This Is TASTE

Ally Walsh and Casey Wojtalewicz are the cofounders of Canyon Coffee, a Los Angeles–based specialty coffee roaster specializing in organic and Regenerative Organic Certified coffees. Their Echo Park café has been a destination ever since opening in 2022, and just a few weeks ago, they opened a second location in Brooklyn’s Prospect Heights neighborhood that’s proving to be just as popular, with pastries from Amanda Perdomo and Elbow Bread’s Zoë Kanan. Today on the show, we talk about what sets Canyon Coffee apart, why the founders chose to open a second location in New York, and how they manage the lines.

And it’s the return of Three Things. Aliza and Matt discuss some of their recent restaurant visits, including Chainsaw, Quarter Sheets, and Seong Buk Dong in Los Angeles and Dame in New York. Also, Malai Ice Cream does amazing mail order and Jury Duty is back with a company retreat.

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Ask any serious diner in New York about who built the city’s Italian restaurant culture, and Michael White’s name comes up fast. Marea. Ai Fiori. Alto. A James Beard Award. Multiple Michelin stars. Then silence. White left New York during the COVID-19 pandemic, regrouped, and returned with Santi, a sleek Midtown restaurant serving exceptional hand-crafted pasta and crudos in the space where Alto once stood. In this episode, we talk about his Wisconsin roots, studying Italian cuisine for nearly three decades, and what a real second act looks like.

Also on the show, we have a great conversation with Eric Bedroussian. He’s a cofounder of the terrific Los Angeles izakaya Budonoki and we talk his time working in the Houston's organization, and about what it takes to build a buzzy, sustainable restaurant group in the modern era. 

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Hafiz Mangalji is the founder of Hyunah Coffee Club, a reservations-only members’ space tucked into a Greenpoint, Brooklyn, studio where serious home brewers and industry obsessives come to use equipment many can’t afford to own themselves, drink coffees from roasters they’ve been following for years, and hang out with other people who care about water chemistry. In other words, this is completely our shit. For $30 a month, you get access to Weber Workshops grinders, Decent Espresso machines, a rotating global roaster marketplace, and a hi-fi sound system. It’s not a café. It’s not a class. It’s a club—and Hafiz talks about why that distinction matters.

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Erica Roby is Food Network’s BBQ Brawl season two champion, a former criminal defense attorney, a Level 2 sommelier, and one of the most compelling voices in American barbecue. She joins us for a lively conversation about fire, smoke, and the cut that made her name. We dig into her Creole-inflected competition style, the patience required to master brisket, the beef cuts every home cook should know, and how she’s building a new generation of pitmasters from the ground up. 

Also on the show is Tucker Brown, a sixth-generation Texas cattle rancher. We find out what it actually takes to raise great beef and what he wants people to understand the next time they’re standing at the butcher counter.

This episode is presented by Beef. It’s What’s For Dinner. On behalf of the Beef Checkoff.

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Amber Husain is a writer based in London. She is the author of Replace Me, Meat Love, and the new book Tell Me How You Eat, an expansive exploration of how and why we eat or abstain from eating, inspired by Husain’s own route to healing from anorexia. It’s a thoughtful and thoroughly researched book that looks to history for reasons to live and eat, and today on the show, we go deep on how she brought this singular book to life.

And after that it’s the return of Three Things. Aliza and Matt discuss some of their recent restaurant visits, including checking in with the buzzy Bistrot Ha, Cornerstone in Pawling, New York is serving terrific Abruzzo cooking and the best onion rings from chef Harris Mayer. Also, the khao soi at Holy Basil in Los Angeles is in a different league, Bungalow’s daal is wow, as is the spice-roasted pineapple. Finally, Aliza has a meal at Chateau Marmont. 

Please note that this conversation contains references to disordered eating.

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Asha Loupy is an Oakland-based food writer, recipe developer, and coauthor of The Diaspora Spice Co. Cookbook, a debut cookbook from the beloved single-origin spice company. As Diaspora Co.’s recipe editor, Asha has spent over five years developing recipes that showcase the most of singular spices, and for the book, she joined the brand’s founder, Sana Javeri Kadri, on a four-month trip across South Asia to collect heirloom recipes from their farmers’ home kitchens. Today on the show, we go deep on all things spices and how they brought this special book to life, plus Asha’s upcoming solo cookbook.

And before that it’s the return on Three Things. Aliza and Matt discuss some of their recent restaurant visits as well as other fun things entering their worlds. This includes: Sfizi taralli is Italian snacking done right, Confidant is a great neighborhood restaurant in Brooklyn (with the best lighting), Eddie Huang’s Baohaus is back in NYC and we gave it a visit. Also: Taku Sando is a terrific Japanese sandwich shop, we’re obsessed with the new Mid-Day Square, No Bread PBJ Strawberry, and a visit to the great West Rice Roll on Hester Street.

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Today on the show, we have a great episode digging into the world of grocery. First up: Elly Truesdell, cofounder and managing partner of New Fare Partners, one of the only women-led VC firms investing exclusively in the food and beverage space. She came up at Whole Foods, helped put RXBAR and Bachan’s on the map, and now she's behind some of the most interesting consumer packaged goods bets happening right now. 

Then: Jake Karls, cofounder and chief rainmaker at Mid-Day Squares, the functional bars company that is making serious noise. We talk about growing the company through hard work and marketing savvy, and how Karls and his cofounders landed on the idea in the first place.

Read: the New Fare Substack

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Mariam Daud has built a devoted—and huge—online following by sharing beautifully prepared meals that draw from her Palestinian heritage and her American upbringing. Now she’s showcasing her food in a debut cookbook: I Sleep in My Kitchen. Today on the show, we talk about going from sharing recipes online to doing so in print, finding inspiration in Studio Ghibli movies, and more.

And before that it’s the return on Three Things. Aliza and Matt discuss some of their recent restaurant visits as well as other fun things entering their worlds. This includes Matt’s recent stops in Kingston, New York included stops at Mirador, Sorry, Charlie, and Graziano’s Downtown Cafe. Kingston has serious range. Aliza visits Big CHUNE, a new Jamaican patty pop-up, Hani’s for an exceptional seasonal (and Tik-Tok-trend certified) coffee drink, and has a first sip of Faccia Brutto’s Lugermeister.

Check out Rob Martinez’s visit to Downtown Cafe in Kingston.   

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Mariana Velásquez is a food stylist, chef, and cookbook author whose résumé runs from the pages of Vogue to the White House—she styled Michelle Obama’s cookbook, American Grown—and she has collaborated on more than 20 cookbooks, including two James Beard Award winners. But the most personal work has come under her own name. Her debut, Colombiana, brought the first serious cookbook devoted entirely to Colombian food to American shelves. And her latest, Revel, is a maximalist manifesto on the art of having people over, built around 15 menus and the radical idea that a great gathering starts with asking yourself why you’re hosting it in the first place. Mariana joins to talk about her career and her wonderful new book.

Also on the show, we have a fun conversation with Samantha Schnur, author of The Naughty Cookbook: Decadent Recipes to Seduce Your Taste Buds.

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It’s the return of  Food Writers Talking About Food Writing. Every couple of weeks, Matt invites a journalist to talk about some favorite recent food writing as well as their thoughts on the industry as a whole.

In today’s episode, we have a great conversation with Matthew Schneier, chief restaurant critic at New York magazine. We dig into Matthew’s favorite restaurants in NYC and go over two of his most discussed reviews: his tasting menu verdict after visits to Cove and Saga, and his complicated reckoning with the Babbo revival under Stephen Starr. Plus: what it means to hold one of the last full-time restaurant critic jobs in American media. And of course, we talk about some recent food writing.

And before that it’s the return on Three Things. Aliza and Matt discuss some of their recent restaurant visits as well as other fun things entering their worlds. This includes visits to Masala y Maiz, La Casa de Toño, Barbacoa Gonzalitos, and Comida China Gourmet Jing Feng in Mexico City. Also: A visit to Genghis Cohen in Los Angeles, A Little Nutty is Matt’s new favorite new cracker, and Claire Saffitz signed books at a favorite Hudson Valley grocery store, Adams Fairacre Farms.   

Writing discussed on the episode:

Listen: Masala y Maíz Is Rooting Deep in Mexico City

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