Épisodes

  • #331 Esca Khoo | Tyga

    #331 Esca Khoo | Tyga
    Dec 19 2025
    I first spoke to Esca Khoo a few years ago, when he was head chef at Miss Mi and thinking out loud about where food might take him next. Since then, he’s travelled, cooked and learned his way across Southeast Asia. What’s stayed constant is his generosity and the size of his heart, something that shows up as much in the way he runs a kitchen as in the food he cooks. Now he’s back in Melbourne, leading the kitchen at Tyga on Koornang Road in Carnegie. I came to the opening, and could not wait to go back, largely because I couldn’t stop thinking about the wood-fired bone marrow with crab sambal and roti. This conversation picks up where the last one left off and I loved it every bit as much as I loved the first.
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    28 min
  • #330 Jacob Muoio | Moondrop

    #330 Jacob Muoio | Moondrop
    Dec 19 2025
    Moondrop has only just opened, but it already knows exactly who it is: a Shanghai-1920s fever dream on Gertrude Street, all low light, Mahjong tiles and jazz-era swagger, it’s the kind of bar that looks effortless. Of course, it isn’t. When a venue with a big past goes dark, it leaves behind more than a fitted-out bar. It leaves pressure. The easy move is to inherit the room and keep moving. Chef Jacob Muoio along with co-owners, Steve Chan and Jesse Kourmouzis chose the harder option with the space that was previously The Everleigh: strip it back, repaint the mood, and refuse to wear someone else’s suit. That’s where this conversation starts, before moving quickly into the good stuff: cocktails built on fabulous puns and excellent balance, food designed to keep you drinking happily past midnight, and a working philosophy that favours calm, curiosity and not being a dick. Jacob talks about learning Chinese ingredients in real time, juggling Sleepy’s and Moondrop, and raising a young family alongside opening a new bar.
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    31 min
  • #329 George Peppou | Vow

    #329 George Peppou | Vow
    Nov 27 2025
    What happens when a chef wanders off the line and into biotechnology? In George Peppou’s case, you get Vow, a company growing meat in a new way, not instead of animals, but with far fewer of them. Cultured meat starts with a tiny sample of animal cells, nurtured in a stainless-steel tank the way yeast is nurtured into bread or grapes into wine. Feed those cells well, let them multiply into muscle, fat and connective tissue, and in a matter of weeks you have meat without needing to raise whole flocks or herds. It opens questions most of us have never had to ask. What if meat could be produced with less land, less resource intensity, and a fraction of the animals? What if foie gras could be indulgent without the ethical weight? What if the future of meat is less about taking something away, and more about curiosity, flavour and abundance? George is chasing a future where meat is abundant, sustainable, and joy-giving. I wanted to know how he got here, what it all means, and what it looks like on the plate.
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    20 min
  • #328 Michael Stolley & Hung Hoa Dung | Disuko

    #328 Michael Stolley & Hung Hoa Dung | Disuko
    Nov 24 2025
    I sat down with Culinary Creative Director Michael Stolley and Head Chef Hung Hoa Dung at Disuko, the new terracotta-glowing, disco-ball-speckled takeover of the old Madame Brussels space. Michael is the big-picture force, the one thinking in concepts, mood, music and menus, while Hoa brings a grounded precision shaped by Nobu, Kisumé and a long, steady engagement with Japanese technique. Together they’ve built a venue where omakase discipline meets Shibuya-fun dining, where a fillet-o-ebi sando with prawn katsu, tartare, and American cheese sits happily alongside chicken wings painted in black garlic schmaltz and an udon carbonara. They’re honest about the grind, the joy, the burnout and the strange compulsion that keeps chefs in kitchens long after logic tells them to leave.
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    34 min
  • #327 Darryl Hand | Hotel Indigo & Fern Bar & Dining, Holiday Inn

    #327 Darryl Hand | Hotel Indigo & Fern Bar & Dining, Holiday Inn
    Nov 6 2025
    There’s something genuinely uplifting about sitting down with someone who’s spent over forty years in hospitality and still lights up when they talk about food. That’s Darryl Hand. He’s been in kitchens since the days of Hilton Melbourne’s grand dining rooms in the ’80s, cooked for queens and rock stars, and seen hotel dining evolve from silver service to share plates and open kitchens. But what’s most striking is that he still exudes pure, uncomplicated joy when he talks about cooking. He’s the Executive Chef overseeing not one but two new hotels in the heart of Melbourne: Hotel Indigo and Holiday Inn on Little Collins and yet he is still the guy who gets excited about discovering a different kind of prawn in Sicily and wishing we could get them here.
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    33 min
  • #326 Francesca Giorgi Monfort | Frankie's Pie Shop

    #326 Francesca Giorgi Monfort | Frankie's Pie Shop
    Nov 4 2025
    Francesca Giorgi Monfort didn’t set out to become Melbourne’s most interesting pie maker. The Swiss-born chef’s path has been anything but straightforward: from PR and art galleries in London to restaurant management in Europe, and finally to the kitchen where she found her true calling. After working at Farmer’s Daughters, Marion and heading the kitchen at Noisy Ritual, Fran decided to do things her own way. What began as an experiment with puff pastry has become Frankie’s Pie Shop, a cult favourite at the Carlton Farmers’ Market known for pies with personality. Her cauliflower cheese pie, inspired by a Tesco recipe but elevated with charred vegetables and proper technique, is a perfect example of her ethos: simple done brilliantly. For now, she’s beginning a residency at Superette on Sydney Road in Brunswick, selling two flavours of pies and two sausage rolls every day. I met Fran at Superette and am especially grateful for her patience. It was my first video podcast, and she couldn’t have been more generous as we talked about pastry that gets more rest than she does, the quiet resilience behind Frankie’s, and her belief that vegetarian pies can, and should, be far more than vegetable stew.
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    38 min
  • #325 Mirco Speri | Sincero

    #325 Mirco Speri | Sincero
    Oct 29 2025
    Sincero in Malvern is the second restaurant from chef Mirco Speri and the team behind Buono in Parkdale. While Buono captures the easy warmth of a bayside trattoria, Sincero brings a quieter confidence to Glenferrie Road. Open since April 2024, it’s already known for what Mirco calls Italian my way: familiar flavours, local produce, and the occasional twist; like seaweed inguine with Moreton Bay bugs and blood orange jelly. Mirco has spent three decades cooking around the world, from Michelin-starred kitchens in Europe to Melbourne’s evolving dining scene. At Sincero, that experience shows in food that feels both grounded and instinctive. He’s not chasing trends or nostalgia; he’s cooking with sincerity, curiosity, and the kind of calm assurance that only comes from doing something you truly love. buymeacoffee.com/conversationwithachef
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    38 min
  • #324 Anuj Sanghi | Bar Mercado

    #324 Anuj Sanghi | Bar Mercado
    Oct 27 2025
    Today I’m chatting with Anuj Sanghi, who’s opened Bar Mercado on Peel Street, right across from the Queen Victoria Market. The name Mercado means “market” in Spanish, and that’s really the heart of what Anuj has created, a place for people to gather, share food, drink, stories, and cultures. Every morning he walks over to the market to hand-pick his produce, chatting with the traders and letting what he finds inspire the day’s menu. The food at Bar Mercado is a vibrant mix of South American, Spanish and Latin flavours; think wood-fired chorizo with chimichurri, oysters with chilli and lime granita, slow-cooked lamb sandwiches and churros with dark chocolate. It’s not fine dining, but you can feel the finesse of someone who’s worked at places like Maha, Rockpool and Entrecôte. Anuj moved from Delhi to Melbourne to study at Le Cordon Bleu and never looked back. We talked about how his mum inspired his love of food, what he’s learned from his mentors, and how he’s building something that feels like community.
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    21 min