Merlin Labron-Johnson is the chef and restaurateur of Osip in Somerset, England. He was raised in Devon, worked in several Michelin starred restaurants before becoming sous chef at Kobe Desramaults restaurant In de Wulf in Belgium. In 2014 he moved back to the UK to launch Portland restaurant and later Clipstone in Fitzrovia. Merlin Labron-Johnson now resides in rural Somerset where he splits his time between his Michelin starred farm-to-table restaurant Osip, his wine bar and bistro The Old...

Genie Kwon is the chef and owner of Kasama in Chicago. She grew up in New Orleans, studied at university and then decided to become a baker and chef. That led her to working in some of the best restaurants in the world, among them Eleven Madison Park and Oreole in the US and with Janice Wong and Andre Chiang in Singapore. In 2020 Genie Kwon opened Kasama, a modern Filipino restaurant by night and a French-American bakery by day, together with her husband, chef Tim Flores. In the podcast we...

Sat Bains is the chef and owner of restaurant Sat Bains in Nottingham, England. His parents moved to England from India and he grew up with Indian, mostly vegetarian cooking. As a teenager, he picked a cooking class in school by random, became a cook and after a few years of work decided to make a change and become one of the best. Today, he has been running his 2 Michelin Star restaurant for 25 years, together with his wife Amanda. We will hear how Sat Bains now takes his responsibility to...

Joris Bijdendijk is the executive chef of restaurants RIJKS, Wils and Wils Bakery Café in Amsterdam. His interest for cooking started while spending his childhood weekends in the countryside at his family’s vegetable garden. As a teenager he apprenticed with chef Ron Blaauw and got his education while working at restaurants in the Netherlands and France. In his cooking he blends the best of Dutch produce with international flavors, as they have been shaping Dutch cuisine for centuries. We...

Jason Atherton is one of the most respected British chef-restaurateurs with tens of restaurants as part of The Social Company. Atherton started working in the late 1980’s for legendary chefs like Pierre Koffmann, Marco Pierre White, Nico Ladenis and Ferran Adria, before joining Gordon Ramsay in 2001 and launching ‘Maze’, first in London and then another five globally. He left Gordon Ramsay in 2010 to launch his own restaurants, with his flagship Pollen Street Social first in Mayfair and then...

Jordy Navarra is the Chef at Toyo Eatery in Manila, the Philippines. He entered the culinary scene quite late and worked in kitchens worldwide, and while working in the UK he started to miss miss the rice based Filipino meals of his youth. Back in Manila, he opened Toyo Eatery in 2016 and it soon became a pioneer of modern Filipino cuisine. In 2018, the restaurant entered Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants list, and during the last years it’s been voted the country’s best. In the podcast we’ll hear...

Stuart Brioza is the chef and co-owner of State Bird Provisions, The Progress and The Anchovy Bar in San Francisco. Born and raised in California, he worked in restaurants while still in high school. After culinary school, he worked in Chicago and France and then returned to California working at Rubicon before opening State Bird Provisions with his wife, pastry chef Nicole Krasinski in 2011. In the podcast, we will hear about Stuart Brioza’s love for the French bistro, the Japanese izakaya...

Chef Johanne Siy is the chef at restaurant Lolla in Singapore. She grew up in the Philippines in a Chinese-Filipino family. She left her corporate career and went to culinary school in the US and worked at Le Bernardin and Café Boulud in New York, Restaurant Andre in Singapore and later at Noma, Relae in Copenhagen and Faviken in Sweden. Returning to Singapore, she became the head chef at Lolla, where she combines Asian and Mediterranean flavours in her cooking. A year ago, she was awarded...

Niklas Ekstedt is a chef who gained recognition already at the age of 21 when he opened his first restaurant in Helsingborg, in the south of Sweden. Nowadays, he is one of the most famous fire-cooking chefs around. At the Ekstedt restaurants in Stockholm and London, everything is cooked over open fire, mostly using birch wood - no gas or electricity allowed. We will hear the story of Niklas Ekstedt, how he in his youth switched from snowboarding to professional chef-restaurateur. We will also...

Massimo Bottura is the chef and restaurateur at Osteria Francescana in Modena, Italy. He is known as one of the world’s most innovative culinary figures and together with his team runs a group of restaurants in Italy and the rest of the world. His three-Michelin-starred restaurant, Osteria Francescana, has twice been voted Best restaurant in the World. Bottura's restaurant career began in 1986, he later worked with Alain Ducasse in Monaco and at El Bulli. Bottura is also working with projects...

Kristian Baumann is the chef and restaurateur of Koan and Juju in Copenhagen. He was adopted from Korea and grew up in Denmark with a traditional Danish upbringing that embraced his Korean heritage. Initially passionate about sports, he discovered his love for cooking and worked at various top kitchens in Copenhagen, among them Noma, Manfreds and Relæ. During Covid, inspired by his Korean roots, Kristian Baumann launched Koan and it’s little brother Juju. We will hear about Kristian Baumann’s...

Gunnar Karl Gíslason is the chef and restaurateur at restaurant Dill in Reykjavik, Iceland. He grew up on a farm in the small Icelandic town of Akureyri, where he started his restaurant career as a dishwasher. He worked his way through many of the best restaurants on Iceland, Norway, Denmark and New York and then returned to Iceland to open his own restaurant, Dill, in Reykjavik in 2009. We will hear about the life of an Icelandic restaurateur, and how he uses the best of Icelandic produce....

Varun Totlani is the chef of Masque in Mumbai, India. He is known for his daring approach to Indian cuisine, and has reinvented many classic Indian dishes in his restaurant. He also uses many foraged and forgotten ingredients in his cooking, like Indian seabuckthorn. In the podcast we will hear about Varun Totlani’s love for street food in Mumbai, about the rise of the Indian cuisine and which Indian restaurants he has on his must eat-list. The recommendations mentioned in this podcast and...

Josh Niland is the chef and restaurateur of Saint Peter in Sydney, Australia. He’s a pioneer of whole fish cookery, renowned for his nose-to-tail approach to seafood and his methods of creating sustainability in the use of fish in his kitchens. As a young chef, he worked at some of the best restaurants in the world, like the Fat Duck, and opened his own restaurant in 2016. We will hear Josh Niland tell about how he copes with the challenges in his mission to change our perception of consuming...

Sarah Thompson is the executive chef of Casa Playa, a coastal Mexican restaurant in Las Vegas. She was raised in Boston and attended culinary school in New York before working at Michelin-starred Italian seafood restaurant Marea. She moved on to work at Cosme, the famous eatery opened by Mexican chef Enrique Olvera, and was fascinated by the flavours and ingredients of the regional Mexican cuisines. In the podcast Sarah Thompson will tell about her creative process and how she finds the best...

Tekuna Gachechiladze is the chef and founder of Café Littera in Tbilisi, Georgia. She has been called the godmother of Georgia’s culinary revolution and fuses thousand year old Georgian flavours with contemporary international influences. We will hear how Tekuna Gachechiladze, to her family’s disappointment, switched her academic career to chef-restaurateur and how important the ceremony around eating is for the Georgians, especially in times of oppression and political turmoil. The...

In the first episode of the World of Mouth Destination guides, recorded in Helsinki not far from the World of Mouth headquarters, we’re meeting local chefs and World of Mouth experts Helena Puolakka from restaurant Savoy, Ina Niiniketo from Canvas Canteen and Tom Hansen from Restaurant Kuurna. In the podcast they will tell what makes Helsinki unique as a culinary destination and guide you to the best places to eat and drink in town, from local must eats, like a 3 euro meat pie snack, to the...

Eric Robertson is the co-chef of restaurant Pearl Morissette in the Niagara region of Canada. As a young chef he left Canada for Europe, where he worked at some of the best restaurants in Belgium, France and with Magnus Nilsson at Fäviken in Sweden. We will hear how Eric Robertson, after returning to Canada, started working at Pearl Morissette in 2017 together with his friend, chef Daniel Hadida, sourcing the best Canadian seasonal produce from producers and their own farm. The...

Daniel Berlin is the chef and restaurateur of restaurant VYN in Southern Sweden. He has a strong connection to the land and as a young chef trained and worked for the best chefs in the region. In 2020 he closed his two-Michelin-starred restaurant Daniel Berlin Krog, one of Sweden’s best restaurants, and soon after, his wife passed away. We will hear how Daniel Berlin a few years later started a new restaurant in a new place, and how he sees his role as a chef and restaurateur in a small rural...

Garima Arora is the chef and owner of Restaurant Gaa in Bangkok. She was born in a Punjabi family and grew up in Mumbai. In 2018, Arora, at the age of 32, earned a Michelin star for her restaurant, and in the following year, Restaurant Gaa made its debut on Asia's 50 Best Restaurants list at No. 16 with the Highest New Entry Award. In the podcast we will also hear about how it is being an Indian chef in Bangkok and about the status of the Indian cuisine. The recommendations mentioned in this...

Bo Bech is the chef and owner of restaurant Bobe in Copenhagen. He is one of the most famous Danish chefs and a pioneer of the restaurant scene in Copenhagen. He first made his name at Restaurant Paustian, where he earned a Michelin star, before setting up Geist in 2011. Working mostly with Nordic produce, his dishes are personal reflections of him as a chef, of his background and his travels. We will hear Bo Bech tell about the birth of the modern restaurant wave in Copenhagen and about his...

Will Guidara is a former restaurateur and author of the best-selling book Unreasonable Hospitality, where he chronicles the lessons in service and leadership he learned during his restaurant career. He is the former co-owner of Eleven Madison Park, which under his leadership received three Michelin stars, four stars from the New York Times and in 2017 was named #1 on the list of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants. He is the host of the Welcome Conference, an annual hospitality symposium. In the...

Atsushi Tanaka is the chef of restaurant A.T in Paris. He was born in Japan and grew up in Kobe. As child, his interest for cooking started after he watched the Iron Chef tv show, and at 16, he decided to become a chef after reading the avant garde cookbook of French chef Pierre Gagnaire. He worked in Tokyo, Paris, Spain, Copenhagen and Stockholm, and ten years ago opened his own restaurant, A.T, in Paris. In his podcast, he will talk about the similarities between the Japanese and French...