Episode 13 is now LIVE! Zachary’s Chicago Pizza, the employee-owned pizzeria known for its thick, signature stuffed pies, is a local institution in the Bay Area. With over 225 Best Pizza awards to its name, locals know it as the ONLY place to get deep dish in the Bay.
Known for its incredible family and community oriented shops and team members, Zach's currently operates 5 shops in the Bay Area (Oakland (2), Berkeley, Pleasant Hill, Pleasanton, San Ramon). 20 years after its founding 1983, original founders Zach and Barbara, who painstakingly developed the incredible taste of Zach's pizza, decided to sell the company to the incredible crew of employees. Robin is one of the employees who co-owns Zachary's Pizza- she started as a host/server and is now the Marketing Manager behind Zach's!
Some fun facts about Zachary's Pizza that we talk about with Robin in this episode:
We hope you enjoy!
We are SO excited for this episode, with Theo Chocolate, an incredible bean-to-bar chocolate maker founded in Seattle, WA in 2005. Our guest, Aaron has been with Theo for 7 years now, and is the lead chocolate educator. He hosts chocolate tastings, factory tours, and SO MUCH more exciting stuff (seriously a dream job?)
We talk to Aaron in this episode about:
- His personal passion for chocolate and how it drove him to innovate and help develop virtual chocolate tastings in the pandemic
- How Theo Chocolate was founded and how it has evolved over time
- His background in theatre and how it taught him to lead and engage audiences in amazing virtual events
...and there's so much more!
Zach Martinucci grew up in the Bay Area and went to high school with Madeleine before going on to study at UCLA and setting off on his entrepreneurial adventure as the founder of Rebel Bread, a bakery in Denver, CO! Rebel Bread is a Community Bakery and Bread School that offers wholesale bread and pastries to local coffee shops, bakes for farmers markets and a membership Bread Club, and offers classes for every kind of home baker.
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Our guest for Episode 9 is Amelie Kang from @malaproject!
Amelie grew up in Beijing, watching her grandmother cook, and her early exposure to food had her pursue Culinary Arts at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) and then an externship at Chef Daniel Boulud's Bar Boulud & China Blue. Amelie has been honored by Forbes 30 Under 30 for Food & Drink & Eater Young Gun for introducing Sichuan dry pot to the NYC food ecosystem.
Amelie’s work ethic, creativity, and care for people are what have made her first restaurant @malaproject such an incredible success, and we're so excited to share it with you!
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4:40 Warm up questions
9:37 How Amelie's interest in cooking began
16:02 Menu development
23:24 How Amelie approaches branding
31:27 Approach to scaling across multiple restaurant locations
38:36 Mentorship & favorite foods!
Noah Fleishman is the VP of Bethesda Bagels, a beloved Washington DC bagel eatery! Family owned and run, Bethesda Bagels has a close-knit family dynamic and close ties to the community, and is a go-to for Catherine & other east coast residents for a great bagel!
Steve and Fran Fleishman started Betheda Bagels in 1982 after adopting styles & techniques learned from the classic New York bagel. After the initial success of their first Bethesda location, the company began expanding, and now has 5 popular locations in the DC area. Noah and his three brothers grew up in the bagel business and now play prominent roles in running the stores- Noah, who is 24, graduated from the University of Maryland three years ago as a business management major and is the general manager of each location, with a focus on community building (like running recent bagel-making classes for the DC community!) Noah was truly a pleasure to speak with, and his candor & curiosity about us as hosts made us all feel like close friends! We hope you all enjoy this conversation as much as we did!
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6:26 How to make bagels the Fleishman Family way
12:48 The origin story: How Noah’s parents got the idea to learn from NYC bagels and start their own in Maryland
9:14 How Noah got started in the business 25:30 What he’s like as a manager and what he brings to the business now
27:20 Tough feedback Noah has gotten
33:35 How their customers helped Bethesda Bagels in the pandemic, and how they gave back to their employees
35:05 How we all dealt with the pandemic personally
In the last third of the conversation, Noah start to ask the questions...
45:23 Noah asks Catherine why she runs a cooking instagram
51:38 Best Bagel orders
53:49 Why Madeleine is Vegan
Bringing you a very special episode with Catherine & Madeleine!
The most common feedback we’ve gotten on our episodes so far is that y’all wanna know more about US! In the next episode, we’re taking a quick pause for us (your co-hosts Madeleine & Catherine) to reflect on our friendship, first impressions of each other, and fave memories along the way. We always have fun chatting with each other and are excited to open up our conversations to you all!
Kim Rizk & Kathy Klockinbrink are the power duo behind Jammin’ Crepes, a local crepe restaurant in Princeton, New Jersey!
Kim & Kathy started Jammin’ Crepes in 2011 as a stand at the @wwfarmersmarket, and it’s since evolved to be a @princeton favorite! They focus their ever-evolving menu on highlighting farm-fresh produce, and their prioritization of seasonable, local foods has led them to be honored as a New Jersey sustainable business! Their award-winning 20 layer crepe cake has also been honored by @newjerseyfamily and even featured on the Food Network with Guy Fieri!
In this episode, Kim & Kathy share:
As students, we LOVED going to Jammin Crepes, and we CAN’T WAIT to share this episode with you all!
Josey Baker is the founder of Josey Baker Bread, and co-owner of The Mill, a cafe & bakery in San Francisco, CA that he runs with Four Barrel Coffee. He specializes in freshly milled whole grain sourdough that has received accolades in both the Infatuation & SF eater as one of San Francisco's best sourdough!
Before starting the Mill, Josey worked in education at UC Berkeley. He's maintained his passion for building community & helping others learn in his current role in the food industry: Josey has taught baking workshops all over the world and is the author of Josey Baker Bread Get Baking - Make Awesome Bread - Share the Loaves (2014).
In this episode, we touch on:
Our conversation with Josey was SO energizing- it reminded us that it's ok to make mistakes and that you can always be learning something new. We're so excited to share with you all!
Rose Nguyen is the owner of Rose Ave Bakery, a bakery in the Block Food hall (Washington, DC). If you’ve ever tried to order from Rose Ave on a weekend, you’ll know how their purple ube mochi crullers, matcha chocolate chunk cookies, and Vietnamese Coffee-cream filled donuts SELL OUT 10 minutes after the preorder goes live! The asian flavors & desserts are truly SO unique, and we were so excited to talk with Rosie about her menu development, all female team in the bakery, and how her bakery has pivoted during the pandemic!
Rose moved to DC in 2012 to start as a pediatric nurse and quickly became known among her friends as a FANTASTIC cook- they encouraged her to become a potential contestant on Master Chef! After starting a macaron business, she went on to work at well known restaurants like Toki Unnderground, Maketto, Ice Cream Jubilee, and Mr Holmes Bakehouse in San Francisco!
Her baked goods have been featured in major publications such as the Washington Post and more! We LOVED our conversation with Rosie and cannot wait to share in this episode!
If you enjoy, please be sure to follow us @dishedpodcast on Instagram for future episodes!
We're SO excited to announce Episode 2 with Gab Carbone, founder of the Bent Spoon, a local ice cream shop in Princeton, NJ!
Gab, a proud graduate of the International Culinary Institute (other notable alum include David Chang, Christina Tosi, etc.), and her co-founder Matt worked at Small World Coffee (another Princeton fave!) before going on to start the Bent Spoon in 2004. 17 years and 600+ flavors later, the Bent Spoon has been honored as one of the best ice cream shops in the country by NY Times, Serious Eats, Bon Appetit, Epicurious, NBC, ABC network!
In this episode, Gab shares stories about their super unique flavors (Meyer Lemon Marscapone? Prune Armagnac?), how Bent Spoon has evolved over the past two decades, how they've pivoted & shifted throughout the pandemic, and how she's maintained such a great partnership with Matt over the years. The Bent Spoon is such a personal favorite for both of us- their ice cream is associated with so many great college memories, and we CAN’T WAIT to share this episode with you all!
Lucas Sin, founder of Junzi Kitchen (based out of New York City, New York) shares his devotion to food exploration and design, walking us through his design-thinking and scientifically-driven approach to curating the perfect dish, his trips to find inspiration in regional Chinese dishes, and his mission to changing the perception and narrative of Chinese American food.
Lucas started his culinary journey as a 16 year-old in an abandoned newspaper factory in Hong Kong, and then went on to graduate from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut - where he met his co-founders for Junzi Kitchen. Now, Junzi Kitchen has five total locations, and Lucas has channeled his energy into developing additional ventures, which include:
1. Nice Day, a way to order Chinese American classics aimed to combat the decline of mom-and-pop Chinese restaurants in America
2. Distance Dining, a fusion-based tasting menu that can be delivered straight to your door featuring partnerships with other NY eateries
3. Hand-crafted chili oil in a charity partnership with the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Lucas was also just honored under Forbes 2020 Food & Drink 30 under 30 list! Listen in to see how he made it happen.
On April 5th, join co-hosts Catherine & Madeleine, former college roommates and best friends, as they explore the behind-the-scenes of all your fave local restaurants, bakeries, and dessert spots! In this podcast, we invite you to be our guest in a conversation with founders of our favorite local food finds as they share stories about the foodie dreams they visualized, built, and scaled. We can't wait to get started!