Joiners

We’ve wanted to have this week’s guest on since we started the podcast. Andrew Zimmerman is one of Chicago’s most respected chefs -- a five-time James Beard finalist and the chef behind Sepia’s remarkable 15-year Michelin star run. In a special episode, we hosted the Gratuity Round live during a dinner at the Stock headquarters featuring Andrew and Jonathan Zaragoza before sitting down with Andrew a few days later to talk about his journey from New Jersey kitchens and punk bands to becoming one of the defining culinary voices in Chicago. This week, we talk: American cuisine and cultural influence, the realities of consistency at the Michelin level, wild restaurant stories involving retirement homes and alleged mobsters, and why hospitality is ultimately about building something worth coming back to -- and so much more.

This week’s guest is an enjoyable diversion for us. Chef Zealand started cooking as a teenager, learning almost entirely through curiosity, YouTube, and trial and error before graphic design school, COVID, and a few hard pivots pushed him toward kitchens for real. He went from cooking in a senior living facility to grinding on the line at a suburban tavern, all while quietly building the voice and format that would turn him into one of the internet’s most approachable food creators. He joins us to talk about learning by doing, leaving restaurants earlier than planned, the strange jump from Snapchat cooking lessons to millions of followers, and what happens when the thing that saved you becomes the job. This episode, we talk: Alton Brown’s six-hour spaghetti sauce, butter noodles with cottage cheese and cinnamon sugar, the tomato soup video that changed everything, the terror of brand-approved music -- and so much more!

This week's guest is Chef Zubair Mohajir -- and he's got a lot going on. A former finance guy who found his calling in the kitchen after the 2008 crash, Zubair has since built one of the most compelling culinary identities in Chicago, rooted in the idea that food is migration made edible. He's the force behind Lilac Tiger, the Coach House, and Mirra -- and this summer, he's opening three more: Mariela, Muhājir, and Bobo. He joins us to walk through all of it, in a conversation that covers growing up between Qatar and the southwest suburbs, his mom's legendary garage catering operation, staging at Alinea with zero experience, why a 927-year-old duck recipe from medieval Islamic Spain is one of his signature dishes -- and so much more! 

This week, we’re sitting down with Megan Marshall, the publisher behind Edible Chicago, whose work starts from a simple but expansive belief: food is never just food. It’s access, labor, sustainability, culture, policy, pleasure, and community, all in conversation with each other. After years moving through food, hospitality, and food systems work, she took over Edible Chicago with a vision to broaden the city’s food conversation beyond chefs and restaurants. She comes to the studio to tell us about building a free print publication in a difficult media landscape, championing Chicago and the Midwest as essential parts of the national food story, and using storytelling to make people more aware of the systems behind what they eat. This week we talk: composting and city buy-in, why Chicago belongs at the center of the food systems conversation, the strange world of USDA checkoff program, why perfectionism may not be the point when it comes to building a more sustainable food culture -- and so much more! 

This week, we’re joined by Chef Noah Sandoval, the chef behind Chicago’s two-Michelin-starred Oriole and one of the more instinctive voices working in tasting menus today. An army brat with a Navy SEAL dad, Sandoval dropped out of high school, started washing dishes, and worked his way up through kitchens in Virginia and Chicago without much of a plan beyond getting better. He never really chased stars -- but they found him anyway. He joins us to talk about the early days, building Oriole from the ground up. Plus, an extended cameo from Chef Larry Feldmeier, to tout their new project, All Well, which just opened on April 22. We talk: cooking microwave cakes as a kid, learning under some of Chicago’s most intense kitchens, why he doesn’t overthink opportunities, balancing precision with instinct, what it actually takes to run a two-star restaurant, and why chasing a third might not be worth it -- and so much more.

This week, we're sitting down with Chef Lee Wolen, the quietly pragmatic leader behind some of Chicago’s most enduring kitchens, whose approach to food rejects gimmick in favor of clarity, restraint, and great product. Equal parts craftsman and operator, Wolen has built a reputation not just for consistency at Boka, but for cultivating teams that grow with him. He joins us in the studio for a wide-ranging conversation that spans early days in Cleveland, the realities of working inside temples of fine dining like Eleven Madison Park and El Bulli, and the shift toward something more grounded -- restaurants that prioritize flavor, longevity, and people over spectacle. We also get into what’s next, including expansion into Nashville and the continued evolution of concepts like Alla Vita and GG’s Chicken Shop. We talk: physically removing a guest mid-service, the hidden cost of chasing three Michelin stars, why “real food” is winning again, how building careers for the people around you might be the most important work a chef can do -- and so much more.

This week, we’re joined by Chef Sujan Sarkar, the chef and owner behind Chicago’s Michelin-starred Indienne and a growing group of restaurants that includes Nadu, Sifr, Swadesi, and Baar Baar. As he puts it, he’s a systems man first and a chef second, which makes a lot of sense once you hear the story: from hotel management school in India, to Michelin-starred kitchens in London, to working at McDonald’s just to study its systems, to launching side hustles like Oyster Boys and Gastronomy Guys while climbing the culinary ladder.

This week's guest is Rodrick Marcus -- international sourcer of mystery, master tea blender, and founder of Rare Tea Cellar. If it exists somewhere in the world and it's extraordinary, he's probably already found it. It all started with a trip to London as a kid, an obsession with afternoon tea, and a locked hotel hallway. Nearly 30 years later, Rodrick has built Rare Tea Cellar into a destination for the country's top restaurants -- supplying not just rare and vintage teas, but truffles, caviar, freeze-dried ingredients, vintage soy, and ingredients most people have never heard of. He also works closely with restaurant teams across Chicago through hands-on trainings at his lab. This episode, we get into the world of tea -- how to brew it, how to taste it, and why you're almost certainly oversteeping it. We also hear stories from decades of international sourcing trips, what it takes to develop a palate at this level, the customs nightmare that is importing a 28-year-old bottle of soy sauce, the ingredient he had to stop sourcing entirely, and, of course, so much more. 

Doug Phillips studied architecture, which -- if you've ever watched him build a program -- actually makes a lot of sense. He came up through some of Logan Square's most beloved spots -- Boiler Room, Scofflaw, Heavy Feather, The Whistler -- developing a deep fluency in craft cocktails and the particular chaos of running a bar at the center of a neighborhood's golden era. Now, as a beverage lead at Trivoli within the Hogsalt empire, he's bringing that same creativity and rigor to one of the city's highest-volume programs. This episode, we're talking the architecture of a great bar program, the art of the dealer's choice, pants-around-the-ankles bar fights, the fine art of juicing forty pounds of potatoes -- and so much more.

This week’s guest didn’t grow up dreaming of restaurant kitchens -- but after finding her way into culinary school and landing an internship at Blackbird, she's become a true mainstay. Under the mentorship of friend-of-the-pod Chef David Posey at Blackbird and later Elske, Chef Tayler Ploshehanski developed her voice through rigor, repetition, and a deep respect for craft. Now, as chef de cuisine at Creepies -- her new restaurant with David and Anna Posey -- she’s stepping fully into that voice, translating years of experience into a playful, deeply technical take on Midwestern French cooking. This episode, we’re talking kitchen pranks gone too far, the quiet art of menu development under someone else’s vision, how to perfectly poach shrimp, and what it actually takes to earn trust in a Michelin-level kitchen -- and so much more.