Alison Roman is a columnist for the New York Times Food section and Bon Appétit contributor. She is the author of the bestselling Dining In. Alison has worked professionally in kitchens such as New York’s Momofuku Milk Bar and San Francisco’s Quince. We talk all about her new book, Nothing Fancy, where Alison makes any night of the week worth celebrating. She believes it’s not entertaining, it’s having people over. We apologised to leeks, fawned over anchovies and much more!

Mike is an Israeli chef and restaurateur known for his landmark Philadelphia restaurant, Zahav, where we had the pleasure of speaking to him while we were in town. We spoke to Mike about growing up in a Jewish household in the US, the food of Israel, his introduction to kitchens and how he and his business partner, Steven Cook, have kept expanding their restaurant world to include Abe Fisher, Dizengoff, Percy Street Barbecue and more...

Nancy is a native Californian, but has lived in Japan since 1988 and is a renowned expert in Japanese food. Nancy’s cookbooks include Japanese Farm Food, Preserving the Japanese Way and her newest book is called Japan: The Cookbook - Nancy has painstakingly reworked traditional material gathered from gifted home cooks and translated, tested and adapted the recipes. We talk to her about how to source good ingredients for Japanese home cooking, small-scale farming in Japan and much more...

The third and final instalment of our special smoke series to celebrate the third birthday of our grill restaurant Honey & Smoke. In this episode we had the wonderful Gill Meller join us all the way from Dorset.  First we head into the kitchen with Sarit and Itamar to cook up some lamb chops and plums on the grill, a favourite here at Honey & Smoke over the last 3 years and talk about their love of fire growing up!  Then they chat to Gill Meller, the chef, cookbook author and...

The second instalment of our special smoke series to celebrate the third birthday of our grill restaurant Honey & Smoke. In this episode we had the incredible Ben Chapman, co-founder of award-winning restaurants Kiln, Smoking Goat and Brat come cook a Thai-inspired grill menu for us.  First we go behind the scenes at Honey & Smoke to cook one of our most popular dishes over the last three years - grilled octopus and prawns with a rich bean stew. Then we chat to Ben! We talked all...

It's Bonfire Night and our grill house Honey & Smoke is three! To celebrate the third birthday we had not one, not two, but three parties. We invited three fire-loving chefs, Olia Hercules, Ben Chapman and Gill Meller to cook over fire with us and to talk about their life in food and flames. In this series we are doing things a bit differently, so first we head into the kitchens of Honey & Smoke to cook up one of our most popular dishes for you: a recipe for grilled pears with...

Following a slight career detour singing in a successful pop band, Donal Skehan realised food was his true calling and started his popular blog “The Good Mood Food Blog” which chronicled quick cooking dishes and cheap meals. This soon led to cookbooks, tv appearances, a youtube channel and more. Celebrating honest, hearty home cooked food Donal has established himself as a trusted cook and food writer with a loyal global following. We talk to Donal about how his pop career became a food one...

Sandor Ellix Katz is a fermentation revivalist. His books Wild Fermentation and The Art of Fermentation, along with the hundreds of fermentation workshops he has taught around the world, have helped to catalyse a broad revival of the fermentation arts. A self-taught experimentalist who lives in rural Tennessee, the New York Times calls him “one of the unlikely rock stars of the American food scene.” We spoke to Sandor about his life in a commune, what he's discovered recently and much more!

Tim Anderson is a chef, food writer, and MasterChef champion. Born and raised in Wisconsin, Tim studied Japanese food culture at university and lived in Japan for two years. After moving to London, he won MasterChef in 2011 and his epic Japanese soul-food restaurant, Nanban, opened in 2015 in Brixton. We talk to Tim about his new book Tokyo Stories and seemingly endless food offerings of Tokyo on every level...

Ep4 of our mini-series in partnership with the V&A to celebrate their fantastic exhibition FOOD: Bigger than the Plate. Recorded live at the V&A museum, in the last episode of the series, we chatted to three artists from the Eating section of the exhibition: Karen Guthrie, Jasleen Kaur and Michael Rakowitz, all who are challenging the way we think about eating and especially to think about cooking and eating as creative acts. Visit the exhibition: Listeners can get 40% off tickets...

Ep4 of our mini-series in partnership with the V&A to celebrate their fantastic exhibition FOOD: Bigger than the Plate. Recorded live at the V&A museum, in this episode we chatted to artist Kathrin Böhm of Company Drinks about her part in the trading section of the exhibition. Company Drinks is a community enterprise in Barking & Dagenham in East London that brings people together to pick, process and produce drinks.  Visit the exhibition Listeners can get 40% off tickets to...

Ep3 of our mini-series in partnership with the V&A to celebrate their fantastic exhibition FOOD: Bigger than the Plate. Recorded live at the V&A museum, in this episode we chatted to California-based artists Fallen Fruit - David Burns and Austin Young - about their part in the farming section of the exhibition. David and Austin make public art which explores the role of fruit in creating shared culture. By foraging depictions of fruit from the V&A's collection, they have created...

Ep 2 of our mini-series in partnership with the V&A to celebrate their fantastic exhibition FOOD: Bigger than the Plate. In the grand setting of the V&A we chatted to Fernando Laposse about his part in the exhibition - Totomoxtle, a new veneer material made with husks of heirloom Mexican corn. Visit the exhibition https://www.vam.ac.uk/whatson Listeners can get 40% off tickets to the exhibition using promo code: FOOD40   @fernandolaposse @vamuseum

Self-confessed veg nerd, Guy Singh-Watson has, over the last 30 years, taken Riverford from one man and a wheelbarrow delivering homegrown organic veg to friends, to a national veg box scheme delivering to around 50,000 customers a week. This episode is a deep dive into the trials and tribulations of producing organic food, modern farming and what it's like to deal with selling fruit and veg to supermarkets.

Ben set up E5 Bakehouse in 2011, initially baking sourdough in the pizza oven of a local restaurant in the mornings before they opened. We talk to Ben about his mission to revive the lost art of baking using traditional techniques, natural ingredients and forgotten flours. We learn about their famous sourdough and hear about how they are developing an agroforestry arable farm in Suffolk with a focus on making the transition to a diversified farming system, and localised supply chain for bread.

In May, we collaborated with writer Rosie Sykes and historian Polly Russell to create a special dinner for the opening of the Eat Cambridge Food Festival. The evening included a food history talk by Polly Russell and a delicious feast cooked by Itamar, Sarit and Rosie, and inspired by an extraordinary royal medieval manuscript. In this episode we hear Polly tells us about the magnificent scroll, The Forme of Cury, which inspired the epic feast and all the best things about a medieval banquet.

Dale and Sarah founded Bermondsey Street Bees, a sustainable beekeeping practice and artisan honey business, in 2007 with just eight hives on the rooftop of their Victorian warehouse on Bermondsey Street in London. Every honey produced by Bermondsey Street Bees is single-source and raw, preserving all of the nutritional benefits. We chat to Dale and Sarah about how they keep their bees, the difference in quality from mass-produced industrial honey and the fascinating history of honey.

Founded in 2002 in an old butcher’s shop in Hackney from which they take their name, our friends at Climpson & Sons source, roast and craft the finest coffees in London. They have supplied us with the most delicious coffee since the very early days of Honey & Co. We will talk to Danny Davis and Matt Randell about how they find the best coffee beans around the world, how to ensure consistent flavour and quality, and demystify all the different brewing options available to us.

Ep1 of a mini-series in partnership with the V&A to celebrate their fantastic new exhibition, FOOD: Bigger than the Plate. The exhibition looks at how innovative individuals, communities and organisations are radically re-inventing how we grow, distribute and experience food. Sarit and Itamar chat with curators Catherine Flood and May Rosenthal Sloan and meet some of the exhibitors. We'll be hosting live podcast recordings at the V&A on 25th June and 29th July. Get tickets:...

Martin and Maggie of Mother's Garden have been farming arbequina olives and living an adventure in the Priorat mountains of Catalonia, south of Barcelona, since January 2001. Their cold-pressed oil is a lively, delicate and fresh olive oil and unlike any other we have tried. Martin tells us about their journey to the farm, how olive oil is produced and how we can choose the best olive oil.

Joanna Brennan co-founded Pump Street Bakery with her father in the village of Orford in Suffolk. After mastering the art of naturally-leavened bread, they ventured into making chocolate from beans imported directly from single estates and cooperatives around the world. We talk to Joanna about the obsessive care and attention to detail that goes into the roasting profile of each bean and how each stage requires a careful eye, and nose. Chocoholics and others alike, this one's for you!

This episode is all about butter; how to make it, how should we eat it and why is it yellow? We are joined by butter aficionados Grant Harrington of Ampersand Cultured Butter and food writer, Eve Hemingway. After working in fine-dining, Grant was inspired to learn more about traditional butter-making. He set up shop and now makes butter that is unlike anything we’ve tried before; rich, dense and creamy. Food writer Eve Hemingway helps us to delve deep into the history and culture of butter...

In series 5 of Honey & Co: The Food Talks we are meeting producers, growers and makers who create some of the essential ingredients cooking. The people you’re going to hear from, supply us, inspire us and improve our cooking. We hope you’ll have fun geeking out with us about all things butter, chocolate, coffee, bread, fruit & veg, olive oil and of course... honey. Enjoy!

Michael Rakowitz, Iraqi-American artist of Fourth Plinth commission 'The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist' and author of upcoming cookbook A House With A Date Palm Will Never Starve, to be released in the summer of 2019. Rakowitz’s Lamassu is made from empty tins of Iraqi date syrup, alluding to the fact that historical monuments are not the only thing destroyed by war; they also decimate local economies, including the industry for date syrup which collapsed as a result of the war.

Rosemary Shrager, celebrity chef, cookery school doyenne and author of Rosemary Shrager’s Cookery Course: 150 tried and tested recipes to be a better cook. Rosemary Shrager has recently appeared on popular television series The Real Marigold Hotel and is an acclaimed cookery teacher with her own school, Rosemary Shrager’s Cookery School. She came to talk to us about her experiences in cookery teaching, how she adapts recipes from her travels and all the bizarre encounters she has had along...