The Front Burner with Jimmy & Andrew

Let's dish! No, we mean, let's talk about dishes–as in: Who owns a dish, the chef or the restaurant? And where is the line between inspiration and plagiarism drawn? We hash out this timelessly thorny issue with Gabe McMackin of Brooklyn's The Finch and Justin Smillie of Upland. Both chefs' restaurants recently celebrated their first birthdays, so we take stock of those first years–lessons learned, changes made, new challenges set. An all-Shop Talk episode for kitchen pros and industry voyeurs.

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“The Problems with Food Media that Nobody Wants to Talk About” was the provocative title of a provocative article recently published on the website First We Feast. We’ve assembled a roundtable to hash out such contentions as “Food Writers are Too Scared of Losing Access to be Critical” and “PR Has Too Much Influence on What Gets Covered.” Joining us in the studio are co-author of the think-piece, Chris Schonberger; Saveur’s senior digital editor Max Falkowitz; and chef Marco Canora of New York City’s Hearth and Brodo. We also kick around the top stories in the chef world this week such as Dallas food critic Leslie Brenner’s new video feature that puts her face to face with chefs and a recent shift by many top chefs, including Canora, toward a more health-conscious restaurant cuisine.

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The apparent suicide of three-star Michelin chef Benoît Violier this week called attention to one of the facts of kitchen life, especially at the highest level: the intense and often unending pressure that defines the profession. Here to weigh in are chefs Michael Laiskonis, Paul Liebrandt, and Matthias Merges. We examine some key issues that go hand in hand with ambition: What draws a young cook to the most demanding settings? What are the costs of originality, brilliance, and acclaim? Will anything less get the job done? An unflinching look into what drives our finest chefs and whether or not anything will, or should, change.

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A number of long-simmering tensions between chefs and the media recently boiled over following the New York Times bombshell Per Se review. An all-star round-table representing both camps, and several generations, join Jimmy and Andrew to make sense of it all this week: Drew Nieporent, Hanna Raskin, Sam Sifton, Alex Stupak, Ryan Sutton, and David Waltuck. We discuss the complicated and evolving relationship between these two populations: Should reviews be written/consumed as entertainment? Does the star system still make sense? Why the recent critical focus on value? Is it appropriate for chefs to respond to critics and — if so — how? A rare opportunity to hear these two populations exchange ideas about this complex, hot-button topic.

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David Kinch of Manresa restaurant in Los Gatos, CA, joins us to discuss his just-opened restaurant The Bywater, a casual, resolutely non-pretentious ode to the food and drink of the city where he grew up, New Orleans. Hear David’s thoughts on waiting for the right time to expand, how he divides his time among multiple concepts (a second Manresa Bread is slated to open this spring), and his determination to remain in the kitchen for as long as possible. In our Shop Talk segment, three young guns — Michael Gibney (author of Sous Chef), Ashley Rath (sous chef at Santina in NYC), and Jaime Young (former chef de cuisine of Atera in NYC) join us to discuss the life of a sous chef in 2016.

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Mental illness, psychological disorders, and substance abuse have been a part of the DNA of professional kitchens for generations. Often glamorized or joked about, and just as often swept under the runners, they are rarely taken head-on for the serious challenge they represent to both individuals and the industry. Writer and Tasting Table Editor at-Large Kat Kinsman (author of the forthcoming Hi, Anxiety) has launched the “Chefs with Issues” project, founded on an online survey for food professionals, to tackle this subject. Kat joins Jimmy and Andrew to talk about the project and the observations it has yielded to date, along with chefs Frank Crispo (of NYC’s Crispo and an industry veteran) and Jesse Schenker (of NYC’s Recette and The Gander), who wrote about his own struggles with many of these issues in his memoir All or Nothing. All that plus the week’s headlines.

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_ The Front Burner _ kicks off its debut episode with an all-star trio of guest chefs ready to dissect the most pressing issues facing the pro-cooking trade as we embark on 2016. Amanda Cohen of New York City’s Dirt Candy, Gavin Kaysen of Minneapolis’ Spoon and Stable, and Harold Moore of the late, great Commerce restaurant, discuss what it takes to achieve longevity in the current climate, and in different markets. And in our Shop Talk segment we discuss the emotional, practical, and creative ups and downs of time away from the kitchen.

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