This week, Host Chris Jacobs continues The Shift List's feature on music and restaurants in Austin, Texas with Mark Buley, Chef and Partner at Odd Duck and Sour Duck Market. In 2009, Bryce Gilmore opened a food truck, the Odd Duck Farm to Trailer, with his brother in South Austin. The trailer featured dishes utilizing fresh and locally-sourced ingredients, which was still something of a novel idea at the time, and it became the cornerstone philosophy behind all of their endeavors moving...

This week, our first in a series of shows from Austin, Texas, starting off with Fermín Núñez, executive chef of East Austin’s Mexican-inspired restaurant Suerte and Eater Austin’s 2018 chef of the year.  As you’ll soon discover, Chef Fermín is a man with a mission: To create the perfect tortilla, every single day. As he recently told Eater, “It takes a village to make tortillas every night, and the foundation of Mexican food is masa.” The process starts with one of the restaurant’s staffers...

This week, The Shift List closes out its miniseries focusing on the food of Montreal with chef, restauranteur, and cookbook author Dyan Solomon.  If you’re from Montreal, Dyan Solomon needs no introduction. She’s the co-owner of multiple restaurants there, including Foxy, one of the city’s essential fine dining establishments. Back in November 2019 she released the Olive & Gourmando cookbook, a collection of 150 recipes from the namesake cafe that put Solomon on Montreal’s culinary map...

This week on the show, part two of our conversation with John Winter Russell, chef and founder of Restaurant Candide in Montreal. 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:...

This week, a conversation in quarantine with John Winter Russell, Chef and Founder of Restaurant Candide in Montreal. Host Chris Jacobs first had the chance to speak with John at Candide before everything shut down, and decided to reconnect with him recently on FaceTime to see how he is facing the challenges of being an independent chef and restaurant owner in the time of Covid 19. They get a chance to talk about some of the music he’s listening to in quarantine and the food he’s making...

This week, 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 restaurant and worker across America, thousands of restaurant workers have an urgent need for assistance, and they need our help now more than ever. In partnership with @makersmark, Chef Lee is transforming restaurants across the country...

This week, our first of three episodes from the great and wintry city of Montreal with Arthur’s 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. Opened in 2016, Arthur’s 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...

Justin Cucci sits down with The Shift List. A mainstay of the Denver food scene with an ever-growing list of both homegrown and high concept restaurants, including Root Down, Linger, Ophelia’s, El Five, and more. A New York city native, Justin 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, Justin started playing in bands, and continues to do so to this day. He...

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 becuase it’s baked into Allison’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...

This week on the Shift List, Jonathan Whitener — chef and co-owner of Here’s Looking At You in Los Angeles’s Koreatown. Similar to his cooking, Jonathan’s musical tastes are a reflection of his family and surrounding environment. Outlaw country from his father, ’80s metal from his brothers, and a love for Glenn Danzig that continues to this day. Since it opened in 2016, Here’s Looking at You has appeared on almost every ‘best of’ restaurant list around LA — and that’s due to a number of...

Katie Button is at the helm of two restaurants in Asheville, North Carolina - the lively and authentic Spanish experience at Cúrate, the nationally-acclaimed tapas restaurant, and Button & Co. Bagels, influenced by Katie’s upbringing in New Jersey. Chef Katie took a winding road to open her restaurants in Asheville, first pursuing science degrees at Cornell and earning her master’s degree in biomedical engineering in Paris. Realizing that a life in Science wasn’t for her, she...

This week, Ashleigh Shanti, Chef de Cuisine of Benne on Eagle in Asheville in North Carolina. Benne on Eagle is located on Eagle Street in Asheville’s historic neighborhood called The Block. Ashleigh describes the food at Benne on Eagle as Appalachian Soul Food, and working closely with Chef John Fleer, who’s best known around Asheville for his acclaimed restaurant Rhubarb and it’s sister cafe bakery The Rhu, the menu at Benne on Eagle pays homage to the rich African American culinary...

Jenn Dowdy, Music Director at AL’s Place in San Francisco, tells us how to create the perfect playlist for any kind of shift. This is a special episode, because of all the restaurants featured on this little podcast, AL’s Place is the only one that has a Musical Director. It’s just one reason that this intimate neighborhood restaurant in the Mission District stands out amongst the plethora of dining options and Michelin establishments dotted around the Bay Area. AL’s place is the vision...

Rum purveyor and exotic cocktail expert Martin Cate talks about the exotic soundtrack that plays every night at his world class tiki bar in San Francisco, Smuggler's Cove. So, if you haven’t noticed, Tiki is having a major rennaissance all across the US, and it’s due in no small part to Martin Cate’s elevation and dedication to the form. As Martin likes to put it,“Tiki is a multidisciplinary genre. It’s not just about the cocktails, it’s about creating an atmosphere. All of the elements...

The Israeli born chef co-founded Honey & Co with his wife, Sarit Packer, a cozy spot located in London’s once sleepy Fitzrovia neigborhood that serves homey Middle Eastern fair directly across the street from their amazing food shop, market, and culinary boutique Honey & Spice. Following in the footsteps of their UK colleague and cookbook author Yotam Ottolenghi, of whom they both worked for prior to starting Honey & Co, Itamar and Sarit have released a handful of Honey &...

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

Phil Bracey is not a chef, but rather the manager of P. Franco, a neighborhood wine shop, bar, and makeshift restaurant in Northeast London's Clapton neighborhood. Along with Bright, a new restaurant that opened nearby las May, Phil was instrumental in P. Franco being named Restaurant of the Year by London Eater in 2017. It’s important to note that ‘manager’ is a broad term, as Phil admits that even he doesn’t know what his actual title would be at both spots. Granted, he helps to procure...

A veteran of chef Yotam Ottolenghi’s venerable Ottolenghi and Nopi restaurants, Ramael Scully opened his first restaurant "Scully" back in March of 2018 with the backing and support Chef Ottolenghi himself. Given that Scully was born in Malaysia to a mother of Chinese and Indian descent and an Irish Balanese Malay father, his palate was destined to be filled with mixed influences. Add a move to Australia as a young child, where he was ultimately raised in a multiethinic neighborhood, and you...

Itamar Srulovich is an Israeli born chef who co-founded Honey & Co with his wife, Sarit Packer, back in 2012. A cozy spot located in London’s once sleepy Fitzrovia neigborhood that serves homey Middle Eastern fair directly across the street from their amazing food shop, market, and culinary boutique Honey & Spice, they also opened Honey & Smoke in 2016, a big and buzzy grill house serving everything from lamb kofta and chops, whole fish and slow cooked octopus, charred cauliflower...

Colin Stringer and Jeremy Wolfe are two of the three chef/founders of Nonesuch in Oklahoma City, an intimate 22-seat restaurant that focuses on cooking with ingredients that come exclusively from their native Oklahoma. In a landlocked state that rarely gets national recognition for it’s culinary ambition from any organization, Nonesuch was named best new restaurant in the country by Bon Appetit magazine back in August, ahead of 9 other restaurants from food capitals like Los Angeles, New...

Jose Salazar is a chef and restauranter based in Cincinnati Ohio. Originally based in Queens, he got his start in restaurants around New York, most notably working with Chef Thomas Keller for a four year stint at Per Se and as the Executive Sous-Chef at Bouchon Bakery when it first opened in 2006. In 2008 he and his wife Anne moved to Cincinnati after receiving an irresistable offer to be the Executive Chef of The historical Cincinnatian Hotel and Palace restaurant, and in December of...

Opened in 1945 by Thornton Prince, André inherited the restaurant and original hot chicken receipe in 1980, and has seen it grow into a culinary trend that’s caught on like wildfire in the past few years throughout the US. Growing up in the 1940’s and 50’s, young André witnessed the origins of her great uncle Thornton’s restaurant, and it turns out that music has been an important part of their success from day one. Just wait until you hear about the typical late night guests that would...

Philip Krajeck is the chef and owner of Rolf and Daughters in Nashville’s Germantown neighborhood. Distinguished in music city for bringing global cooking techniques to Tennessee’s Southern ingredients, he opened Rolf & Daughters in 2012 and it’s still full every night. His follow up, Folk, opened a few months ago in the Spring, and he describes the menu as loosely Italian-influenced food that he’d essentially like to eat himself on any given day. Krajeck’s musical influences run far...

Edward Lee is the chef and owner of three restaurants with their own unique identities in Louisville, Kentucky: 610 Magnolia, MilkWood, and Whiskey Dry. Beyond his adopted hometown of Louisville, Lee is the culinary director of Succotash in Maryland and Washington DC, and is the author of two books, Smoke & Pickles - his first - a cookbook that chronicles the story of how he was raised in Brooklyn in a family of Korean immigrants to his arrival in Louisville, and his second, Buttermilk...