The Go To Food Podcast

Jackson Boxer and Eduardo “Lalo” Yishima joined us at TAQ to talk about relaunching one of London’s original Mexican restaurants into something far more ambitious, produce-led and reflective of modern Mexican cuisine. Jackson explained how the former Taqueria had become trapped trying to compete on cheapness rather than quality, despite having an incredible location and loyal following. The pair discussed how London’s understanding of Mexican food has transformed over the last 20 years, with diners now far more educated and excited by authentic flavours, proper tortillas and regional cooking. Bringing Lalo back from Mexico to lead the kitchen allowed them to completely rethink the menu, from nixtamalized heritage corn tortillas to carnitas, tuna tostadas and deeply flavourful salsas that feel genuinely rooted in Mexico while using exceptional British produce.
A huge part of the conversation centred around ingredients and the realities of running restaurants in modern London. Jackson spoke passionately about using rare breed pork, Yorkshire grass-fed beef and whole Cornish tuna across the restaurant group, while Lalo described the emotional significance of properly nixtamalized tortillas and imported Mexican chilis. The pair explained how London diners are now sophisticated enough to appreciate bold, complex Mexican flavours and why TAQ’s relaunch focused on quality and value rather than racing to the bottom on pricing. Jackson also opened up about the pressures restaurateurs face today — from social media expectations to shrinking margins — while teasing his upcoming Exmouth Market opening, Vespa, where dishes like coal-grilled squid stuffed with pork and prawn boudin will headline the menu.
To close, the conversation drifted into travel, comfort food and personal inspirations. Jackson recommended an Italian train journey through Bologna, Florence, Rome and Naples as the ultimate food weekend, while Lalo made a passionate case for Buenos Aires and Argentina’s bakery, pizza and wine culture. Their “Go To Hall of Fame” dishes perfectly reflected the emotional core of the episode: Lalo chose his mother’s pozole, a deeply nostalgic Mexican soup tied to his childhood, while Jackson described his mother’s fruit tarts made with hand-grated frozen butter pastry as one of the greatest things he’s ever eaten. Across the episode, what stood out most was the pair’s shared belief that food is ultimately about generosity, memory and craft — whether that’s a taco, a trompo, a tart or a late-night tortilla folded around cheese and hot sauce.

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Charlie Mellor joins Go To Food for a brilliant, booze-soaked, risotto-fuelled conversation from inside his acclaimed new Soho restaurant, Osteria Vibrato. Once hailed as the king of London’s wine scene — and still very much hailed by us — Charlie’s journey has taken him from Australian-born, classically trained opera singer to sommelier, restaurateur and one of the most charismatic hospitality minds in the capital.
In this episode, Charlie talks about the rise and closure of The Laughing Heart, why neighbourhood restaurants have become such a brutal game, and why Soho felt like the right place to return with something romantic, generous and unmistakably Italian. He explains the thinking behind Vibrato’s £3 coperto, its olive oil obsession, late-night ambitions, boozy lunches, and a wine list built to make serious bottles genuinely drinkable.
We also get into the realities of opening a restaurant in 2026: linen bills, no-shows, soft-launch chaos, risotto sections, assembling a front-of-house Avengers squad, and the importance of making every guest feel like everything is going to be okay. Along the way, Charlie shares stories from opera, Melbourne dining, late-night London, and his family’s legendary Cornish pasties.
Expect strong views, big hospitality energy, Palermo tips, plenty of wine chat, and one of the best explanations you’ll hear of what makes a restaurant truly generous. Charlie is thoughtful, theatrical, sweary, deeply hospitable — and Osteria Vibrato sounds like exactly the kind of place London needs right now.
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This week on The Go-To Food Podcast, we’re joined by one of the most important voices in pizza culture: Frank Pinello. The founder of Brooklyn’s legendary Best Pizza, host of The Pizza Show and now Pizza with Frank, Frank joins us fresh from a huge week eating across London — and gives an unfiltered verdict on why the city has quietly become one of the great pizza destinations in the world. From Vincenzo’s and Dough Hands to New York aesthetics taking over London, Frank explains why British pizza makers are now genuinely earning respect from New Yorkers.
But this episode goes way beyond pizza rankings. Frank tells the unbelievable story of almost becoming a stockbroker straight out of school — working in a real-life Wolf of Wall Street-style boiler room on Long Island, standing all day cold-calling strangers about fake IPOs while managers shouted slogans like “motion creates emotion.” He talks about turning up in suits thinking he’d made it, only for the entire operation to eventually get raided by the feds. Before pizza fame, before Vice, before Williamsburg — there was Frank trying to survive among future federal inmates.
We also go deep into old New York food culture: growing up in Bensonhurst, the smell of Sunday sauce hitting the hallway before you even reached his grandmother’s basement, annual tomato canning traditions, animal heads in the kitchen, Sicilian cauliflower pasta with cinnamon breadcrumbs, and learning early that food meant love. Frank opens up about his first pizzeria jobs, burning his leg so badly on his first day in a serious kitchen that the skin peeled off — but hiding it for 12 hours because he didn’t want chefs to think he was weak. He talks about culinary school feeling like military training, becoming obsessed with Thomas Keller and Ferran Adrià, and then slowly realising pizza could be treated with the same seriousness as fine dining.
There are incredible stories throughout: consulting on pizza at Chiltern Firehouse before it opened, meeting Nuno Mendes and Patrick Powell, seeing Roberta’s completely change global pizza culture, and building Best Pizza during the wild early Williamsburg years of artists, hipsters and old Italian families living side by side. We get Frank’s thoughts on Dave Portnoy, hot honey, pizza dips, New York slice etiquette, why ketchup should never touch a hot dog after the age of 10, and the exact technique for folding and attacking a slice. Plus Ben cooks a full Sunday sauce for Frank on the studio floor — ribs, sausages, chops and meatballs included — while the conversation descends into debates about crust strategy, baguettes, greasy pepperoni cups and whether pizza should ever be taken too seriously at all.
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Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is a multi-award-winning British chef, writer, broadcaster and campaigner, best known as the creator of River Cottage. He joins the Go To Food podcast fresh from the release of his new book, High Fibre Heroes, before settling into a gloriously wide-ranging conversation full of stories from a life spent cooking, eating, questioning and occasionally causing national outrage.
Hugh looks back on childhood in Gloucestershire, learning to cook alongside his mother, helping make shepherd’s pie from leftover roast lamb, and later becoming the “pastry chef” for her 1970s dinner parties. He shares tales from Oxford dinner parties, smoked haddock obsessions, and his time at the River Cafe, where he made lemon tart for Rose Gray and secretly doubled the chocolate in Elizabeth David’s chocolate cake — only to be politely rumbled by Elizabeth David herself.
The conversation also revisits Hugh’s early television years, from Cook on the Wild Side to TV Dinners, including the infamous placenta pâté episode that earned an Ofcom complaint and became part of British food TV folklore. He reflects on the beginnings of River Cottage, moving from London to Dorset, learning from farmers, foragers and local characters, and building a world that helped change the way Britain thought about food, farming and self-sufficiency.
Along the way, there are stories of roadkill rumours, wild boar charcuterie, Gordon Ramsay’s pigs, Jamie Oliver, school food, restaurant culture, barbecue hogget, decorative garnishes, and why you should never put an oyster shell on mashed potato. Funny, thoughtful and occasionally surreal, this is Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall at his storytelling best.

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Order The Greatest Meat In The Country From HG Walter Here & Have Restaurant Quality Meals From Home - www.hgwalter.com
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Honey & Co founders Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich join us for a brilliant, chaotic and deeply honest conversation about food, marriage, restaurants, reinvention and the realities of building one of London’s best-loved hospitality groups.
From opening the original Honey & Co in 2012 without proper recipes, to turning family cooking, Middle Eastern flavours and sheer instinct into a restaurant empire spanning delis, restaurants, cookbooks, classes and podcasts, they tell the story of how it all began — and how it nearly broke them.
We get into the rebirth of Honey & Smoke, the closure of the deli, floods, wine, tablecloths, growing older with your customers, why London restaurants are having to change, and how they’ve built a business around care, quality and the refusal to cut corners.
Plus: childhood food memories in Israel, Ottolenghi, brutal old-school kitchens, the second-site nightmare, Greece, burrata backlash, banana hatred, vomit stories, legendary cheesecake and why hospitality needs to start respecting itself a lot more.
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Order Ben's Incredible Book - All You Can Eat - By Clicking Here - https://www.amazon.co.uk/All-You-Can-Eat-British/dp/1805221523

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Order The Greatest Meat In The Country From HG Walter Here & Have Restaurant Quality Meals From Home - www.hgwalter.com
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