Tag: Food Podcast

The Shift List – Chef John Winter Russell (Restaurant Candide) – Montreal, Part 2

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

This week on The Shift List, part two of our conversation with John Winter Russell, chef and founder of Restaurant Candide in Montreal.

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This episode was recorded a few months back, before the world was thrown into chaos, and it serves as a reminder of how integral chefs and independent business owners are in shaping the culture of our cities.

Restaurant Candide is named after 18th century writer/philosopher Voltaire’s book of the same name, inspired particularly by the last line of the book: “Let us cultivate our garden.”

This line is the guiding force to Russell’s food, as he works closely with producers local to Montreal and creates four-course meals inspired by those ingredients, crafting dishes that are produce forward, but not exclusively vegetarian.

The experience of eating at Restaurant Candide is unique and only something that can be experienced in Montreal. From the restaurant’s location, set in an old gothic church basement, to the warm interior that utilizes refurbished pews, and exposed brick along the walls that look into the kitchen. The restaurant is a defining part of the fabric of Montreal’s restaurant scene, not only in 2020, but overall.

Thankfully, Russell feels that he and his staff will weather COVID-19 and should be able to resume business at the restaurant once restrictions are lifted, and in the meantime he’s given back to restaurant workers affected by job losses in Canada by offering beer deliveries every Friday. If you live in Montreal and are craving some craft beer delivered to your house, send an email at [email protected]. All proceeds will go to the Montreal Restaurant Workers Crisis Relief Fund.

The Shift List – Chef John Winter Russell (Restaurant Candide) – Montreal, Part 1

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

This week on The Shift List, a conversation in quarantine with John Winter Russell, chef and founder of Restaurant Candide in Montreal.

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Host Chris Jacobs first had the chance to speak with Russell at Candide before COVID-19 related travel and gathering restrictions went into place, and decided to reconnect with him recently via phone to see how Russell is facing the challenges of being an independent chef and restaurant owner during a global pandemic.

In the episode, the pair talk about some of the music Russell’s listening to in quarantine and the food he’s making at home, but he also talks about some of the ways he’s been able to give back to the restaurant workers affected by job losses in Canada, as well as a recent opportunity to create menus for the food banks of Montreal.

If you live in Montreal and are craving some craft beer delivered to your house, send an email at [email protected]. All proceeds will go to the Montreal Restaurant Workers Crisis Relief Fund.

We’ll be airing our non-quarantine episode from Candide in Montreal on April 21.

The Shift List – Restaurant Workers Relief Program

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

This week on The Shift List, a replay of our conversation with Chef Edward Lee, recorded back in 2018.

Chef Lee is helping to lead the way in bringing restaurant workers relief with his Restaurant Workers Relief Program through The Lee Initiative. Due to the closure of so many restaurants and bars across America in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, thousands of workers have an urgent need for assistance, and they need our help now more than ever.

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In partnership with Maker’s Mark Bourbon, Chef Lee is transforming restaurants across the country into relief centers for any restaurant worker who has been laid off or has had a significant reduction in hours and/or pay. The Lee Initiative, in conjunction with local chefs in every majorly affected community across the country, is offering help for those in need of food and supplies, and each night, they’re packing hundreds of to-go meals.

Restaurateurs like Nancy Silverton in Los Angeles, Jose Salazar in Cincinnati, and Lee’s own Succotash and 610 Magnolia teams in D.C. and Louisville are doing so much good right now, along with so many others across the country. The BGS Podcast Network team wants to do what we can to spread the word and shine a spotlight on this important work.

For more information and to donate, visit leeinitiative.org, and in the meantime, while we’re all trapped indoors, continue to support your local community by ordering takeout and pickup (if your local guidelines and recommendations permit it).

The Shift List – Arthurs Nosh Bar – Montreal

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

This week on The Shift List, our first of three episodes from the great and wintry city of Montreal with Arthurs Nosh Bar, a cozy breakfast and lunch spot serving Jewish classics, including menu standouts like crispy schnitzel served on thick-cut challah or a latke smorgasbord featuring organic gravlax, fluffy scrambled eggs, and caviar.

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Opened in 2016, Arthurs has garnered praise from Bon Appetit, Goop, and Canada’s Globe and Mail, and it all started with owners Raegan Steinberg and her husband, Alex Cohen.

The pair sat down with The Shift List amidst the hustle of Arthurs staff wrapping up service in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon to talk about everything from the playlist they prepared for the birth of their daughter Freia to the personal and professional journey that led them to open Arthurs Nosh Bar.

The Shift List – Justin Cucci (Root Down, Linger, Ophelia’s) – Denver, CO

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

Justin Cucci sits down with The Shift List. A mainstay of the Denver food scene, Cucci tends an ever-growing list of both homegrown and high concept restaurants, including Root Down, Linger, Ophelia’s, El Five, and more.

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A New York city native, Cucci grew up revering the chefs and culture at the Waverly Inn — a West Village dining institution that was owned and operated by his grandparents as a kid.

About the same time, Cucci started playing in bands, and continues to do so to this day. He opened Root Down, his first restaurant in Denver, over a decade ago, transforming the building from a gas station into a neighborhood restaurant with a cult following that serves globally-influenced seasonal cuisine with a focus on organic, natural, and locally-sourced ingredients. Root Down features two onsite gardens, which not only provide seasonal vegetables for the restaurant, but for its sister restaurants, Linger and Ophelia’s. There’s even a Root Down at Denver International Airport, one reason to book a long layover in the city.

Cucci has infused music into the culture and business of all of his restaurants — each one of their business entities is named after a Steely Dan song, for example, and you’ll find out what each of them are soon. This episode has plenty of Steely Dan, so yacht rockers rejoice.

The Shift List – Duncan Holmes, Allison Anderson (Beckon | Call) – Denver

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

This week, Chef Duncan Holmes and Allison Anderson, Director of Experience, at Beckon | Call in Denver, Colorado.

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Chef Duncan Holmes and Allison Anderson have incorporated music and a guest’s entire experience at Beckon | Call in a way that is completely holistic and natural. Perhaps it’s because it’s baked into Anderson’s title — as the Director Of Experience, she takes the role of what would normally be considered General Manager and elevates it to a master class in hospitality.

Consider the music at Beckon – the evening’s answer to their popular all-day dining option over at Call. Beckon is a ticketed chef’s table dining experience with ever-changing, seasonal menus. It seats 34 people in a U-shape with Chef Duncan and his team serving you from the center of the intimate dining room, and the entire meal takes about two and half hours. Because the meal happens in phases, each evening’s soundtrack is a hand-picked selection of albums played in their entirety, allowing the staff at Beckon to play through about three records of their choosing over the course of a meal. In the age of playlists and streaming, the decision to play through albums at Beckon is an extension of the meal itself, forcing you to slow down and pay closer attention to each of your senses throughout the experience.

Call was named one of Bon Appetit’s Hot Ten Best New Restaurants of 2018, described as an all-day hang where you may arrive at 10am and end up staying until 2pm — with all of the spritzes and endless selection of unique items to snack on, like their smoked salmon tartine, roasted carrot salad with peas, and Scandinavian-inspired bites.

Call is now on a brief hiatus as Holmes, Anderson, and the team complete some renovations, but Beckon is now a year in and has topped multiple must-eat lists in Denver and beyond.

The Shift List – Ashleigh Shanti (Benne on Eagle) – Asheville, N.C.

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

This week, our guest is Ashleigh Shanti, Chef de Cuisine of Benne on Eagle in Asheville, North Carolina.

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Benne on Eagle is located on Eagle Street in a historic Asheville neighborhood called The Block. Shanti describes Benne on Eagle’s fare as Appalachian soul food. She works closely with Chef John Fleer, who’s best known around Asheville for his acclaimed restaurant Rhubarb and its sister cafe/bakery, The Rhu. The menu at Benne on Eagle pays homage to the rich African American culinary traditions that once thrived in The Block, as well as honoring Shanti’s own history as a Southern, African American woman.

The restaurant opened in late 2018, and it’s captured the attention of numerous media outlets, landing an Shanti-centered feature in the New York Times as one of the 16 black chefs changing food in America. Benne on Eagle has also been listed on Bon Appetit’s the Hot 10: America’s Best New Restaurants 2019.

Now 29 years old, Shanti traveled across the US on a six-month sabbatical before landing in Asheville after being tapped by John Fleer, and as that story in the Times reported, she decided that her next step as a chef needed to fulfill a critical desire to “[cook] food that celebrated her heritage as a black woman from the South and rebuffed assumptions about what that food could be.”

And if she wasn’t running the kitchen at Benne On Eagle or didn’t have any culinary skills, Ashleigh professes that being a rapper would be her dream job. She even writes a bit here and there, like the time Chef Carla Hall stopped by the restaurant for a visit and Ashleigh presented an original rap in her honor.

Ashleigh Shanti’s Shift List
A Tribe Called Quest – “Check The Rhime”
Nina Simone – “My Baby Just Cares For Me”
Megan Thee Stalion – “Big Drank”
Wynton Marsalis – “When It’s Sleepy Time Down South”
ODESZA – “Late Night”
Kendrick Lamar – “DNA”
Lauren Hill – “Doo Wop (That Thing)”
The Neptunes – “Frontin’ (Feat. Jay Z)”

Heading to Asheville, NC? Reserve a Table at Benne On Eagle here.

The Shift List – Chef Sheldon Simeon (Lineage Maui, Tin Roof) – Maui, Hawaii

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

Chef Sheldon Simeon is as passionate about music as he is about bringing Hawaiian food to a new generation. On the Season 2 premiere of The Shift List, Chef Sheldon revealed that if he could do anything other than be a chef, it would be a ukulele player.

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“My cooking’s heavily inspired by music, for sure,” Simeon said on the podcast. “Like a song, food can tell a story, and that’s what I’m trying to do. With my food, I’m just trying to tell the story of Hawai’i, on the level of Ka’au Crater Boys,” he adds, laughing. “The greatest (Hawaiian) band ever!”

Chef Sheldon Simeon’s Shift List:
Ka’au Crater Boys – “On Fire”
Ka’au Crater Boys – “Brown Eyed Girl”
Ka’au Crater Boys – “Are You Missing Me”
Ka’ikena Scanlan – “Smoke All Day”
Ka’ikena Scanlan – “Utu Bang Bang”
The Green – “Good One”
The Green – “All I Need”
Ledward Kaapana – “Radio Hula”
Cultura Profetica – “La Complicidad”
Three Plus – “Who the Cap Fit”

Content to jam on the ukulele with friends in his spare time, Sheldon came to prominence on the mainland when he competed in the 10th season of Top Chef: Seattle, making it to the finals, and winning Fan Favorite. He returned to the show again in 2017 for season 14 of Top Chef in Charleston, once again winning Fan Favorite.

In 2016, Sheldon opened his very first solo restaurant, Tin Roof, in Kahului, Maui, where he serves up local dishes in take-out bowls, and last summer he opened Lineage, a full-service concept for dinner that brings his interpretation of family-style dishes typical of a Hawaiian luau.