Eater's Digest

Barbara Lynch put the Boston restaurant scene on the national radar. The 2014 James Beard Outstanding Restaurateur has eight restaurants in her home city, including a collaboration with Eataly Boston, and recently published a memoir, Out of Line, in which she details how she rose from Southie to become a major figure in the restaurant world. Just last week, she was named one of Time’s 100 most influential people of the year. The chef and restaurateur sat down in the Upsell studio with hosts Helen Rosner and Greg Morabito to chat about how she runs her kitchens, her Dunkin’ Donuts order, and that time Todd English threw a soda bottle at her head. We'd LOVE to hear from you. Email us with your questions, comments, suggestions at [email protected]. and check us out on social! Barbara: twitter.com/@barbaralynchBOS Helen: twitter.com/hels Greg: twitter.com/gregmorabito Eater: twitter.com/eater

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Wolfgang Puck is America’s first celebrity chef. The man behind Spago, Cut, and the eponymous airport restaurants you hope to find during layovers, among others, shaped California cuisine as we know it, the pizza included. Fittingly, his celebrity status has been set in stone with his very own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Puck stopped by the Eater Upsell to chat with hosts Helen Rosner and Greg Morabito about creating celebrity hangouts, what’s wrong with restaurant criticism today, and why sex is best in the afternoon. Really. We'd LOVE to hear from you. Email us with your questions, comments, suggestions at [email protected]. and check us out on social! Wolfgang: wolfgangpuck.com Helen: twitter.com/hels Greg: twitter.com/gregmorabito Eater: twitter.com/eater

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Naomi Pomeroy’s Portland restaurant Beast turns 10 this year, and over the past decade, the self-made chef has mellowed. Ten years of running the restaurant, which, so far, has stuck to a six-course menu and set seating times, has taught the Pomeroy to yell less, adapt more, and consistently prioritize fun in the kitchen. “The key to my success has always been empowering the people around me,” she says. Another likely contributor: fan-favorite appearances on two TV shows. After getting her start in food with her own catering company at 22, she’s done all this without ever having worked for “one of those old man chefs.” Pomeroy stopped by the Eater Upsell to chat with Upsell hosts Helen and Greg about her rules for the kitchen, drawing menu inspiration from the sky, and being “robbed” of an Iron Chef win. We'd LOVE to hear from you. Email us with your questions, comments, suggestions at [email protected]. and check us out on twitter! Naomi: instagram.com/NaomiPomeroy Helen: twitter.com/hels Greg: twitter.com/gregmorabito Eater: twitter.com/eater

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Flynn McGarry is still a teen chef, but three years after he came onto the scene as a 15-year-old fine dining wunderkind, he is no longer, technically, a kid. McGarry has spent time in some of the world’s most renowned kitchens, including Geranium in Copenhagen, Alinea in Chicago, Eleven Madison Park in New York, and at the Modernist Cuisine lab in Seattle. More recently, the teen chef (who expects that label to stick long after his teens) has hosted his tasting menu pop-up, Eureka, in Los Angeles and New York City, with plans to take it abroad. Three months into his eight-seat tasting counter in New York, McGarry joined hosts Helen and Greg in the Eater Upsell studio to discuss the particular weirdness of high-end counter service, why he’s so done with pop-ups, and why he’s so not done with The Bachelor. Get the full transcript for this episode (and all Upsell ep’s) at eater.com/upsell and check us out on social! Flynn: instagram.com/diningwithflynn Helen: twitter.com/hels Greg: twitter.com/gregmorabito Eater: twitter.com/eater

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José Andrés is the chef that helped America fall in love with tapas. Now, he runs an empire of some 26 restaurants and is a passionate advocate for immigration reform (for which Obama awarded the chef a National Humanities Medal). Andrés is everywhere: D.C., Vegas, Miami, and even in the crosshairs of a legal battle with the current president, who sued after Andrés pulled out of a restaurant project at the Trump International Hotel in D.C. The superstar chef recently sat down in the Eater Upsell studios to talk to hosts Helen and Greg about his dealings with Trump, being snubbed by the James Beard Awards, and the vacation experience that inspired him to create what some are calling the world’s greatest margarita. Get the full transcript for this episode (and all Upsell eps) at eater.com/upsell and check us out on Twitter! José: twitter.com/chefjoseandres Helen: twitter.com/hels Greg: twitter.com/gregmorabito Eater: twitter.com/eater

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Ken Friedman, the music industry hot shot turned restauranteur, has that kind of cool you just have to be born with. Together with chef April Bloomfield, he has reshaped the New York dining scene with his particular take on the English gastropub. Ken stopped by the Upsell studios in LA to chat with Greg about how he ended up in the restaurant business, the origins of The Spotted Pig, how to be cool at parties, and how much he hates staring at exposed filament lightbulbs. Get the full transcript for this episode (and all Eater Upsell episodes) at eater.com/upsell ... and check us out on twitter! Ken: twitter.com/kennewyork Helen: twitter.com/hels Greg: twitter.com/gregmorabito Eater: twitter.com/eater

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Melissa Clark is one of America’s greatest recipe scribes. Over the last two decades, she's worked on nearly 40 cookbooks and contributed countless recipes to the New York Times food section, where she's a columnist. One of her NYT contributions, a recipe based on a Manhattan restaurant’s guacamole with peas, ignited a firestorm, with both Barack Obama and Jeb Bush weighing in on the controversial dish. During her chat with Helen and Greg, Melissa gives the full story behind Pea GuacamoleGate, and she explains the inspiration behind her new cookbook, Dinner: Changing the Game. Get the full transcript for this episode (and all Eater Upsell episodes) at eater.com/upsell

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Tim Ferriss built his career on finding the sweet spot between effort and outcome. The podcaster and bestselling writer — you probably know him from The Four-Hour Workweek or The Four-Hour Chef — uses his books as opportunities to teach himself how to be a better human being, whether it’s holding his breath for 4 minutes, or searing a perfect steak. Tim stopped by the Upsell studios to chat with Helen about his relationship with fine dining, the path that led him to writing a cookbook, and how to win at dating apps.

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JJ Johnson is the acclaimed chef behind Minton’s in Harlem. After working his way through several big kitchens in New York City, JJ first earned raves from the critics at Minton’s sister restaurant, the Cecil, where the served a menu that drew inspiration from the foodways of the African diaspora. In this candid chat wit Helen and Greg, the chef talks about culinary school, his experiences cooking around the world, and the importance of having — and becoming — a mentor in the kitchen.

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Frank Bruni is a New York Times op-ed columnist and author of several books about subjects ranging from the Bush administration to the college admissions system, but most food lovers know him as the paper’s chief restaurant critic from 2004 to 2009. Bruni stopped by the Eater Upsell studios to talk about the current President of the United States, Frank's tenure as the most powerful critic in the world, and the creation of his new cookbook with Jennifer Steinhauer, “A Meatloaf in Every Oven.”

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