ai fiori

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Our first twofer! Chef Michael White, the force behind Marea, Ai Fiori, Osteria Morini, and other modern classics, tells us how he morphed from an offensive tackle from Beloit, Wisconsin, into one of the best practitioners of Italian cuisine in the world. And Philip Tessier, a young veteran of the Thomas Keller Restaurant Group who won a long-coveted silver medal for the United States at the international Bocuse d'Or competition, takes us inside his triumph and talks about his beautiful new book Chasing Bocuse, which tells the story of the competition and the USA's decades-long road to the podium. Andrew coauthored Michael's cookbook Classico e Moderno and wrote his own book about the Bocuse d'Or, Knives at Dawn, so brings his own point of view to both of these interviews.

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW:

Andrew is a writer by trade. If you'd like to support him, there's no better way than by purchasing his most recent book, The Dish: The Lives and Labor Behind One Plate of Food (October 2023), about all the key people (in the restaurant, on farms, in delivery trucks, etc.) whose stories and work come together in a single restaurant dish.

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Thank you for listening—please don't hesitate to reach out with any feedback and/or suggestions!

At the top of today's Food Talk with Mike Colameco, Mike speaks with Chef Bill Telepan of Telepan Restaurant on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Since 2008, he has been the Executive Chef of Wellness in the Schools (WITS), a non-profit organization dedicated to making school food healthy. As the first chef to join the WITS team, Bill has served as a leader of the WITS Cook for Kids program by developing nutritious school menus, training cafeteria workers and teaching culinary and nutrition concepts to students, parents and teachers. In 2009, Bill was honored with a selection to First Lady Michelle Obama’s Chefs Move to School task force and preliminary conferences.

In the second half, Mike is joined in the studio by Hristo Zisovski, an Advanced Sommelier based in New York City. Hristo spent seven years as Chef Sommelier of the three Michelin-starred Jean Georges. Under his tenure, the restaurant received the 2010 James Beard Foundation Award for Outstanding Wine Service. In November 2010, Hristo joined the Altamarea Group at Ai Fiori, and in 2014 he was named one of Food & Wine’s Sommeliers of the Year.