669: Behind the Scenes of Topjaw and Sweating Out Michelin Stars with Jesse Burgess

Michael W. Twitty is an acclaimed culinary historian and the author of the two-time James Beard Award–winning book The Cooking Gene as well as Rice and Koshersoul. His encyclopedic new book, Recipes from the American South, is a deeply researched, home cook’s guide to the vast genre of Southern cuisine, offering historical insight alongside a diverse array of recipes. It’s a delight having him on the show to talk about bringing this book to life.   And, at the top of the show, it’s the return of Three Things, where Aliza and Matt talk about what is exciting them in the world of restaurants, cookbooks, and the food world as a whole. On this episode: A visit to Ceres in New York. Is the pie worth the hype? Also, Long Island Bar is serving elite fried cheese curds, Michigan’s Madcap Coffee is one of America’s finest roasters, and sampling some great teas from Brooklyn’s Raazi Tea. Plus, Spicewalla is now selling Umbrian olive oil, and Big Night has a new uptown location. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nite Yun was born in a refugee camp after her parents escaped from war-torn Cambodia. Her family eventually moved to California, where she grew up listening to her father’s Khmer rock and roll music and learned to cook traditional Cambodian dishes from her mother. Inspired by trips to Cambodia to learn about her heritage, Nite dedicated herself to bringing the flavors of Cambodian food back to the Bay Area. She opened her first restaurant, Nyum Bai, in Oakland in 2018 and now runs Lunette, located in San Francisco’s Ferry Building. In this episode, we talk about Nite’s amazing journey and her terrific new cookbook, My Cambodia. It’s one of our favorites of this busy season, and we hear some great stories from the road. Also on the show, we have a really fun conversation with best-selling romance author Sarah MacLean. We talk about Rhode Island foods and what makes a great food scene in romance writing. What a fun talk! Subscribe to This Is TASTE: ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sean Sherman is an award-winning chef, educator, author, and activist. A member of the Oglala Lakota Sioux tribe, he is dedicated to reviving Indigenous food traditions through his Minneapolis restaurant Owamni, the nonprofit NATIFS, and cookbooks like the fantastic new book Turtle Island. Today on the show, we talk about the years of research that resulted in Turtle Island, decolonizing Indigenous food traditions, and much more. Also on the show Matt has a great conversation with Natalia Rudin, author of the new cookbook, Cooking Fast and Slow.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This one has been a long time coming! The one and only Alice Waters joins us in the studio for an amazing conversation. We naturally talk about her legacy at Chez Panisse, the pioneering restaurant in Berkeley, California, that opened in 1971 with California farmers front and center. There would be no farm-to-table movement without Alice. We also talk about her work bringing regenerative farming to school kitchens and her new book, A School Lunch Revolution.  Subscribe to This Is TASTE: ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Eric Wareheim is an actor, director, winemaker, and writer based in Los Angeles. You may know him as one half of the comedy duo behind the cult-followed Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, but in recent years, he’s been making a foray into food and wine, starting with the New York Times Best Seller cookbook Foodheim. His new book, Steak House, chronicles his freewheeling, exhaustive search for the ultimate steak house. It’s a heady mix of recipes, interviews with legendary servers, and his own very funny essays—and today on the show, we go deep on his steak house fixation and reporting process.  And, at the top of the show, it’s the return of Three Things, where Aliza and Matt talk about what is exciting them in the world of restaurants, cookbooks, and the food world as a whole. On this episode: The Great Community Bake Sale is New York’s big weekend event, Katie Parla has a very cool new book out, Rome: A Culinary History, Cookbook, and Field Guide to the Flavors that Built a City, it’s soup season and Andy Baraghani’s Golden Potato and Greens Soup is a great option. Also, a recap from the fun Los Angeles Chef’s Conference, a visit to the Tiny Dollhouse Store, and Matt is heading to Korea. Subscribe to This Is TASTE: ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’re taking a break from food conversations to highlight another love of ours: Great music. In ⁠Fela Kuti: Fear No Man⁠, Jad Abumrad—creator of Radiolab, More Perfect, and Dolly Parton’s America—tells the story of one of the great political awakenings in music: how a classically trained "colonial boy" traveled to America, in search of Africa, only to return to Nigeria and transform his sound into a battering ram against the state—creating a new musical language of resistance called Afrobeat. Subscribe to ⁠Fela Kuti: Fear No Man For years, the world’s biggest stars made pilgrimages to Nigeria to experience Fela’s Shrine, the epicenter of his musical revolution. But when the mix of art and activism got too hot, the state pulled out its guns, and literally opened fire. Fela Kuti: Fear No Man is an uncategorizable mix of oral history, musicology, deep dive journalism, and cutting edge sound design that takes listeners deep inside Fela’s life, music, and legacy. Drawing from over 200 interviews with Fela Kuti’s family, friends, as well as scholars, activists, and luminaries like Burna Boy, Paul McCartney, Questlove, Santigold, and former President Barack Obama (just to name a few), Fela Kuti: Fear No Man journeys deep into the soul of Afrobeat to explore the transformative power of art and the role artists can play in this current moment of global unrest. An Audible Original presented by Audible and Higher Ground. Produced by Western Sound and Talkhouse. ©2025 Higher Ground, LLC (P)2025 Audible Originals, LLC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jon Bonné is Resy’s managing editor, and the author of The New French Wine and other books, and a winner of awards from most major food organizations. We always love having Jon in the studio, and today we talk in detail about the Resy 100, a decisive and illuminating list of restaurants around the United States that define dining today. The list has a very strong point of view and highlights restaurants in both big cities and smaller communities that serve exceptional food that might be alternately comforting and daring, traditional and completely new. It’s a fantastic list, and we cover many of the entries while also zooming out to discuss interesting examples of Mexican cuisine, the New Nordic moment, and, naturally, the modern wine bar scene. The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers – not of Resy—and do not constitute professional advice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 have a great conversation with Nikita Richardson. Nikita is an editor in the Food section of The New York Times and the creator of the “Where to Eat: New York City” newsletter, The Times’s first newsletter dedicated to restaurant coverage. We talk about Nikita’s newsletter and feature writing, life as an editor at The Times, and college football naturally comes up too. It was such a fun time having one of food media’s leading voices on the show.  Subscribe to This Is TASTE: ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠  Featured on the episode: Bring Back the Coffee Shop Tip Jar Even if it’s Digital [NY Mag] This TikTok Food Trend Is More Than 10,000 Years Old [NYT] Fellas, Is It Cheugy to Make a Mug Cake? [Best Food Blog] Tony Shalhoub Will Travel for Bread [NYT] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jesse Burgess is behind Topjaw, the wildly popular, restaurant-centric social media account covering the food scene in London and beyond. Jesse is also the host of a cool new series on Apple TV+ called Knife Edge: Chasing Michelin Stars, which is streaming now. The show follows several restaurants, including Coqodaq, Nōksu, and the Musket Room (in New York) and Feld and Esmé (in Chicago), as they sweat it out during Michelin Guide season. Jesse reveals how he views these star-worthy restaurants and what it’s like being at the center of food influencing.    Subscribe to This Is TASTE: ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rosie Grant is the creator of Ghostly Archive, a project documenting the real-life phenomenon of recipes inscribed on tombstones in cemeteries around the world. After years of seeking out these immortalized dishes, she’s released a truly singular cookbook, To Die For: A Cookbook of Gravestone Recipes. Today on the show, we chat about the project, creating the book, and some of Rosie’s favorite gravestone recipes. Also on the show, Matt catches up with Vanessa Anderson, known widely online as Grocery Goblin. Vanessa writes a terrific Substack and posts video clips on social media, all in celebration of international grocery stores. Vanessa is based in Los Angeles, home to a great grocery store scene, and we talk about her work and some of her favorite places to shop. Subscribe to This Is TASTE: ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices