The Go To Food Podcast

By Go To Podcast Company

The Go-To Food Podcast is where the world’s most influential chefs, restaurateurs, food writers and critics share the stories behind their craft. Hosted by award-winning presenter Freddy Clode and che... more

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How many episodes does The Go To Food Podcast have?

The podcast currently has 254 episodes available.

Best of The Go To Food Podcast

The most played episodes among Podcast App listeners.

Number 1: Aktar Islam - Chasing 3 Michelin Stars, How Gordon Ramsay Saved My Career & The Problem With Curry Houses
Gordon Ramsay told Aktar Islam he needed to break free. What followed changed his life and helped set him on the path to two Michelin stars — and now he wants a third. In this episode of The Go-To Food Podcast, we sit down with Aktar Islam, one of the most influential figures in modern British Indian cooking, for a brilliantly candid conversation about ambition, Michelin stars, Gordon Ramsay, the British curry house and the brutal economics of running restaurants today. Aktar made his name at Lasan, winning both The F Word and Great British Menu, before walking away to build something entirely on his own terms. He went on to open Opheem in Birmingham, the first restaurant in the city to receive two Michelin stars and one of only two Indian restaurants in the country to hold two stars. He reveals the advice Gordon Ramsay gave him at a crucial point in his career, why he believes that intervention helped transform his mindset, and why Gordon remains one of his greatest inspirations. Aktar also explains why Opheem is run almost at cost, claims the government made 90 times more from the restaurant than he did last year, and argues that Britain’s tax system is pushing independent hospitality towards breaking point. We also get into the evolution of British Indian food, why Aktar became frustrated with traditional curry houses, his belief that chefs should be able to cook across cultures regardless of their background, and his extraordinary claim that Indian chefs have been copying his approach for decades. Plus, Aktar opens up about walking away from Lasan, turning down opportunities abroad to remain close to his son, building Birmingham’s food scene, the dish that generated hundreds of complaint emails when he removed it from the menu, and why three Michelin stars remain firmly in his sights. A fascinating conversation about Indian food, ambition, identity, Michelin stars, Gordon Ramsay and what it really takes to build a world-class restaurant. Subscribe to The Go-To Food Podcast for new interviews with the biggest chefs, restaurateurs and personalities in food every week. Get 2 Months of Blinq For Free - With Code - GOTOBLINQ - https://blinqme.com/ Watch and Subscribe To Our Youtube Videos Here - https://www.youtube.com/@gotofood Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
September 03, 20261h 4min
Number 2: Marcus Wareing - Part 1: Surviving Britain’s Toughest Kitchens, The Lost Art Of Cooking & Winning His First Michelin Star
In Part One of our exclusive two-part interview with Marcus Wareing, we sit down with one of the most influential chefs of his generation to trace the extraordinary story of how a shy teenager from Southport became one of the defining figures of modern British cooking. Marcus takes us from working in his father’s fruit and veg warehouse as a boy to leaving home at 18 for The Savoy, before literally knocking on the door of Le Gavroche and asking for a job in one of the greatest kitchens in the world. Marcus then takes us inside the brutal, exhilarating kitchens that forged an extraordinary generation of British chefs, and recalls the first time he encountered a young Gordon Ramsay, describing him as a “f***ing machine” who nobody else in the kitchen could come close to. He reveals what it was really like becoming Gordon’s right-hand man at Aubergine, why they gave a young Angela Hartnett just two weeks to survive, and how the relentless intensity eventually pushed Marcus towards burnout. It’s a remarkable insight into a lost era of cooking: kitchens with no recipe books, where everything was done by eye, touch and feel, and where careers were forged through obsession, instinct and sheer endurance. Part One takes us all the way to Marcus winning his first Michelin star alongside Gordon, setting the stage perfectly for Part Two, where Marcus finally opens up about the explosive breakdown of their relationship and the 15-year feud that followed. Get 2 Months of Blinq For Free - With Code - GOTOBLINQ - https://blinqme.com/ Watch and Subscribe To Our Youtube Videos Here - https://www.youtube.com/@gotofood Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
August 20, 20261h 5min
Number 3: Marcus Wareing - Part 2 - My 15 Year Feud With Gordon Ramsay, The £1m Lawsuit & Why He Never Won 3 Michelin Stars
In Part Two of our extraordinary conversation with Marcus Wareing, we pick up his story as his career begins to explode. Marcus takes us inside the chaos of 1998, when he was suddenly fired despite holding a Michelin star, before Gordon Ramsay led a walkout that left the restaurants reportedly losing £15,000 a day and ended in a £1 million lawsuit. He also reveals how a chance walk into a near-empty restaurant led to the creation of Pétrus, and recalls the infamous £44,000 dinner that became one of the most talked-about restaurant bills of its era. Marcus then charts the extraordinary rise that followed, from Pétrus and the Berkeley to taking over the Savoy Grill and helping breathe new life into some of London’s grandest dining rooms. But behind the Michelin stars, the relationship with Gordon was beginning to fracture. Marcus opens up about becoming the “black sheep” of the business, the bitter split that followed and a feud that would ultimately last around 15 years, before an unexpected signed book from Gordon finally began to bring the two old friends back together. Finally, Marcus explains why, despite all the accolades, he has always considered himself a businessman before a chef and why he believes that mindset may have stopped him ever winning three Michelin stars. He reveals why the flame eventually went out at his own restaurant, his frustration with the silence and “fucking tweezers” of modern fine dining, why he never wanted to die at the stove, and why walking away at the top felt like the right way to end one of British cooking’s great restaurant careers. Get 2 Months of Blinq For Free - With Code - GOTOBLINQ - https://blinqme.com/ Watch and Subscribe To Our Youtube Videos Here - https://www.youtube.com/@gotofood Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
August 24, 202658min
Number 4: INSIDE TAVERN - Why Great Restaurants Become Irrelevant, The Problem With Tasting Menus & The Worst Behaved Diners Ever
This week we’re inside Tavern, one of London’s most talked-about new openings, from the team behind Michelin-starred Restaurant St Barts. After almost a decade of Nest, they explain why they decided two tasting-menu restaurants no longer made sense, why restaurants increasingly seem to need to be either brand new or about to close to get people excited, and how they’ve tried to build something more affordable, energetic and accessible without compromising the cooking. We also hear how a previous Go To Food episode directly led them to a British quail supplier — who then drove from Suffolk to hand-deliver birds and eggs for them to test. Over lunch we get deep into how dishes actually come together: from a pork and cuttlefish idea that was initially so bad it was described as “vile”, before being reinvented as a sausage, to Brendan’s extraordinary days at Silo cooking carrots overnight in compost, salt-baking vegetables in waste coffee grounds and turning leek tops into treacle. There’s also a brilliant conversation about whether British chefs have any business cooking with jerk or tandoori flavours, why modern British food should reflect the multicultural city around it, and whether the great tasting-menu boom is being killed not by price, but by diners simply no longer wanting to give up five hours of their evening. And then come the stories. A customer who spent an entire tasting menu watching other people play computer games on his phone. Another who fell asleep at the table while out with his girlfriend. Diners tutting at chefs across the counter. Someone walking into the restaurant during prep and casually asking for a flat white. A guest arriving with a mushroom allergy so severe she said she’d be hospitalised despite the menu being built around mushrooms. A four-year-old calmly sitting through a three-hour tasting menu without an iPad. And, after all that serious restaurant cooking, we discover what chefs actually want when service ends: pasta, cheap ham, microwaved cheese on toast and the magnificent Welsh creation known simply as “cheese on a plate.” Get 2 Months of Blinq For Free - With Code - GOTOBLINQ - https://blinqme.com/ Watch and Subscribe To Our Youtube Videos Here - https://www.youtube.com/@gotofood Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
August 27, 202656min
Number 5: Josh Niland — The Chef Who Reinvented How We Cook Fish, Heston Blumenthal’s Magic & Why Some Chefs Think He’s Crazy
This week we’re joined by one of the most influential chefs of his generation, Josh Niland, the Australian chef who has completely changed the way the restaurant world thinks about fish. Josh tells us why our obsession with ultra-fresh fish may actually be holding us back, how learning to treat fish more like meat transformed his cooking, and why a piece of advice from legendary fish chef Stephen Hodges changed the course of his career. He also reveals the influence of Heston Blumenthal on his thinking, why so many chefs initially thought his ideas were completely mad, and how he went from questioning everything he’d been taught about seafood to building Saint Peter around an entirely new philosophy. But some of Josh’s greatest innovations came out of necessity rather than ambition. He takes us back to the terrifying moment his accountant told him, “You’re not even going to make it to August,” and explains how the financial pressure of running a restaurant forced him to confront just how much valuable fish chefs were throwing in the bin. That obsession with using the whole animal has since produced some extraordinary dishes: tuna treated like beef and turned into everything from ribeye and sirloin to cheeseburgers, sobrassada and Wellington, fish eyes transformed into crackers, and matured kingfish kept for more than two weeks until its skin becomes dry and crisp while the flesh develops remarkable flavour. We also hear about the experiments that pushed even Josh’s philosophy to its limits — from making ice cream from the fat surrounding fish eyes to turning fish fat into soap and candles, and even finding uses for the bones that would normally be discarded. Josh explains why ageing fish can make it better rather than worse, why chefs could effectively be throwing away half their profits every time they fillet one, and why insecurity and convention have made the industry so resistant to change. It’s a fascinating conversation about creativity, failure, waste, money and the extraordinary possibilities hidden inside the parts of a fish most of us have spent our lives throwing away. Get 2 Months of Blinq For Free - With Code - GOTOBLINQ - https://blinqme.com/ Watch and Subscribe To Our Youtube Videos Here - https://www.youtube.com/@gotofood Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
September 14, 20261h 38min