, catfish, and collard greens. She says anyone can learn to make their own sushi at home, and she’s written the cookbooks to help people make it happen. She’s also writing about Japanese food — sushi and much more — in a Substack column called Dear Sensei at dearsensei.substack.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chef Eric LeVine was so taken by cooking that before he even attended culinary school, he wrote a letter to groundbreaking chef David Burke at the legendary River Café in New York – and got hired. He credits Chef Burke with setting him on the path to culinary achievement and, after graduating from the Culinary Institute of America, Chef LeVine cooked at a variety of restaurants, winning a three-star review from the New York Times. He then began opening restaurants of his own, building a restaurant group that now includes locations in Brooklyn and on Long Island, offering cuisines that run the gamut from burgers to handmade pasta to elevated high-end cooking that evokes his life, such as an upscale homage to the bagels, knishes, and hot dogs from the Brooklyn of his childhood. Along the way he was named champion on Chopped. And he did it all while repeatedly battling cancer.     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Amy Mills grew up surrounded by barbecue. Her father Mike Mills owned  17th St. Barbecue in Murphysboro, Illinois and was the first pitmaster ever named Grand Champion three times at the “super bowl of swine,” the Memphis in May barbecue competition. Her father passed away a few years back and Amy now runs the growing operation which includes two restaurants, a sauce factory, and catering. She’s kept the quality and the flavor up to her father’s standards and reveals some of the secrets for creating 17th Street’s signature ribs, brisket, sausage, and more. She’s now consulting and teaching barbecue classes as well.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices