Food & Wine has led the conversation around food, drinks, and hospitality in America and around the world since 1978. Tinfoil Swans continues that legacy with intimate, informative, surprising, and uplifting conversations with the biggest names in the culinary industry and beyond, sharing never-before-heard stories about the successes, struggles, and fork-in-the-road moments that made them who they are today. You'll hear from icons and innovators like Daniel Boulud, Padma Lakshmi, Tristen Epps, and Maneet Chauhan, going deep on their formative experiences, the dishes and meals that made them, their joys, doubts and dreams, and what's still on the menu ahead. Tune in for a feast that'll feed your brain and soul — and plenty of wisdom and quotable morsels to savor later. New episodes every Tuesday.
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Meherwan Irani and the Shocking Mozzarella
Tuesday, November 10, 2026 • Duration 57:36
Meherwan Irani used to skip school for street food. Now the chef behind the James Beard Award-winning Chai Pani, Spicewalla founder, and No. 1 Best Indian Cookbook in the World author is spilling secrets — including the ones aunties leave out of their recipes. He shares the culture shock of landing in Myrtle Beach, the uproar he faced over putting country ham in dal, the jugaad mindset, and why honoring a dish's history doesn’t mean cooking it the same way forever.
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Episode art courtesy of Food & Wine / Tim Robison
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Norma Listman, Saqib Keval, and the Magazines in the Bathroom
Tuesday, November 3, 2026 • Duration 01:01:22
Saqib Keval signed a promise not to date his collaborators. Norma Listman had other plans. The now-married chefs behind Mexico City’s Masala y Maíz share their love story, the family histories and cultural context in their food, and why restaurant workers deserve tech-industry perks. Plus, the Pay What You Can Global Restaurant Initiative founders get brutally honest about the challenges of taking care of themselves when work, home life, and principles compete.
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Episode art courtesy of Food & Wine / Ana Lorenzana
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Eric Ripert and the Beauty of Wrinkles
Tuesday, October 27, 2026 • Duration 56:48
Eric Ripert was throwing plates and losing staff when he realized the problem in his kitchen was him. The Le Bernardin chef and author of Mindful Cooking opens up about breaking the cycle of abuse in restaurants, coping with anxiety, and learning to appreciate his wrinkles. Plus, he delves into the mystery ingredient in his grandmother’s apple tart and the surprising emotional power of soup.
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Episode art courtesy of Food & Wine / Nigel Parry
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Ming-Na Wen and the Scent of Midnight Steak
Tuesday, October 20, 2026 • Duration 43:59
Ming-Na Wen plays indelible characters in the worlds of Marvel, Disney, and "Star Wars," but movie and TV stardom never got her out of clearing tables at her family's restaurant. The actor and self-described nerd opens up about trying to fit in as an immigrant kid in Pittsburgh, imagining herself as Han Solo, and the hospitality work that prepared her for Hollywood. She also shares how writing her new instantly bestselling cookbook, Have You Eaten Yet?, meant sharing family secrets and revisiting memories she'd spent years pushing aside.
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Episode art courtesy of Food & Wine / Riker Brothers
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Danny Meyer and the Chocolate Chip Cookie Personality Test
Tuesday, October 13, 2026 • Duration 54:40
The teenager who had a weed plant on his night table, and was waitlisted at his safety school probably wouldn’t recognize the beloved international restaurateur and bestselling author he is today. However, in his new book, What Could Possibly Go Right? — published 20 years after his influential hospitality manual, Setting the Table — Danny Meyer is ready to open up about the missteps and mess-ups along the way, including having crowed about never having had to close a restaurant. He shares what it meant to shut down the beloved Tabla, the fear he felt relinquishing day-to-day control as his hospitality group expanded, and what it feels like to be underestimated by the people who love you. He also delves into his very particular love of acronyms, why so-called “soft skills” are actually a tremendous source of strength, and that sacred moment when a hot pizza hits your table at a restaurant, and the rest of the world just melts away.
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Episode art courtesy of Food & Wine / Jeff Wojtasek
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Hasan Minhaj and the Struggle to Sit Still
Tuesday, October 6, 2026 • Duration 01:01:25
As a kid growing up in suburban California in the Lunchables generation, Peabody Award-winning comedian and director Hasan Minhaj dismissed the rajma chawal and dahi chawal his parents cooked at home. Now he craves those dishes, as well as the ritual of chai and commiseration he shared with his grandparents after dinner, and knows it’s up to him to keep that tradition alive for his own kids. He opens up about the teacher who found an outlet for his restless mind, why he wanted to bring the world of collegiate Bollywood dance to the screen in Best of the Best, and why he thinks his wife, Beena, could save him in a zombie apocalypse.
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Episode art courtesy of Food & Wine / Amir Hamja
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Telly Justice and the No-Talent Child
Tuesday, September 29, 2026 • Duration 01:03:04
Before Telly Justice became a Food & Wine Best New Chef and co-owner of HAGS, she played drums in a self-described "terrible grunge band" called Skaz at all-ages shows where her parents bought everyone pizza. She talks about stumbling into restaurant work through a crew of "punks, weirdos, and queer people," the radical mayonnaise that transformed her cooking, and building a restaurant where every diner receives a "distillate of pure care."
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Episode art courtesy of Food & Wine / Seth Caplan
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Malachy Duffy, Erika Adams, and the Secret History of Best New Chefs
Tuesday, September 22, 2026 • Duration 01:04:28
How did Food & Wine’s Best New Chefs go from an idea sparked by a chance lunch to one of the culinary world’s greatest honors? The award’s creator, former Food & Wine editor Malachy Duffy, and restaurant editor Erika Adams take you behind the scenes of nearly four decades of scouting, secret deliberations, surprising misses, hard-earned lessons, and the one year there were no Best New Chefs at all.
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Episode art courtesy of Food & Wine / Russell Maynard (Malachy Duffy) & Celina Colby (Erika Adams)
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Hunter Lewis, Erika Adams, and the Road to the 2026 Best New Chefs
Tuesday, September 15, 2026 • Duration 56:01
Food & Wine editor in chief Hunter Lewis, restaurant editor Erika Adams, and executive features editor Kat Kinsman go behind the scenes of the search for the 2026 Best New Chefs. They reveal what scouts look for in a standout meal, the “goosebump test” that can seal the deal, and the chefs and restaurants that made this year’s class unforgettable.
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Episode art courtesy of Food & Wine
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Lane Regan and the Beaver Sabotage
Tuesday, September 8, 2026 • Duration 01:01:06
Chef and writer Lane Regan left Chicago for the remote woods of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and built a life beyond their wildest dreams. They joined Tinfoil Swans for a conversation about sobriety, grief, gender, kitchen culture, finding softness as a leader, and creating Milkweed Inn at the end of nine miles of logging road. Plus: pigs, year-long ferments, and the beavers determined to make life interesting.
For more info visit: foodandwine.com/tinfoilswans
Episode art courtesy of Food & Wine / Lane Regan
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