This Is TASTE

DeVonn Francis is a chef, recipe developer, and events producer based in Brooklyn. His culinary events studio, Yardy World, has developed a cult following around vibrant, lush experiences rooted in Caribbean cuisine with some of the best vibes and playlists around, and now they’re joining the CPG boom. It’s a joy to have DeVonn in the studio to talk about his distinctive POV, starring in the second season of High on the Hog, his dream dinner party lineup, and more.  

Also on the show the return of three things, where Aliza and Matt go over some of the books, restaurants, and citrus fruits they are most excited about. This includes: Flan at Nenes Taqueria, al bap at AriAri, crispy shallots and fish roe from Ignacia Valdes pop-ups, Priya’s Kitchen Adventures, PSA: The pomelos are hitting in NYC right now, Pizza Night: Deliciously Doable Recipes for Pizza and Salad.

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Our friend Jamie Oliver returns to the show, this time live from Rizzoli Bookstore in Manhattan as part of our TASTE Live at Rizzoli reading series. It was so great catching up with the chef and healthy eating advocate to discuss so many topics, and to dig into his great new book: 5 Ingredients Mediterranean: Simple Incredible Food.

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Pizza Week continues! On this episode, we chat with the one and only Daniel Holzman, the chef and owner of Danny Boy’'s Famous Original Pizza in Los Angeles. Daniel is a good friend of TASTE and Matt’s longtime writing partner (they wrote Food IQ together). Here they catch up about all things pie, including what Los Angeles was missing when Danny Boy’s jumped into the scene a few years back. We find out about Daniel’s detailed approach to bring New York City slices to the West Coast, his upcoming expansion plans, and what excites him about pizzas around the world. It’s good catching up with our friend, as always.

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Pizza Week continues! Noam Grossman is the founder of Upside Pizza, an NYC slice shop that breaks all the rules in the best possible way. The pizza is very legit and is made with 100-percent naturally leavened dough, with a sourdough starter that has a 72-hour rise time. It’s not your typical slice joint! On this episode, we hear about Grossman’s journey to pizza and about how Upside—along with soup and ice cream offshoots Soupside and Softside—brings personality and voice to the sometimes bland world of the NYC slice. 

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Pizza Week continues! Franny’s is a world-class pizzeria and restaurant located at the northern tip of the Jersey Shore in Highlands, New Jersey. When the shop’s chef and owner, Mya Anitai, left a successful restaurant career in Richmond, Virginia (Mamma Zu, Dinamo) to move to New Jersey, she didn’t know exactly what to expect. What she built over the past few years is pretty extraordinary. The best grandma slice in Jersey? Some would say. In this episode, Mya shares her journey and the pizza style that has earned her the attention of many in and around the New York metro area.

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Pizza Week continues! The title on Anthony Falco’s business card is “global pizza consultant,” and, true to form, Anthony has helped people achieve their dreams of starting pizzerias and perfecting their craft around the globe. In this highly entertaining conversation, Falco shares some of his favorite gigs and talks about his time helping launch and grow the pizza operation at Roberta’s, the singular Bushwick pizzeria that inspired the launch of thousands of Neapolitan pizza shops around the globe. Anthony is the author of Pizza Czar: Recipes and Know-How from a World-Traveling Pizza Chef, and we talk about translating these big ideas to a home setting. It’s great catching up with this legend in the pizza game, and we hope you enjoy it.

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Welcome to Pizza Week! From time to time we like to break into a thematic groove, and this is one of those weeks. We have a bunch of fun interviews planned. First up is Dan Richer, the owner of Razza in Jersey City, New Jersey. Yeah yeah, New York Times critic Pete Wells once called Razza the best New York City pizza (not in New York), and the 2017 assessment brought a swell of pizza freaks across the river to sample Richer’s pie. In this interview, we talk about the review that changed everything, and we dig into how Richer describes his pizza, his obsession with bread, and his great cookbook, The Joy of Pizza: Everything You Need to Know. We loved having Dan in the studio to kick off our week of pizza talks.

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Here are two classic conversations. Tina Choi is the Seoul-based genius behind one of our favorite food YouTube channels around, Doobydobap. Pierce Abernathy is a trained cook, a big-time TikTok and Instagram creator, and a former Buzzfeeder, and he’s been known to model and work with fashion brands in interesting ways. We hope you enjoy these talks.

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Peter Luger is Brooklyn history and one of the most iconic New York City restaurants. Between hand-selected steaks, a signature bacon and burger service, and a tight-knit family that has run the place since 1950, it’s a rich topic to talk about. And talk we did with Daniel Turtel, who works alongside his family at the Williamsburg institution. Daniel is involved in the daily selection of steaks that are served to hungry guests each day, and we talk about the restaurant’s legacy as well as its bright future in Las Vegas. We also discuss what it took to come back from a tough New York Times review. Daniel is a really interesting guy, and I hope you enjoy this conversation.

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Jermaine Stone has an extraordinary story about how a fluke job at a wine warehouse led him to his unique place in the wine world. He’s the host of Street Somm on Tastemade, a show in which he interviews some of the biggest names in hip-hop about all things wine. He’s also the founder of Cru Luv Selections, a New York–based wine branding and marketing agency dedicated to engaging hip-hop fans in the world of wine. It’s really fun having Jermaine in the studio, and I hope you enjoy this conversation.

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