Motoring Editor-at-Large Rory Smith talks us through his interview with Ineos's Sir Jim Ratcliffe — including the unlikely pub origins of the Grenadier car; his surprising shyness; and the Manchester United takeover. Plus! The most exciting new car launches of the year. 

When young men, starting out in life, their eyes wide and dreams un-crushed, say they wish to ‘work in the movies’ (whatever that means), it is because they hope one day to have an office like Charles Finch. They don’t make them like this any more — the office or the career. It is a serious room. A study in the proper sense. An accidental curation. There are wooden models of sailing yachts; hand-written letters from royal households; giant monochrome photographs of racing cars and distant relatives; stacks of books as impromptu side-tables; framed magazine covers from past lives — a fascinating monument, in other words, to the varied life and various careers of Charles Finch. 

The Gentleman's Journal Podcast is sponsored by Luca Faloni

People sometimes describe Tom Straker s a “TikTok chef” or an “Instagram chef,” and yes, it’s true that he has millions and millions and millions of followers on Instagram and TikTok, and that he’s known across the globe for his mesmeric butter-making videos, among many other things. But Tom’s also the real deal — a chef who trained at the Ledbury, the Dorchester and headed up the kitchen Casa Cruz before trying his hand, one day in lockdown, at making a cooking video for a few hundred followers. That first attempt was pretty dreadful, he admits — but now he runs an entire studio to produce his content, while his adoring fans flock from around the world to Straker’s, his new-ish restaurant in Notting Hill, which thoroughly lives up to the excellent reviews its had since its opening at the end of last year. A second is set to open in Manhattan in just a few months time.   

Tom and I spoke about all sorts of things in this episode, recorded in the office above Straker’s on the Golborne Road — including his earliest food memory, the ridiculous suit that he wore to his first interview at the Dorchester, his plans to shake up the butter market, and his advice for anyone unsure of what they want to do in life. Enjoy.

The Gentleman's Journal Podcast is sponsored by Luca Faloni

It's remarkable to think that Reggie Yates is only 39 years old. In a career spanning more than three decades, Reggie has been a presenter, actor, radio host, screenwriter, director, and documentary filmmaker — but also a sort of spiritual older brother to the nation; a friendly, dependable, permanent resident on our screens. 

Today, in a wonderfully open conversation, Reggie talks to us about:

The prospect of turning 40

Reggie Yates partners with Barbour International for new Spring Summer 23 Tourer collection campaign, available to purchase on www.barbourinternational.com.

The Gentleman's Journal Podcast is sponsored by Luca Faloni. 

Our thanks to Fitzdares Club for playing host.

To celebrate Gentleman's Journal turning 10 at the end of last year, we thought we'd invite, Harry Jarman, founder of Gentleman’s Journal, to sit down in the hot seat. Harry takes us on the meandering, rollercoaster journey the publication has been on from a small bedroom start up (and one that everyone said would fail) to an established and hugely successful media brand. 

We speak about how the worlds of magazines, luxury, and even manhood have changed dramatically over the past decade; how Harry’s hairline won him early advertisers; about the moment in the pandemic that he thought the party might be well and truly over; and whether, given the chance, he’d do it all again. Enjoy!

This is the last episode of the podcast for 2023. But fear not — we’re going out with a bang. Or a roar. Or whatever the noise is that Formula One cars make. Because our guest on today’s show is Christian Horner, the Team Principal at Red Bull and one of the sport’s most compelling ambassadors. Christian has petrol in his veins. He was a talented driver himself as a young man, before he set up his own race team, Arden International, at the age of just 25 — and then became the sport’s youngest ever team principal when he joined Red Bull at 31.

We spoke earlier this month, at the end of another bumper year for the team and its talismanic driver Max Verstappen — and in a reflective conversation, Christian gives us the inside line on the 2021 championship (the spiciest in history, perhaps); the secrets he learned from the sport’s biggest characters; and why he always uses the same portaloo on race day. 

Enjoy, and we’ll see you in 2023.

Tim Brown sometimes talks about how much he used to dread dinner parties — and especially that moment when the conversation would turn to him and what he was up to for work. The truth was, Tim wasn’t entirely sure. A former professional football player in New Zealand who went to the 2010 World Cup, by his early thirties Tim had retired and embarked on what many people (including himself) though was a highly eccentric calling: creating a pair of shoes from his country’s greatest export, wool. Now, however, less than a decade later, his Allbirds brand is one of the great e-commerce and footwear stories of our time — and when it went public last year, it was valued at over four billion dollars. 

Today, Tim tells us why imitation is the sincerest form of flattery; how everyone originally told him the project was doomed to fail; and what it feels like to see Barack Obama wearing a pair of your shoes.

Our guest on today’s show is Giles Coren, the Times restaurant critic and columnist. We recorded with Giles for an hour, but it felt almost like we got two hours of content — and often at times, listening back to the recording, I was convinced I had my player going at double speed, such is the pace of Giles speech and mind.

So, in a wide-ranging, highly entertaining conversation, we touched on the rise of the caviar 'bump', charges of nepotism, being seen as a person who ‘divides opinion’, why he regrets tweeting about a kid with a drum kit, trying to save Simpsons Tavern, the debauched days of 1990s Tatler, why lobster is overrated, his advice to young writers, why Keith McNally and James Corden deserve each other, and how nobody uses the word 'Proustian' correctly.

Our guest on today’s episode of the Gentleman's Journal podcast is Labrinth, the musician and super producer. We first met Labrinth back in 2019, just after his last album, 'Imagination and the Misfit Kid', came out — but before the wild, runaway success of the giant HBO show Euphoria, which became the most tweeted about program in history during its second season earlier this year.

A huge amount of the show's success is almost certainly down to its soundtrack, which Labrinth, of course, scored and produced — and the music in the show very often has the otherworldly and yet soulful energy that is true of all of Labrinth’s music.

His latest album, 'Ends and Begins', is certainly otherworldly — and we talk about the cosmic nature of Labrinth's music and beliefs in a highly enjoyable conversation that spans his feelings on his recent ADHD diagnosis; how he is excited about the great adventure of death; and why fame makes toddlers of us all.