The Go To Food Podcast

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.You can book a virtual demonstration with Quooker to find the right setup for your kitchen and remember, until the end of August, if you use the code GO TO FOOD, you’ll get free installation and a free Quooker glassware set. Just head to www.Quooker.co.uk now!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.

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.”You can book a virtual demonstration with Quooker to find the right setup for your kitchen and remember, until the end of August, if you use the code GO TO FOOD, you’ll get free installation and a free Quooker glassware set. Just head to www.Quooker.co.uk now!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.

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.You can book a virtual demonstration with Quooker to find the right setup for your kitchen and remember, until the end of August, if you use the code GO TO FOOD, you’ll get free installation and a free Quooker glassware set. Just head to www.Quooker.co.uk now!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.

This week we sit down with the extraordinary Mursal Saiq for a conversation that goes far beyond food. Mursal takes us from a childhood shaped by war in Afghanistan and arriving in Britain as a refugee, to the devastating separation of her family at the UK border and the years that followed. She recalls the extraordinary places life subsequently took her — from Hackney to India and Italy, living on a fishing trawler in Portsmouth and even spending time with English showman families who couldn’t pronounce Mursal and instead called her “Roger” — before eventually finding her place in food.Her route into restaurants has been just as unconventional. We hear how she immersed herself in American barbecue, eventually took Afghan-Texan BBQ to competitions in the United States and remarkably finished second at the World Food Championships in Texas — beaten by a team of US Air Force veterans. She explains how Cue Point was born, how it survived the pandemic and why combining the food of Afghanistan with the techniques of American barbecue became about much more than creating something delicious: it became a way of preserving recipes, memories and a culture she fears could otherwise disappear.And then things get fiery. Mursal explains why Gordon Ramsay’s use of the word “authentic” infuriates her, and questions why an Afghan chef cooking outside Afghan cuisine can be challenged while celebrated white chefs are free to cook food from anywhere in the world. She reveals why her entire kitchen wears grey in protest at the hierarchy she believes traditional chef whites represent, discusses race and class within Michelin kitchens, the industry figures who told her to stop mixing conversations about race and heritage with food, and why she believes hospitality still excludes far too many of the people it claims to welcome. Funny, furious, moving and completely unfiltered — this is one of our most thought-provoking conversations yet.You can book a virtual demonstration with Quooker to find the right setup for your kitchen and remember, until the end of August, if you use the code GO TO FOOD, you’ll get free installation and a free Quooker glassware set. Just head to www.Quooker.co.uk now!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.

Michelin-starred chef Adam Byatt joins us for a raucous live edition of the Go To Food Podcast, recorded in front of a packed audience at Bird House Brewery. The man behind Trinity, Bistro Union, Charlie’s at Brown’s, and the newly opened Rosina reveals how his latest restaurant secured 11,000 reservations and opened at full capacity from its very first service.Adam explains why every great restaurant needs a signature dish, how he built a social media audience of more than one million followers without compromising his craft, and why telling his own story has proved more powerful than traditional PR. He also shares his philosophy on Michelin stars, profitability, hospitality, and his ambition for Trinity to remain the very best one-star restaurant in the country.We travel back through Adam’s extraordinary career, from discovering food on a childhood exchange trip to France and entering the Claridge’s kitchen at just 15, to the rock-and-roll atmosphere of The Square in the 1990s. He opens up about pioneering small-plate dining at Thyme, losing everything after moving the restaurant to Covent Garden, and rebuilding his career through resilience, determination, and the creation of Trinity.There is also an exclusive first look at Adam’s new Trinity cookbook, Ben attempts to impress him with homemade tongue tonnato and tiramisu, and Adam reveals his ultimate restaurants, comfort foods, death-row meal, and surprisingly controversial post-run Weetabix recipe. A funny, honest, and deeply insightful conversation with one of Britain’s most respected chefs, brought to you by Blinq and Dojo.You can book a virtual demonstration with Quooker to find the right setup for your kitchen and remember, until the end of August, if you use the code GO TO FOOD, you’ll get free installation and a free Quooker glassware set. Just head to www.Quooker.co.uk now!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.

This week, we’re joined by Only Scrans — one of the UK’s biggest and most engaged food creators, with more than 1.5 million followers and one of the most unusual career stories we’ve encountered. Jonny has toured the world as a guitarist, helped build LADbible’s audience past 100 million, launched FoodBible, worked with some of Britain’s biggest celebrities, built his own agencies and turned Only Scrans into a major food platform. Most recently, he has taken the ultimate step from commenting on hospitality to living it, opening his own sports bar and discovering exactly how difficult it is to make money from bricks and mortar.Jonny reveals why he spent £40,000 of his own money filming a huge long-form YouTube series across America, Canada and Mexico, visiting historic restaurants, Texas barbecue institutions and some of the world’s greatest taco spots. He explains why he refused to compromise the films with intrusive sponsorship demands, why he believes creators must be prepared to invest in themselves and how YouTube videos can suddenly return from the dead and collect another 100,000 views. He also takes us inside the obsessive world of retention graphs, thumbnails, titles and trial reels — while sharing the less glamorous reality of eating at 20 restaurants in a matter of days, including a disastrous final day in Mexico City after weeks of grasshoppers, tripe tacos and relentless filming.We also get into Jonny’s belief that food influencers should have to pass a test before they are allowed to review restaurants. He explains why somebody tasting their first-ever scallop has no business immediately declaring it a ten out of ten, calls out creators who deliberately attack brilliant independent restaurants to manufacture millions of views and comes to the defence of Bleecker after watching it receive a baffling six-out-of-ten review. At the same time, he acknowledges the extraordinary impact creators such as Eating With Tod can have on small businesses, explains why TopJaw’s combination of beautiful filmmaking and a divisive presenter works so well, and gives his verdict on the recent “shawarma wars” consuming the online food world.Jonny is equally candid about opening his sports bar, GO. The venue turned over £1 million in its first year, but he explains why that impressive figure looks very different once the money has gone back out again — leaving a profit of roughly ten per cent and nothing yet taken by Jonny personally. He recounts discovering chaotic wiring hidden above the ceiling, air-conditioning containing an illegal refrigerant and renovation costs that more than doubled almost overnight. Despite the financial pressure, he describes the extraordinary feeling of watching supporters stand on tables during England games, the pride of creating memories for customers and his ambition to expand the business rather than simply take the money.Finally, Jonny takes us back to his previous life in major-label rock band Blitz Kids. He reveals how the band could appear glamorous from the outside while its members were living on riders, drinking from morning until night and earning almost nothing, leaving him with memories of touring Helsinki, Stockholm and the rest of the world that he can barely recall. He speaks openly about alcohol, reaching a dark point and eventually becoming sober in his late thirties — before realising that he genuinely did still love food and football without the drinking attached. We then hear how he walked away from the band while living in his mum’s attic, joined LADbible as its eighth or ninth employee after an interview involving FIFA and several beers, created a viral livestream by melting ice lollies on a roof, used audience data to inform campaigns involving Craig David, and later found himself writing viral social posts for Georgia Toffolo. An extraordinary conversation about food, risk, addiction, creativity, hospitality and understanding what makes the internet click.You can book a virtual demonstration with Quooker to find the right setup for your kitchen and remember, until the end of August, if you use the code GO TO FOOD, you’ll get free installation and a free Quooker glassware set. Just head to www.Quooker.co.uk now!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.

Alexis Gauthier spent decades at the summit of classical French cooking, training under Alain Ducasse, earning Michelin stars and building one of London’s most celebrated restaurants. Then he did something few chefs of his generation would dare to do: he removed meat, fish, dairy and every other animal product from his menus.When Gauthier Soho became fully plant-based, Alexis says he lost 99% of his existing customers. In this remarkably candid conversation, he explains why he took the risk, how he rebuilt the restaurant around compassionate French gastronomy and why his greatest regret is not making the change sooner.We also discuss the brutal economics of running a London restaurant, why fine dining may be safer than the middle market, whether Michelin-starred restaurants are finally improving their vegan food and the unexpected challenges of operating an entirely animal-free kitchen, from wine and honey to seaweed and figs.Alexis also looks back on his extraordinary childhood in Avignon, where horse steak cooked in brown butter was an everyday lunch and a glass of horse blood was considered medicine. Funny, provocative and deeply personal, this is the story of a chef who completely overturned everything he had been trained to believe.You can book a virtual demonstration with Quooker to find the right setup for your kitchen and remember, until the end of August, if you use the code GO TO FOOD, you’ll get free installation and a free Quooker glassware set. Just head to www.Quooker.co.uk now!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.