HUNGRY.

This week on Hungry: Emily Roux reflects on building Caractère with her husband Diego Ferrari, earning its Michelin star, and learning that excellence depends on patience, consistency and a tightly connected team. She shares lessons from working in Paris, Monaco, Japan and alongside leading chefs, revealing how curiosity, adaptability and deep immersion shaped her cooking.

The conversation explores the Roux family legacy, her childhood inside Le Gavroche, the assumptions that come with a famous surname and her determination to establish herself independently. Emily also discusses the realities behind restaurant ownership — rent negotiations, staffing, motherhood, difficult conversations and the financial pressure of surviving Covid.

From London’s restaurant boom and Japan’s devotion to ingredients to the importance of sauces, crockery and customer experience, Emily explains how Caractère blends classical foundations with a lighter, more contemporary identity — and why good things, including Michelin stars, take time.

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ON THE MENU:
00:00:00 Intro
00:01:05 Why Michelin Success Took Seven Years
00:08:01 How Two-Star Chefs Think
00:16:34 Inside a No-Shortcuts Kitchen
00:21:00 Why Caractère Rewrote the Tasting Menu
00:32:07 The Brutal Reality of Restaurant Rent
00:38:02 Japan, France and Britain Compared
00:46:54 What Le Gavroche Taught Emily Roux
00:53:06 Can Caractère Earn Two Michelin Stars?
01:03:08 The Woman Behind the Roux Dynasty
01:08:22 Motherhood Versus Restaurant Guilt
01:11:40 Growing Up Inside Le Gavroche
01:15:56 Why Hard Conversations Build Better Leaders
01:20:43 Escaping the Roux Nepotism Label
01:27:41 How Covid Nearly Ended Everything
01:34:07 Why Good Decisions Need Time
01:36:05 Michel Roux’s Best Advice
01:38:14 Turning Criticism Into Better Leadership

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♨️Still bloody HUNGRY? Course ya are. Each week I spend 15 hours writing my newsletter. It’ll take you 5 mins to read. Full of wisdom from the biggest names in food and drink. Subscribe here - https://hungryfeast.beehiiv.com/🍲 

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🤝 Let's Connect! 
►Let’s link-up here ​ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-pope/) 
►Stalk me here ​ (https://www.instagram.com/_hungry.pod/) 

This episode was edited by: G.Thomas Craig (https://www.linkedin.com/in/gthomascraig/) 

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♨️Still bloody HUNGRY? Course ya are. Each week I spend 15 hours writing my newsletter. It’ll take you 5 mins to read. Full of wisdom from the biggest names in food and drink. Subscribe here - https://hungryfeast.beehiiv.com/🍲 

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🤝 Let's Connect! 
►Let’s link-up here ​ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-pope/) 
►Stalk me here ​ (https://www.instagram.com/_hungry.pod/) 

This episode was edited by: G.Thomas Craig (https://www.linkedin.com/in/gthomascraig/) 

How do you build a brand that feels less like a product and more like a movement? Minor Figures co-founder Will Rixon sits down with Dan Pope in Nashville to talk cold brew, oat milk wars, barista culture, music, psychedelia, America vs the UK, and why brand should solve real commercial problems — not just look good on a mood board.

 📙Download HUNGRY Big Banging Reading list here 
🧾 HUNGRY survey would be so grateful if you may please fill out    

[00:00:00] Asking The Question Behind The Question

[00:06:10] Minor Figures Started With Cold Brew

[00:14:11] What Baristas Really Care About

[00:22:24] The Barista Lip Balm Breakthrough

[00:27:05] Minor Figures FM Was Genius

[00:31:12] Fighting The Oat Milk Wars

[00:36:38] Brand As Memory And Inception

[00:42:17] Turning Acid Into A Feature

[00:50:04] Why CPG Brands Feel Hollow

[00:56:41] Out Of Home Gets Weird

[01:03:04] Measuring Creative Vibrations

[01:11:11] Brand As A Moat

[01:19:30] Why British Brands Fail In America

[01:26:16] Sales Built Minor Figures

[01:36:42] America’s Business Culture Shock

[01:44:09] UK Advertising Feels Too Cute

[01:49:27] Why Stu Is A Visionary

[01:52:09] Leaving Minor Figures On Good Terms

[01:58:59] Jazz Lessons For Brand Building

[02:04:18] Every Touchpoint Builds The Brand

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♨️Still bloody HUNGRY? Course ya are. Each week I spend 15 hours writing my newsletter. It’ll take you 5 mins to read. Full of wisdom from the biggest names in food and drink. Subscribe here - https://hungryfeast.beehiiv.com/🍲 

============================================== 

🤝 Let's Connect! 
►Let’s link-up here ​ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-pope/) 
►Stalk me here ​ (https://www.instagram.com/_hungry.pod/) 

This episode was edited by: G.Thomas Craig (https://www.linkedin.com/in/gthomascraig/) 

 Nick Jones, founder of Soho House and St Clement, sits down with Dan Pope to unpack the ideas behind one of the most influential hospitality careers of the last 30 years. From turning a single members’ club in Soho into a global empire, to rethinking what modern luxury should feel like, Nick explains why great hospitality starts with simplification, generosity, atmosphere, and seeing everything through the customer’s eyes. He also shares the failures, risks, design decisions, and hard-earned lessons behind Soho House, New York, Cafe Bohemia, The Ned, and his newest London hotel, St Clement.

 📙Download HUNGRY Big Banging Reading list here 
🧾 HUNGRY survey would be so grateful if you may please fill out    

============================================== 

♨️Still bloody HUNGRY? Course ya are. Each week I spend 15 hours writing my newsletter. It’ll take you 5 mins to read. Full of wisdom from the biggest names in food and drink. Subscribe here - https://hungryfeast.beehiiv.com/🍲 

============================================== 

🤝 Let's Connect! 
►Let’s link-up here ​ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-pope/) 
►Stalk me here ​ (https://www.instagram.com/_hungry.pod/) 

This episode was edited by: G.Thomas Craig (https://www.linkedin.com/in/gthomascraig/) 

Glen Leeson, co-founder of The Tamil Prince, The Tamil Crown and Tamila, joins Dan Pope to unpack how one of London’s most talked-about Indian restaurant groups was built from pub pop-ups, second-hand fridges and blind belief.
From Patty & Bun’s burger boom to JKS discipline, lockdown hustle, personal guarantees, viral Sunday roasts, Dishoom collabs, delivery strategy and the magic of creating a restaurant that feels alive — this is a proper founder story about graft, taste, timing, luck and learning by doing.

📙Download HUNGRY Big Banging Reading list here
🧾 HUNGRY survey would be so grateful if you may please fill out

ON THE MENU:
00:00:00 Intro 00:01:08 Patty & Bun’s Wild West 00:05:23 London’s burger boom exploded 00:10:23 Why Tamil became three brands 00:13:12 Failed pub pop-ups and bad fit 00:17:08 Selling the landlord with no money 00:20:11 Opening before the kitchen worked 00:21:49 The review that changed everything 00:27:03 Letting neighbours shape the restaurant 00:30:05 Why blind belief matters 00:33:24 Meeting Prince at Market Halls 00:36:52 The Sheffield fridge road trip 00:40:28 Cooking the first Tamil menu 00:43:23 Pitching from a one-bed flat 00:47:16 Creating the Indian Sunday roast 00:53:13 Prince’s insane work ethic 00:56:12 JKS structure versus Patty & Bun chaos 01:02:27 Learning what not to do 01:08:21 Giving weird ideas time 01:11:13 Why competitors should collaborate 01:18:09 Building fun into the culture 01:21:16 Pressure, growth and imposter syndrome 01:29:03 The site that could’ve killed them 01:32:29 The accidental kitchen window 01:35:00 Making the toilet unforgettable 01:39:12 Delivery without killing the experience

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♨️Still bloody HUNGRY? Course ya are. Each week I spend 15 hours writing my newsletter. It’ll take you 5 mins to read. Full of wisdom from the biggest names in food and drink. Subscribe here - https://hungryfeast.beehiiv.com/🍲 

============================================== 

🤝 Let's Connect! 
►Let’s link-up here ​ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-pope/) 
►Stalk me here ​ (https://www.instagram.com/_hungry.pod/) 

This episode was edited by: G.Thomas Craig (https://www.linkedin.com/in/gthomascraig/) 

 📙Download HUNGRY Big Banging Reading list here 
🧾 HUNGRY survey would be so grateful if you may please fill out    

Grenade founder Al Barratt returns in this re-cut episode on how he built one of the UK’s most successful challenger brands — and sold it to Mondelez/Cadbury in a deal that ultimately valued the business at over £600m.

Al breaks down the brutal reality behind big exits: invasive due diligence, trademark protection, global scalability, profit, team quality, and why most “hot” brands are built on smoke and mirrors. He also reveals how Grenade moved from sports nutrition into petrol stations, supermarkets and the chocolate fixture — taking on Mars, Snickers, Dairy Milk and Kinder Bueno by making protein bars feel like a mass-market food product, not a niche gym supplement.

A masterclass in challenger brand strategy, premium pricing, retail distribution, category disruption, and building a business that big companies actually want to buy.

📙Download HUNGRY Big Banging Reading list here 
🧾 HUNGRY survey would be so grateful if you may please fill out    

 
🤝 Let's Connect! 
►Let’s link-up here ​ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-pope/) 
►Stalk me here ​ (https://www.instagram.com/_hungry.pod/) 

This episode was edited by: G.Thomas Craig (https://www.linkedin.com/in/gthomascraig/) 

 📙Download HUNGRY Big Banging Reading list here 
🧾 HUNGRY survey would be so grateful if you may please fill out    

📙Download HUNGRY Big Banging Reading list here 
🧾 HUNGRY survey would be so grateful if you may please fill out