Ep 31: Marcus Samuelsson

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Could I just get the rest of this podcast to take away, please?

Welcome to the Off Menu Podcast with me, Ed Gamble.

My name is James Haycaster.

There he is.

Good to see you.

Nice to see you, mate.

Ed, who we got coming in the restaurant today?

Oh, straight in, are we?

Well, I was wondering who we got coming.

I kind of think we're at the stage where we don't even need to explain that this is a dream restaurant.

We're going to...

We're going to tell them that we get the guests to pick their favourite ever start a main course dessert, side dish, and drink.

We don't need to tell them that.

that.

No need.

Today, also, we have an actual food professional chef.

Me?

Not you, James.

You're there anyway.

You're a given.

Okay.

We have the wonderful Marcus Samuelson in the restaurant.

He is head chef of Red Rooster in Harlem, and they have recently opened a Red Rooster in Shoreditch.

It's very exciting.

He's got such an interesting culinary history from where he was born in Ethiopia, brought up in Sweden, moved to America.

But we're going to cover all of that in the podcast.

He's a really

interesting guy.

However, Ed, I know he's a professional chef, but I have no qualms kicking him out if he mentions the secret ingredient.

And what is a secret ingredient this week, James?

Chia seeds.

Chia seeds.

They're weird.

They're weird and they puff up in your mouth and get stuck in between your teeth later on.

If you eat them like that, they get stuck in your teeth, but sometimes they put them in like pudding or something and they go all like frog spawn.

And that is unacceptable as far as I'm concerned.

In any of its forms, I don't like them.

I don't think they're necessary.

I know they're meant to be a superfood or something, but it's not worth it.

There are other superfoods in the world that are a lot nicer.

You may as well eat dirt.

Yeah,

it's like a rubbish superhero

in the NCU.

It's like

the falcon.

Exactly.

It's like the falcon.

It's the falcon of the superfoods.

Falcon's pretty good, man.

It is quite good now.

Hawkeye.

Yeah, it's a Hawkeye.

Cheer seeds are the Hawkeye of the foods.

It's the Hawkeye of the Superfoods.

All the other superfoods are are there absolutely nailing it and chia seeds are the little hawkeye.

So if Marcus Samuelson says chia seeds, he's out on his ear.

Quick shout out actually.

We've been sent some foods.

We've been sent some coffee.

I'm a coffee boy.

I love that from Independent Coffee Box sent us a lovely box of coffee beans.

I don't currently own a grinder and what a lot of people would do if they received a bag of coffee beans, they'd be like, oh I can't use these.

I'll give them someone with a coffee grinder.

Me, always looking for an opportunity to buy a new gadget.

Yeah.

I'm buying a bean grinder.

Good on you.

I won't be using them.

I gave up caffeine a few years ago.

And if you tell the story one more time,

you are going to get chucked out of the restaurant.

That's you.

You're cool.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the off menu of Marcus Samuelson.

Welcome, Marcus, to off menu, and indeed welcome to the Dream Restaurant.

Thank you very much.

Super happy to be be here.

Welcome Marcus to the Dream Restaurant.

Good to see you.

Was that the drum roll?

It was me coming out of my lamp.

But you are right.

I do have a drum kit this time.

For the first time I decided to bring drums into the equation.

I thought you'd appreciate it.

You know what I do appreciate that you guys went very mushy on me.

I see tablecloth here.

I see desserts and snacks over here.

Yeah, and this is genuine.

This is genuine as well.

Sometimes when people come into the dream restaurant, they like to imagine what they can see in front of them.

But our producer, the Great Bonito, has genuinely laid out white tablecloths for Marcus's arrival.

Which has never happened before.

Genuinely never happened.

And there's grapes.

Yeah.

You've got grapes and tablecloths.

We're surprised there's not like proper multi-candles all over the tables.

This is very good bonito.

I do appreciate the foreign linen and everything.

Very nice.

Yeah, very nice.

Do you consider employing the Great Bonito to furnish one of your restaurants for the decor?

Absolutely, absolutely.

Thank you for the ironing here, but it's like nice.

Yeah, yeah.

It's homely, I think.

Yeah.

It's very nice.

Fancy but homely.

Bit of a mix of the two.

I don't normally like a white tablecloth in a restaurant.

I'm going to put that out there.

It feels too fancy for me.

Tablecloth, can I just bring it up today?

Tablecloths are gone.

There's very few restaurants.

They're over.

They're over.

Benito, you've embarrassed us in front of Marcus.

Oh, right.

Then we need to go back.

Tablecloths are over, man.

They're basically gone.

They're basically gone.

But I appreciate it.

I see the nah.

That's easy.

Someone told me once, I don't know if this is true, that there was a law so that if you have tablecloths, you have to have a toilet

in a place of, so in a restaurant or a cafe or anything.

If there's tablecloths, there has to be a toilet.

If you don't have tablecloths, you don't have to have a toilet.

You know, I don't know about that, but I do know that people think about restaurant, they throw this term out, right?

But they actually don't know what the word restaurant means.

It means to restore community, right?

And then you have all these different levels of restaurant that you might not think about, like restaurants, proper restaurant, then you have have a brasserie there is more big bar and

certain selections of beer then you have bistro which is that corner and then obviously you have the a pub right so when people say i went to a restaurant last night as a chef i'm almost like what type of restaurant you know because essentially mcdonald's is a restaurant too right so this is a term that people say so quickly but they don't really think about about it.

And of course, as a chef, you just narrow down in this stuff.

So the restore community thing is that like what the word literally translates as

absolutely i never knew that i didn't know that either

and you i mean i try to think about that literally when in terms of in in harlem where my restaurant is and i i moved to harlem in new york i lived in midtown moved to harlem and i try to commit to hiring everything locally buying as much local as and that you eventually when you create jobs within the community right so we have music six nights a week or or comedy even as well so like we employ 70 musicians, you know, that's not a lot of restaurants that does that.

Wow, but it has you know because there's a lot of bands and all that stuff.

So it does impact, you know, the

the guy who washes the window, the guy who the person delivers the strawberries, we try to do as much as we can in the community.

So it does go back to that word.

Because a lot of your places when you read about a lot of your restaurants, all of them, uh, in the the short descriptions of them, always mention uh the f in terms of the food,

where they where they are, yeah, and like what what cultures you're pulling from and stuff like that.

And that seems to be the most important thing is

summing up the community and your food.

Yeah, I mean, I've had,

I cooked, I spent a lot of time to cook for the 1% of the 1%.

And it was like chasing this thing, like, I have to go to the three-star Mishlan, I have to work in this place.

And after you're doing that for a long time, you know, my mom was always in my head.

It's like, why do you only trust bankers?

You didn't grow up with bankers.

You grew up with like Ava, who worked at the post office

or teacher or some stuff like that.

And I was like, well, I have to.

And she's the other thing she always said, make something affordable, make something so we can go to it, like on an everyday basis.

So I was like, Mom, you don't know what I'm talking about.

I'm about to do this.

And then after 9-11, actually,

when I

was living in New York, you just like, I just re-jiggered my whole life.

It was such a, you know, like, what the hell is going on?

Right?

It was like crazy.

So it actually was a starting point for me to

move from Midtown to Harlem, rethink the whole value proposition.

And eight years later, I opened Red Rooster with a whole other, you know, more the way my mom actually said the restaurant should be.

And she came, she just passed away a year ago, but, but she did see the whole thing, and I really, it changed my life, you know, really changed my life.

When you made that change, was it...

Was it scared?

Did you feel like you were taking a risk?

I think I needed, you know,

I needed to do it.

As a creative, you have to transform yourself, right?

If you're not transforming yourself at some point, you're phoning it in.

And

at that point, I became an executive chef really young.

I reached all the stars, and I felt like, you know what?

I need to go in a different direction, not knowing what that different direction was, right?

So I think that it really prolonged my curiosity and love for cooking even longer.

You know, it's a weird way, like, I just had to do it, you know, transform it.

That's probably how the great Benito felt today when he decided to put the tablecloths out.

The tablecloths out.

Yeah, yeah.

I think that's exactly what he went through today.

He knew he had to progress creatively.

He knew it was a big, it was a big risk that you were taking today.

You thought, I'm going to do it.

I'm going to put the tablecloths out.

It's just

Marcus noticed it as soon as he walked in.

Comedians, very often, before you go out and do your biggest stuff, you do this.

You're testing your materials.

Yeah, right, for sure.

We do the same as Chef.

We do tons of pop-ups before, right?

Or we cook for our friends, right?

And

you know, one way I like that because you want to be prepped, but another way I don't like it because there's a little bit of a level of that,

you know, that there's an adrenaline rush that you want in cooking, right?

And

you want an anticipation,

you don't want everything to be perfection.

There's another perfection.

It's more a live, you know, it's more a live gig than it is a super-produced gig.

So finding that balance between this beautiful chaos that a great restaurant really is

when it's hitting on all cylinder versus this perfection where you don't know where to put the knife and the fork.

You know what I mean?

So creating that.

But I think there's kind of parallels there because I think quite a lot of comedians would say they come up with their best stuff, not when they're sitting down trying to think of it, but when they're on stage doing a big gig and it's a good audience, like that's when those things start firing.

Yeah.

And if it's, yeah, it must be a similar thing if you're sort of rushing around in a really busy service.

Yeah.

No, I think about a lot of the food.

I think about

right before I fall asleep and I take notes or when I flush them out when I travel more, right?

Because you actually have to say, I mean if I fly back to New York tomorrow, then I can actually, you know, sit and relook that idea.

What is that idea?

Like it's a note I want to hit.

And

I also think a lot of food from Africa because there is a

you know, so much of the food that we eat today came from Africa, but the authorship of that has been taken away.

So like you think about, oh, this is really good French coffee.

Like where in France is the coffee bean?

Or this Belgian chocolate is fantastic.

Like where in Brussels is the cocoa bean, right?

So the authorship of Africa and the aspirations always ripped out, right?

So it would be like, imagine like

Nigeria would own Microsoft and Google tomorrow.

Do you know what I mean?

That's an absurd idea, right?

But that's the same thing.

If you're in Ghana and you're farming cocoa beans, do you know what I mean?

So I think a lot about that as like, how do I reframe that and introduce original food from Africa in a way that

a London audience can eat it and get with it without it becoming headache because once you come to the restaurant you just want to have fun and be with your friends.

It's your our your job as a guest is gone by then right we just entertain you and you know

it's good then to it's still nice when you're I went to a place yesterday in Brixton Village

and I'd read about it online and it said all of the ingredients that they use are bought in the village about from the different fish buggers or shit like that.

So I was thinking about that all the way through the meal, and it was really nice and engaged at the end when I was playing the bell and said, Hey, I've heard, you know, it's all from the village here.

And they went, No.

Trust in line, we got you in.

We got you in.

Completely different experience.

And all I've been thinking about was, wow, this was like just, they bought it from right across the road from that local fish mugger.

Chef, no, no, kill that, sir.

It's like, it's really been working like, and then Antonio at 21 is like, no, it's not.

I don't know why you wrecked that.

I'm absolutely bullshit.

So you're like,

Thanks guys.

So here at the dream restaurant, nothing it doesn't have to be local, of course.

Because the genie the genie can get it from wherever the chart of the world, so everywhere's local.

Yeah, so wherever you want.

Can I tell you a couple of stories about that?

Sure.

That's right.

So when I was like in my mid-twenties, whatever, I I worked I went to the then considered the best restaurant by far in the world.

It's called um El Buyin, it's on the coast of Barcelona and Ferran Adria is our messi maradona.

He's like the god of this, right?

And he's like the brilliant genius, right?

And I'm like, I have my Spanish friend there, he's translating, and I've arrived, I'm talking to the master, right?

And he's like, are you from New York?

I said, yes.

Marcus, do you know Robert De Niro?

I was like, no, I don't.

But he's like, but you're from New York.

I was like,

I am.

And now I'm getting nervous because I don't really know how to answer.

It's like, I don't know, Robert De Niro, I like you.

I want to be here.

And then it's like, so do you know Madonna?

It's like, no,

no, there's two.

But I don't, so it's like, you don't live in New York.

It's like, Chef, I live in New York.

I'm like, I live in New York, but I don't know Madonna and I don't know Robert De Niro.

And then it's like, well, then it's like, no, don't pay no attention.

Then come back a little bit later.

If I'm going to open in New York and my translator's like, we're going back and forth.

I want Robert De Niro and Madonna's servers.

Can you make that happen?

And

fuck it.

I just want to leave.

And he's asking me about De Niro and Madonna.

Like, so that was the dream restaurant for me, but he didn't know.

Yeah, sure.

And then, like, 15 years later, we did take him out when he came to New York and we had dinner together.

I was like, don't bring up this De Niro Madonna.

But that was my God for Ron.

That was my God.

Well, since we're in the dream restaurant now, would you like to have your dinner with De Niro and Madonna?

I can sort that out for you.

I can tell you, I could,

you know, Robin De Nier comes to the restaurant now.

Oh, right.

I've told him this story.

He laughs.

And he loves coming to Red Rooster Harland because

we set it up so he can, you know, he can just hang out.

He doesn't have to worry about stuff.

Oh, that's great.

Did you immediately contact

how about this?

How do you like this?

I know De Niero now.

So we start the meal, as always, with a choice of still or sparkling water?

I'm going to go for a still, just very simple.

Will you always go for still or do you ever change it up depending on where you are, what the meal is?

Fizz is nice sometimes, so I like sparkling, but there's some like, I think I would go still.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Every now and then, if I need to wake up, like sparkling is a little bit better.

Oh, so that would be...

Would you start it in the morning?

Would you start the day with some sparkling water?

No, it's morning and afternoon when I get tired.

We have a big debate over this.

James thinks that sparkling water wakes the mouth up and cleans his teeth.

Yeah.

He does that.

He thinks that if the bubbles clean scum off the teeth, sometimes I wake up and I have a scummy mouth and it's horrible.

And if I'm in a hotel, there's often a bottle of still and a bottle of sparkling on the bedside.

You standing in fancy posh places.

I don't stay in places like that.

Me and Marcus get up in the morning and brush our teeth.

I never linked it to brushing your teeth.

I think they're brilliant.

I do brush my teeth afterwards.

I'd like to point that out.

But it's just a good first thing on the mouth, Some sparkling water straight away all over the scum.

And I've likened this to it before, but every time I dishwasher adverts, I showed a little tablet go in and all the bubbles go in and clean all the grime off all the dishes.

That's what you think about it.

That's what I think about every time I put the fizzy water in my mouth.

That all the bubbles are going in between all my teeth.

I don't know how scummy your mouth is in the morning.

I don't know what you're doing at night.

Oh, it's absolutely scummy.

I feel I'm sleepwalking and sleep eating.

Because

it is absolute scum fest in there when I wake up.

I like it.

I like that.

I've never thought about it from that point of view, but that's really smart.

Thank you.

Thank you.

It is smart.

You never thought you'd be called smart.

You tried a checkmate for that.

But I'm now a genius.

So unlucky.

Ice in the still water or just straight up?

Straight up.

Straight up.

Yeah.

No ice.

No citrus.

A citrus would be nice.

I don't like the ice.

It's just like it gets cuby and it gets like on your teeth.

Like it's a texture saying like no.

You don't like to crunch the ice.

What about crushed ice?

Crushed ice in a a cocktail is great yeah you know and you get that first second sip i mean so much about i mean again as a chef you overthink about this and i'm sorry to be no no that's that's what we're all

like

so much of what we can we can all taste the same thing right

sweet hot spicy umami sour bitter right we all have we can all taste that but how we taste it comes down to really

aesthetic right if something doesn't look right piece of bread fish you know but and then the aroma and then texture And texture is part of like a cocktail, right?

Like you have a glass of water, you have a cocktail, you have a big ice cube, ten minutes later, that cocktail still has that same flavor.

If you have bad ice cube, it's all watery, right?

So you can,

that's really how chefs go through their sauces.

What type of texture do you want?

What type of mouse will?

If you eat a dish like, let's say, sushi, right?

It's for me, it's all texture.

You know,

good fish is really fish fish dish with a little bit of rice, right?

But if that rice, perfect sushi should the rice should be warm, it should be small, and the fish should be the perfect balance between rice and fish.

And it's a texture dish.

If you eat too much rice, it just becomes chewing gum, right?

So texture is such a big part of how to enjoy and eat a dish.

Yeah, well I I've been with with the icing cocktails thing, absolutely,'cause like I I had a Bloody Mary that I'm on the le I'm on tour at the moment and uh at the moment I'm just trying to find uh where to get the best best Bloody Mary once on tour because you always have to choose a food or drink thing to kind of make the theme.

And

most Bloody Marys I've had have been good, but this one the other day had crushed ice in it and it was a revelation because it was so much better than all the ice cubes I've been having everywhere else because it was just like,

I didn't know what it was at the time, but now you said about the texture thing

makes me think that maybe it was that.

Are you a Bloody Mary guys with garnish?

Do you like the stuff that they've because now of course the trendy cocktail bars are all you like they put everything in jalapeno, shrimp, all of that stuff.

Do you like that or you don't like that?

Well, the best one I've had so far was with olives in it and olive brine in it as well.

Nice, and that was the best one I've had.

And it had thyme in it too.

It had the most amount of stuff I've had in.

You see most for your money, like

there was a lot in there, but like it was a good flavour.

That's the thing about

ice cubes.

Quite often I'm drinking a cocktail with ice cubes in it.

I'm thinking, you've just put these ice cubes in so there's less booze in it.

I love that's a paranoid one.

And my pen is, I love that.

I had a phenomenal cocktail a couple of nights ago at a place called Incognito near Carnaby Street.

And it was a gnori old-fashioned.

So they used like the seaweed in the old fashioned.

It was incredible.

But it had three ice cubes in it.

And it was in a little tiny glass.

And I thought, take those ice cubes out.

We could get another sip out of this.

Yep.

Oh, my God.

Do you feel like that sometimes?

Do you hear it's like a masterpiece, right?

They thought about salt, they thought about umame, they thought about all this.

He's like, hey, can you top it off a little bit?

I love it.

I am

a representation of a difficult customer, Marcus.

Poor guy.

He's got ever since.

Oh my god.

Come on, mate.

For it.

Come on, mate.

Come on, let's pop those ice cubes out and put a little bit more of the cocktail in, please.

Pop-dubs or bread.

Pop-dubs or bread, Marcus.

Pop-dubs or bread.

Pop-dum-dubs or bread.

Bread.

Bread.

Bread.

Definitely.

Yeah.

Bread.

Always bread?

Yeah.

I mean, I guess there's never an option really for problem absorbed, but you would always.

I love the whole idea of breaking bread.

And bread tells you also so much of where you are, right?

Like

I was born in Ethiopia, and our bread there is also a staple.

So like injera bread, we eat wheat with our hands.

I love that.

In that dipping that, so brown bread.

That is...

That bread is so, so staple.

We've had some good Ethiopian meals together.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Again, going back to Brixton Village, there's a place there, and

they get their...

I can't think of it.

Injera.

Injura.

They get the jelly bed ordered in.

And it's just so...

The first time I had it, it was just like...

It blew my mind.

I've never had any...

Texture again.

Never had anything that texture and the little sour note on it.

And you're right, it's from the ritual of ripping it and dipping it.

So that bread is probably the oldest bread in the world, right?

Because it was started...

thousands of years ago and it's a fermentation so it's teff that grows only in Ethiopia actually.

So you take the teff and then you put water into it and then it ferments for two days.

Then once you have that you can continue with it, right?

Then you cook it like a pancake, like a crepe basically, but you only cook it on one side.

That's why it gets so bubbly and the fermentation.

But you don't, if you flip it on both sides, then it gets crispy and then you can't break it.

So that is like the key to that and it comes down to fully breaking bread, right?

And it's one of those distinct things that if you've had Ethiopian food, you know that that's what you've had it with, right?

It's almost like eating a couscous from Morocco or something like that.

You know you've had Moroccan food.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, it's just a...

As soon as you have it, it's a revelation you want to find out where other Ethiopian restaurants are near you.

I think the first time I had it was in, I was in Amsterdam with my friend.

took me to this place and then I when I got home I was just looking for places where I have I love that like like it was really you you telling me that you really went to Amsterdam for the Ethiopian food we all know where you went to Amsterdam

good birthday.

Good.

I appreciate it.

After Ethiopian, I'll take it.

Take it.

Nice, nice.

Is that the kind of bread you would like for this meal?

Yeah.

Absolutely.

So we come to your starter now.

This is where the big guns start.

Can we talk about location first?

If you want to be a little bit more.

Yeah, because I want to be in the Ethiopian savannah.

I want to be where there's red clay.

And my restaurant's outdoor.

Yeah.

Because we all,

at least me,

I'm so happy when we eat outside, whether it's picnic or outdoor, like American barbecue, whatever it is, it's just like nice to sit outside, you know?

So we would be, I would, it would be a big party, a big block party outside,

and

the injera bread would come out, and then we have, you know, that's some good, good,

maybe bourbon or some good liquor, you know what I mean?

Just to get it going because everybody don't know each other, you know?

Are you having things frustrated with the bourbon?

Yeah, are you having things with the injera bread as well?

So you can get it up a bit.

do it.

There's a bunch of dip sauces, there's a little bit of chickpea puree, some lentils.

But then also, just to create a conversation there, there would be some herring.

Because I grew up on herring.

I grew up in Sweden.

And

just to watch the faces of people like, you know, Ethiopians eating like fermented Swedish herrings.

You're brilliant.

Brilliant.

It's like, you know, it's really like when you have kimchi the first time, right?

Like it's like so weird and strange.

That's what that Swedish herring would be.

Yeah.

You know, so you were born in Ethiopia.

Wh when did you move to Sweden?

When I was a kid, kid

three years

my my my sister and I we are turbaclosas and we were adopted to a Swedish family and then I so I really grew up in Sweden

and grew up right outside Gothenburg on a little island and a fishing village where my father was he became a geologist but he was really a fishing like he grew up as a fishing boy and that's his DNA that was his DNA right so going between these two worlds between like the fishing village versus the city that has been my life basically back and forth I saw I saw a recently set in Sweden, and they tried to make someone eat a hermen whole, and it looked quite

sure the film Midsummer is comparable to what Sweden's actually like, James.

Really?

Yeah.

I thought it was a good representation.

I mean, they have meals outdoors in that film.

They do have meals outdoors.

Have you seen Smithsonian?

I'm not, but I will go and check it out.

I mean, yeah, it's not.

I will not say it's representational of what Sweden is

actually offers.

What Marx has described,

they are outdoors and eating herrings.

I'm not sure if you're drinking.

Not in Ethiopia.

It's a good film, but I don't think it's a good idea.

The herring bit, you know, is very what they because it's like a horror film, basically.

And when they try and feed someone the herring hole, it is quite horrible to watch because it's during this moment where

everything's quite uncomfortable for her.

She's not sure she wants to be there.

And then they try and force feed her a herring hole down her throat while she's sitting there.

And she's a bit drugged up as well.

Damn.

So that's that's when you said that you'd had some herring beforehand, that's all I could think of and it makes me this is the scariest meal we've had so far.

You know,

it is interesting with herring and fish and bones and all that stuff.

So for example, if you've ever had Nigerian food, you know, the fufu, like the basically the mashed potato, right?

Like the fufu people eat.

And it's also called swallow, right?

So you take a piece of fufu, like think, imagine like mashed potatoes, right?

But it's done with, it can be done with plantains, it can be done with cassava, whatever, right?

And then they pour a stew on top of it, which has fish and bones in it and okra and all that stuff.

And you're, so you just dip that and you swallow.

You just swallow in one bite.

And the very first time you do that, like it's all bones, it's all that stuff.

And you're not supposed to kind of like, if you are like, you know,

going like this, it's a lot of bones and stuff like that.

You're like, dude, you got to go.

You got to go.

So the very first time I did that, I was like,

so I can relate to the bitch.

I was her.

Yeah, yeah.

But, you know, we were listening to Filakuti.

I was deep in Lagos.

And I wanted to be the cool guy.

So I was like, I'm going to do this.

bunch of fish bones in my throat.

It did not work out well for me.

And do you get better at eating that over time?

I did not.

Like, it's one of those things like you're there.

This is what everyone is doing.

And you're clearly the odd one out.

You know what I mean?

And you just have to accept it that end of the damn Swedish kid.

So already before we've even started your meal, you've established that

you've got Ethiopian bread and Swedish fish going on.

Is your starter

also following this pattern of places you've lived in, growing up in?

Yeah, I mean, I would go with,

I will start with something very like

ceviche, like a Peruvian fish, just clean and like, but just delicious with citrus and

just so people can just eat.

There is

something about what

people eat fish, like people always curious, can I eat this raw?

That's a question.

Yes, you can.

You know what I mean?

Like people drink a Coca-Cola with all kinds of shit in it.

Never question like, is this good for me?

There's fresh fish from the ocean.

Like, can I eat this raw?

I'm like, what are you talking about?

You're eating stuff out of a tube or jams.

So anyways, I will do that.

That's a good one.

And

yeah, yeah, we're outside and people will still pick up.

Quite a light, fresh start to the meal.

Yes, light, light, light.

And then, yeah, we'll definitely have

Swedish aquavits, so vodka with some toasted caraway seeds and maybe some

citrus and cucumber in it.

So you get that.

The cucumber makes it go down really, really nicely.

And we've already had some bourbon, so people are really getting to know bourbon now.

Yes.

A bit fuzzy now.

And it's is all mixed in with the ceviche or the butter.

I mean, like you want, that's clean and light.

And yeah, that would be fun.

Is there a place in particular you've had, like, just like this fresh fish that's been, the least sticks in your mind as being the best or the first time you had it?

I would say, I mean,

the way fish was treated when I worked in Japan, it's something I always think about how.

That is the moment where I would think about how can I replicate that?

The cutting of the fish the the treatment of everything how they hang it everything

but then I want very little on it I'm like salt lemon juice leave it alone yeah yeah just keep it so clean and that is probably today we consider maybe more Peruvian but like for me I love crude or ceviche or I grew up with gravel cured salmon but just less is more you know really good fish yeah is that I think that's a bit of a

I don't know as soon as you start eating more food or paying attention to what you like yeah that's when you start realizing that yeah the best stuff is the less stuff on it the better because I used to always on the menu I'd look for what's got when you

go for what's got the most amount of stuff on it I love all that stuff yeah

simple ones probably no but I I think it's all ingredient based too right so if you have an incredible piece of fish you don't want a lot on it you want a texture that is might be a little bit creamy so maybe you put a little bit of a card underneath and one piece of salted cucumber and that height that's the whole dish right so it's uh it's really stay stay out of it right like treat that fish and and then just a little support but then on the on the opposite end of the scale if you've got a if you've got a fish which is like full of bones and all of that then you want to put it in a stew where there's like it's part of another flavor yeah and make a curry choke it choke it exactly we're back to the swedish midsummer umia legos

yeah

no and and at least in legos i looked apart right?

I had the pants.

Sure.

I had my filacutti on.

I knew exactly how to do it.

But then when it came to swallow, I was like, is this kid adopted?

Is it switch?

And you got thrown out.

So, yeah, yeah.

That's a good, it's a good starter because you've gone light.

Too often I make the mistake of going into a restaurant and just going all guns blazing from the starter.

No.

Every time I go to, have you been to the Hawksmoor before?

It's like a steak restaurant.

There's a little chain of steak restaurants in London.

I think there's some in Manchester as well.

But they've got the best starter I've ever had, which is

pork belly, essentially, but it's pork belly ribs.

And they come out, they're two of them for a starter with the nicest sauce on them.

And every time I get that, I eat that, and I think, well, that's my meal done now.

Yeah,

there's so much delicious fat in it.

I'm like, I'm full, and I've just ordered a Tomahawk steak.

It was an absolute disaster.

I love it.

You ordered it so predictable.

I love it.

You are that guy.

Here we go.

Where is that guy?

He's here.

I love it.

I'm like, I'm full.

I'm full already.

Take that ice out of my cocktail.

Can I tell you, like, at this dinner party, though,

I would invite Arsene Wenger.

Okay.

I'm so, I'm an Arsenal fan, huge Arsenal fan.

I'm so miserable right now.

Yeah.

Right.

Because Arsenal is doing so bad.

Right.

And we don't even have an approach coming up to the season, right?

And every day is depressing because you go on your sports and it's like every day you see Manchester City buying a new player, or Liverpool buying a new player, or even United is getting the act together.

And Tottenham is now better than Arsenal, right?

Out of all places.

And I was like, I can't, I was like, I couldn't escape this shit.

It annoys me so much.

So I was like, oh, screw it.

And I don't want to fold in and just become a Manchester City fan.

You can't do that.

You can't do that.

You can't do that.

We don't know that much about football, but we know you can't do that.

We know you can't do that.

Beaver me and Ed, no, you can't do that.

So I don't know who knew that or whatever, right?

You just can't do that.

Yeah, yeah.

So what do you think I got?

Well, I was gone, I came back to my restaurant.

What do you think I got from my guys?

A brand new Manchester City shirt with my name on the back.

I was like, that's horrible.

So now I guess it is.

They'll be able to tell though.

It'd be like when you're eating that hair,

all the fish bones down your throat.

The Man City fans will be able to tell that you're an an Arsenal fan

if you try and start that.

But it's a little bit like restaurants, it's the same thing, like anything.

Like

everyone wanted to get Arsenal Wenger out, they got him out, and now they're just wishing he would come back because, like, it's the same with restaurant or content, whatever you go to.

It's like, it was always better back then.

No, it wasn't.

So, if Arsenal's at this big outdoor meal that you've got going on, what are you talking to him about?

Are you going to try and convince him to come back?

I just be like,

what happened, man?

I was like, it's a boy for 20 years,

and it's just like you have no idea how it is to be an Arsenal fan.

You're almost always there, but it's like you're swimming and you just can't quite get to the end.

And you've been in the pool for a long time now.

You just want to get to the finish line.

I love the idea of you inviting Arsen Venger to Ethiopia to come for a dinner party.

So excited, sitting outside, beautiful surroundings, and it's just you with a bottle of bourbon going, what happened, man?

What happened?

You and your friends calm down a little bit and what is that?

Well, you see.

He'll give you honest answers.

It's the start of it.

He's already had like his body weight and booze.

So

you're going to get some pretty honest answers.

I would invite Gaza.

He would definitely be.

He'd bring his own sandwiches as well.

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So we come to your main course.

Yes.

Now what I like so far is that your starter see a lot of people would be like oh I had this great thing somewhere else or somewhere someone would be like oh here's my vague favorite dish.

Yeah.

Because you're a chef you've basically created your

you've made your own starter day yeah so is that what we're doing with the main course as well no with the main course there's there's two stations there is a barbecue station where we're just roasting and it's you've been cooking it for all all day and that's as a chef you enjoy that you're setting up there's a smoke in the fire you have your bourbon and your your aquamit

and so and with that it's tons of vegetables that we just roast and grill and then the other part of it is actually a very traditional ethiopian thing where where you eat raw meat you You basically, I remember when my wife and I got married and we we we had a party in Ethiopia and all these like Westerns like Swedes and Americans came and you basically have a butcher station

where he just butchers the meat in front of you because most of the food in Ethiopia is vegetarian food.

So you only basically eat meat at big occasion.

So to seeing these like New Yorkers coming with their plate and these butchers carving raw meat and it's not like a tatar where it's like actually finely chopped.

It's actually a cube of raw beef right and it's such an obscure it's such a different way of eating totally and there you are dipping like a good you know like cube of raw beef and you're dipping it into a little bit of bare bread this spice plant right

and

Ethiopians love it because it's like oh we don't have meat that often and this is like a big deal but then I would love to see our senior dip and you know

it would be brilliant it would just be brilliant and is it a dish that, like, do you like the taste of it?

Is it something that you would look forward to?

So I like the other, the chopped version of that is called kitful, and it's like a beef tatar.

Yeah.

I love that version because you can swallow it.

They have to swallow it.

You can swallow it a little bit different.

The very first time I had the big cubes, I was like, what do I do with it?

And everybody else was just like eating this big rich, chewing on this big.

It's difficult, but that's also what's great with traveling, right?

It's so foreign to you.

And you're really really somewhere else, you know, and that would be cool.

So, you've gone for like opposite ends of the spectrum, something that would take a long time.

Yeah,

straight away, yeah.

And I gotta get the pork belly for my man, so that's what's all about.

There you go, and

you get tweeted at the bit.

That's what the game can come along.

Yeah, um, so what, what, so you say you're roasting vegetables and stuff on there?

What sort of vegetables are you going for?

Probably go for like, let's say, corn, um, a little bit of cabbage, like big things, you know what I mean?

Like, you just like get a little texture to it, and it's just lovely, like sweet corn, but with some, you know,

cabbage that you just glaze a little bit and put a little bit maybe of honey on it, something like that.

Nice.

Nice.

So we always talk, me and Ed watch

a TV show on Netflix called Barbecue Pit Masters.

Yeah.

Where people just, you know, competitive barbecue, basically.

And it's a lot about who's the best at barbecuing.

If you're like, because, you know, this is your dream meal.

I don't want you working.

I don't want you

having to do it yourself.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Of all the people in the world, all the pit masters you've met, all the people who do barbecue, who is it that you want manning that barbecue station?

That's my man, Rodney Scott.

He's the best barbecue guy in the world.

Tell us a bit about him.

No, Rodney is Rodney.

He is amazing.

His father actually started in Livingstone in South Carolina.

He's a mop guy, and you know, they smoke it all throughout the whole night.

Now he moved to Charleston.

But Rodney is amazing.

He is, every barbecue guy knows.

Like, Rodney is the guy you know he's there about his barbecue I mean

it takes a long time

he does it with pork you know it's South Carolina which has better fat content than than beef I would say my two favorite barbecues in the state is

LA barbecue in in Austin Texas done by these incredible women and then

and Rodney in South Carolina.

Right.

And I got to give the upper hand to my man Rodney.

Like Rodney cooks with me.

He comes to Harlem and cooks with me.

We put him outside.

He has his burbar, but a burberry and the whole community comes up.

And he's just there carving.

And we give away for it's just everything.

You just listen to great music and it's his night and you just step aside like, wow, this is special.

This is cool.

Yeah.

And is it, is it?

And so your

meal.

He's doing some pork, there's some beef, there's some raw beef.

Yeah, exactly.

He would not have to do anything with raw beef.

That would be like, I would like a real authentic Ethiopian butcher.

Quite don't know if he's going to stab you with it.

But it's like, you know,

it's brilliant, you know.

I probably have

someone like,

I wanted Mark Pierrot White there too.

Like the old,

the young Marc Pierrot.

You know, like, when I was coming up as a chef, right, there was, there was no, forget.

finding, I mean, it's before internet, right?

So it's like, there's no connectivity.

You have the French chefs, right?

And Paul Lucouse and all that stuff.

And all of a sudden you start to read about this guy from London.

Like he had long hair,

he smoked.

I was like, fuck, this is unbelievable.

And then one day, my sisters actually gave me this book called White Heat with a picture with him, long hair, cigarette.

I was like, this kid is just like 10 years older than me.

And for a black kid, it's like...

He's not French and he got long hair.

That was my level of diversity.

Like, if he can fucking do it, because he wasn't French

and it was a true eye-opener for me like oh fuck it if he sorry I'm cursing I'm sorry no no it's fine

so if he can do it I I you know I I that was a big eye-opener for me it was like it's really been three four people in the world that really for me opened you know the door for and changed everything for me I remember hearing Marco Pierwhite being interviewed once and it blew my mind because they were talking about like steak and dishes like that and then and he said said i never if i'm doing steak on a menu i never offer the diner the choice of how it should be cooked i'm the expert i'll tell you how it's gonna work

that is brilliant yeah what a bad boy yeah no i love and i um

i mean that book for me made me even more you know there's There's Charlie Trotter, he passed away, he's an American chef.

He changed the American food scene also.

Mark Pierre White, there's this lady, she just passed away, Leah Chase.

She just died

96 years old.

She just died like two months ago in New Orleans.

She set up a restaurant in the 40s, and it's still open.

And

she set up the restaurant in a time where black and white people couldn't eat together.

So for the first 15 years of having the restaurant open, she broke the law every day because she invited everybody.

All the musician came, Frank Sinatra, Miles Davis, everybody.

And then she really took risks to stay open.

All the things that we take for granted or like, you know what I mean?

Like she sat, you know, like she, she was arrested.

All our civil rights movements was planned in her basement.

So like people, so Leah has always been somebody that completely changed for me.

It's like I went there, I knew her, I cooked with her, and Charlie Trotter, again, it was this idea of you don't have to be French.

Like, you know, I was coming up that everyone was French, right?

And I was like, how do I, how does a, how does like a black Swede fit into this mix, right?

And looking at Mark Pierrot and looking at Charlie Trotter,

that was like, wow, this is,

you can actually do it.

And I remember I saved up enough money to go to, I think it was called Mirabelle at the time, Mark Pierre's high-end restaurant here.

You know, I liked to like borrow like a jacket and, you know, like waiters' pants on and all this stuff.

And I went there and it was horrible.

And it took, it was all the money I had, right?

And like, you know, they looked at, who's this guy?

Clearly, I couldn't afford wine.

It's like, forget that.

I was like, I'm here for the food.

And it wasn't horrible.

It was just like, you know, the kid that served me, right?

He

poured something on top of me right away.

Right.

And you could tell, like, he had no intention of cleaning me up.

He just looked over and made sure that he would not get yelled at.

I'm like 22.

This kid is maybe like 23.

He's looking at me.

If you don't say anything, I'm not going to get fired.

And I'm sitting there with sauce in my borrowed uncle's jacket.

And I'm like eating the whole meal through that and no one comes up and checks if I'm okay.

They're only making sure like Marquiero don't find out.

So that's not a good fun.

And I was so confused about like, is this fine dining?

But I am.

I surely pay that was fine.

This is a regime of terror because of one chef.

But it was still amazing.

And I, you know, I checked it off.

And I've had these epiphanies a bunch of, like, you know, when you have no money and you're a young chef, and anytime you have a little bit of money,

all you do is to go to that place and spend all your money.

It's just weird, you might work nine months to have one meal.

And one time I went to France to eat

at Alanda Casque, because I read

that

he served vegetarian tasting menu.

And I was like, whoa, you can have multi-course vegetarian meals?

I didn't believe it.

I was like, this is unbelievable.

Like, I have to go.

So, same jacket,

rolling into monte carlo by myself

and uh i had a vegetarian tasting menu at like 20 you know 23 broke again of course

but

this

it's unbelievable like it opens it's like hearing prince for the first time like you hear like the wedding band and then you hear prince like whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa what is this you know what i mean yep i went for a meal recently with my family and the waiter uh spilled just a load of stuff all over my dad uh But

he spilt it and the waiter immediately.

I've never seen a waiter react like this before.

I've seen waiters spill stuff, but he spilled all over my dad and then he immediately went, oh, fuck it out, look at that.

I went, all right, holy shit, that's all over you.

What happened to your dad?

My dad was just sat there with stuff on it.

And then eventually the guy was like, oh, do you want me to

clear that up?

My dad was like, yeah, if you could just give me a cloth or something, that'd be great.

So he got him the cloth.

But at the end of the meal, the same waiter, we were paying for it.

And the waiter went, wait a minute.

they should take that off!

Yeah, yes.

We actually did get money taken off the bill at the end, and the waiter said,

The waiter said to us at the end, yeah, I've taken that money off for those that those dishes were free.

Also, I just wondered if you could give me some tips.

I've just started on the Open Mic Comedy Circle, and

I was like,

Brilliant!

So, I

giving this guy tips, I was like, Well, first of all, I know you thought that joke was funny at the start of the meal, but no one else laughs, so you've got to really work on your own stuff.

Yeah, make sure that...

Slapstick doesn't really work in the clubs.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Don't go.

We're just like...

That's great.

That's brilliant.

That's really good.

I'm still checking out.

I'm still thinking about your dad and all of that stuff.

Also, that would be even funnier if you met his dad.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Best person for it to happen to you.

A very serious man, especially when the jokes on him.

He does not like it.

And that was bad.

Do you practice on your family when you guess what coming up?

Like with your sister or brothers?

No, not again.

I think I naturally have my brother and sister's sense of humor.

That's sometimes if my brother and sister come to see me, and there's some jokes in the set that have always been in the set, never really got laughs, and I've been like, but I keep them because I like them.

Yeah, they're great.

And then that night, my brother or sister is the only one I hear laughing, and I realize that's why it's in there.

But it is, it's interesting because I grew up in a family, I was the youngest, and my sister,

she was always more talented than me.

Like, whatever it was, right?

Even cooking, even to this day, like, I think about food and I have to go through it and emotion my sister can come up with shit right like in a different way and so you know when you tried out stuff you still have the dynamic of older and younger sisters so so she's like she's not a chef but i try out a dish she's like you know it's okay but

i'm like what are you talking about you don't know anything about this dish but then she actually we're in the summer house together right she does a version of it the next day i'm like fuck it's good

she's like naturally gifted and she's like

i don't know what you go on but my dad my dad will speak to me like he knows more about comedy than I do.

Because I think that's the thing with comedy as well, is that everyone thinks they're an expert because everyone's made someone laugh in the past.

Listen, that's cooking.

And I'm like, everyone thinks they can cook.

I'm like, you should just eat.

You should just eat.

I'm happy to fill that role.

I'll just eat.

Oh, my God.

My dad will always come to a show and go, yeah, it was a good show.

It's better than last year's.

And you're a little bit edgier this year, and I enjoyed that.

You're pushing.

Well done.

Oh, my God.

Ex-Dad is

crazy.

Is that fair enough?

Pretty crazy.

It would also be hilarious to drop a full tray of stuff on.

Oh, I'd love to see someone drop a full tray of stuff on your dad.

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Your side dish now.

We come to your side dish.

Nice, nice.

Now, you know, I'm quite excited because obviously you've got...

you've got this like barbecue there, raw meat there.

Maybe the start is going to be like the bridge between the two of them.

Maybe like, uh,

and then there is this guy, Fran Adria, who walks around asking if Robert De Niro is coming.

So, that's like,

if Robert De Niro is coming, who are you?

You know, he's also coming.

Your dad, with

you know, with the stuff, he's got to bring the stuff.

My dad was sitting in the splash, though.

Yeah, absolutely.

There's absolutely tidal waves of food over him for the whole time.

The daughter drops a whole cow on him.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Can I get more of that?

Look at hell, look at that.

Look at that shit.

You got a whole cow on you, mate.

Oh, my God.

Oh, yeah, he'll be there.

Oh, here we go.

Wait, my dad rarely gets invited to these dream restaurant meals, so this would be a good one for him.

I know he likes

that bread, so like he'd be happy to start with.

Absolutely.

So no, sides, I would probably just do a lot of the vegetables that are there.

And then maybe something like really simple, but like a good pasta, like a...

good nooki or something like that just like because it's it's always comforting to having something like that just like you know basting on potatoes maybe some roasted garlic and then adding in

good olive oil some almonds and just like garlic and

maybe a little bit of kale or greens just that's it knock you something that I've like probably only got into within the last like I don't know five years I've started eating it and like so I really like it but I'd say I wouldn't know what makes a good one so you can make we can go through it it's very like you you wanna you wanna roast the potato first you wanna start there right so they don't get mealy and watery so you just roast sweet potatoes or potatoes, just roast them until they're soft.

Then you scrape them out.

And then you add it.

You don't want them heavy.

So that comes down to don't use too much flour, right?

So this is your potatoes.

A little bit of olive oil, a little bit of flour, salt, maybe some nutmeg.

Same time as you roast the potatoes, maybe you roast two, three pieces of garlic as well.

So you just mash that up.

That's your noki.

So the key thing on something a noki gets heavy is because they have too much flour in it.

And so you just want a little bit of flour to bind it, maybe an egg yolk, just to tie it all together.

And that's your Noki.

And then you put a pan of water on, and you just blanch them really quickly.

You drop them in.

Once the water is brought to a boil, you lift them out.

And then you just put a hot pan on with olive oil or clarified butter.

And then you just sear the noki.

And then you add in a little bit of butter in the end, salt, pepper.

Done.

Do you know what?

I think that description there is going to be our most re-listened to section of the entire podcast we've ever done.

I think a lot of people are going to re-listen to that.

I'll be pausing it and doing that bit.

Rewinding it.

I've got a listener.

So it's a drink.

There's already been a few drinks.

Yes.

We've got there's some drinks rolling around.

Yeah, there's

two drinks that we're bringing in, and it is would be

there is a honey wine from Ethiopia called Tedge, which is basically looks like orange juice, but it's a honey wine

and has that super bright yellow.

And if you're not Ethiopian,

it's weird, right?

Because it has that fermentation, smells different,

but it's super delicious to drink.

And because it's so hot in Ethiopia, you're going to get hammered.

You don't think like this is, oh, it's just sipping the wine.

And I actually...

I drank, one of the first things I was lucky enough to travel with Anthony Brundin to Ethiopia.

Oh, wow.

One of the first things I did, we went to this all-honey wine bar.

And this is, this is, it's like a poor man's drink, right?

So it's like, imagine you're in a marketplace.

And Tony is just so amazing.

Like he, he loved, he doesn't want to stay at the hotel.

He doesn't want to be at any fancy stuff.

So one of my happiest memories with Tony is sitting in a honey wine bar with all these traders and workers and, you know, like just really rough place, right?

And he's just sipping down honey wine and, you know, we're getting hammered and we're just having a good time, you you know i mean so yeah for you as well with with meals so like because it uh this is probably the first meal we've had i might be wrong but where uh there's a point where it's like and now we get hammered yes

no one else have says said that so far i don't think i don't know because this is the thing there's what i was saying like for you does the meals get uh do they taste differently uh is it the experience like what what is it about uh drunk dining that is more appealing well i think uh dining a little bit um

version of intoxication, just you're outside in Ethiopia.

And there's will be dance, and there will be Ethiopian dance.

And if you're not coming from Ethiopia, if you're from Ethiopia, it's natural.

There's never a meal without dancing.

But for instance, I will bring a lot of like you lot, your dad is now there, right?

You will need

to be hammered to hang with Ethiopia, because it's all shoulder dancing, right?

Your dad will get stuck into that though.

Yeah, he will do it immediately.

You'll have to shake a shot.

Yeah, stuff will be great.

You'll be chicken bones for whatever.

Exactly.

So it's a lot of that.

And I just think

I actually just learned on the way over here.

I just learned a new English word.

What was the word you talked about?

Pucker.

I never heard that word word.

J.

Miller said before.

Yeah, that was the first thing.

Yeah, that's what we talked about.

And it's like puckered.

It's like, whoa, so I'm trying to throw that word in, but I don't know how to do it.

Really, the only Jay Miller uses it.

And the rest of us are.

And it was like an old, like, it is like an old Cockney term, right?

But then he used that.

that way.

So, how would you say?

So, I feel pucker today, or is this dick?

Jamie Oliver would use it like he'd eat something he's cooked, and he'd be like, oh yeah, that's pucker.

Oh, that's picked up.

You wouldn't maybe if someone said, How are you?

You wouldn't necessarily go, I'm pucker.

I'm pucker.

Hello.

Although,

I am an immigrant.

I am an immigrant.

I can actually do this.

Since you guys are throwing us all out now, anyway,

I can say pucker.

So I can say pucker, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Not if you're trying to stay.

That would be the worst.

Oh, my God.

If they were coming around going, Are you English?

You go, I'm pucker.

Yeah, that would be it.

I'm feeling pucker.

That's it.

Would you guys say this is a pucker show today?

Yeah, you could.

The show was pucker.

Yeah, yeah.

I think Jamie Oliver's say the show was pucker.

I mean, you could say someone's hair looks pucker, maybe.

He says it a lot.

He does say it a lot.

I didn't notice her.

I was like, this is brilliant when you can learn something.

Yeah, I don't even know if Jamie Oliver still says it.

Does he still say pucker, Jamie Oliver?

Was it just in the name of the chef day?

I just picked this word up today.

Thank you very much.

I'm going to continue.

You've got to take the torch.

With this Ethiopian accent, I'm saying pucker.

I'm throwing it in wherever I want.

Yeah, it's like if I come to America and just fuck getting off

saying hella and stuff.

These tablecloths, by the way, I know it's a podcast.

People aren't going to see it.

They're pucker.

These are some pucker tablecloths that the great Benito's laid out for us.

He said a pucker job.

So we've got some...

Pucker Ethiopian.

I realised that I told a lie there when I said that you're the only one who's like had, let's get drunk at the meal.

The only other person person is Tom Kerich.

Who's the other chef?

The other chef.

So maybe it's a chef thing, because they was also telling a lot of stories about chefs going out for meals, getting hammered every time and having meals together.

And there's that.

And maybe it comes back to what you were saying earlier about restoring the community.

It's like a sense of everyone together.

It's like being drunk brings everyone together a bit more.

Yeah, you you want it also chefs like you want it to be a little bit of a shit show, right?

Because it's good, it's delicious.

Like you like you watch you you think imagine you like

you go to a good concert it's always a fight somewhere right otherwise it's not really a concert like when I'm not talking about Carnegie Hall I'm talking like pit like this is people gonna have a great time so you want a little bit of that you want kind of your crazy uncle in the car I grew up with a drunk uncle an amazing man yeah he was my drunk uncle right

and he was always in fights yeah and my dad my parents were always like don't go with him so of course you go with him you realize like my uncle Tushin was brilliant because he he

realized he was the only adult I knew that never was allowed a car, right?

But when you're 11, you're like, oh, he bike, I bike, so I like my uncle better, right?

And it's like at four o'clock in the afternoon, he always had a nap, right?

And that's when

he gave us fish to sell, and that's how you picked up your own, your own, you know, your little pocket money.

And he was always,

always in...

semi-fights with people, always arguing about money or liquor or something like that.

But once he came back from his nap, he forgot everything what he was arguing about.

He went to the same people and we were biking and I met the whole fishing village through him, right?

And my mom was always like, is he even Toshtan?

And she was always so worried.

But it was the best time because, you know, he's like the talk of the town.

It's just like, so you need that when you have a dinner party.

Toshtan is definitely there.

Probably you're arguing with Arsene Wenger.

And Toshtan's probably like saying, like, you know what?

Screw Robert Nero.

I can be, I'm an actor too, or something like that.

Because he was in America.

You know, when you're a kid, you don't know if your uncle's aligned or not, right?

But for me, it was a big deal.

Like, my uncle had been to America.

I didn't know if he'd been there on vacation or he actually lived there.

Like, the story never finished because he was drunk all the time.

But he's like, I know someone that was a big deal.

Like, someone has been to the state.

You know, you're like, at 11, at least, I probably...

spoke more English than him.

But you never check your uncle who does that.

No.

So you need a little shit show.

Yeah, a little bit of drink.

You need someone stirring up.

So we're getting a bit drunk.

We've got the honey wine.

Yeah.

Did you say there was going to be another drink as well?

Yeah, it's this.

So we now have Swedish Aquavit, we have bourbon.

And then, of course, we need just a really nice beer.

Like

it's beer in Ethiopia called Tela.

And it's also, I love these type of alcohols where you have no idea.

Like when you're in the West, like...

5.4% alcohol.

Like in Ethiopia, there's not going to be anyone measuring how much alcohol it is.

And I love that.

And, you know, because people also don't always, in the countryside, they don't go into the cars.

They might have, they still have maybe a pony carriage or, you know, it doesn't mean anything.

Like, you can drink as much as you want.

So I would have Ethiopian tella, like Ethiopian beer.

And

it's almost like a...

It has sort of the feeling of a pale ale in a way, but it's more sour.

Okay.

Right?

It's homemade.

It's homemade.

And very often you have to take off, skim off the first layer.

Right there, there's some funk, right?

It's like a little bit like shoes and mushrooms.

But once you're a little bit more...

We can spray that off the top and flick it onto James's cash lap.

Oh,

no, fuck it.

No, look at that.

And you know what he was saying?

Like, pucker beer.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Pucker.

So, here we are, wish it faced.

Yes.

What's next, James?

The dessert's coming out.

The dessert, you know.

Which is my favourite course, by the way it is as a starter boy I like starter I'm a dessert yeah pork valley like you have your skin and bone like where do you put all this I'm not sure

I think I think my actual skin and bones are made of pudding yeah

that's what it is

oh that's brilliant

I would go there in Sweden going back to the midsummer movie

you know Sweden we have a dessert called princess cake right right so this asks all kinds of questions was it the princess who made it?

Why is it called?

So this is marshipon cake, green marshmallow, food coloring, like, you know, whipped cream.

So it's layers.

You have sponge cake, then raspberry, strawberry jam, and then you have a little bit of cream, and then you do this dome.

And it's when you're a kid, it's delicious, right?

It's so many layers and all that.

And it's so colorful as well.

And colorful.

Why is it green and all that shit?

So I would do like princess cake for everyone.

I think that would be a lot of fun.

And of course, it has to end up with a food fight in the end.

Just throwing.

Imagine Arsene Wenger's throwing princess cake at your dad.

It's like it's just a dad.

My dad's like by that point the only one who doesn't give a shit.

He's completely covered anyway.

The food fight starts.

He's just absolutely getting in there, getting revenge.

Amazing.

That would be a good restaurant.

Who makes the best princess cake?

In your lifetime, who's giving you the best?

Is it the grand one you had?

Yeah, my grandmother.

My grandma Helga.

she was a really good cook, but it's the way she took time to show me how to do it, right?

And I wouldn't be a chef.

I wouldn't be here talking to you guys

having these incredible tablecloths here if it wouldn't be for my grandmother Helga.

I wouldn't, honestly.

She was the one that's,

this is like different, but when I, when I, so I started to travel very young for cooking.

So I went to Japan and then to Switzerland and then to France and all that stuff.

And I remember back then, like, on Sundays, I called my grandmother and she first looked like, Mark is calling long distance.

Hang up.

I'm like, no, it's okay.

Like, I'm putting my coins in.

And I had to explain the food that we did.

Like, imagine, like, it's like minute by minute.

Like, here are the carrots, and the fish look like this.

And that was how we connected.

We really talked about, oh, what do you mean they have like tuna?

Is that the same as mackerel?

And it was purple.

And like, I had to describe everything that we did.

And it's it raw?

Like, how can that that be raw like it was like and that was one of my favorite conversations ever actually

uh and like you know you had like at that point maybe it was swiss francs or 20 swiss franc whatever and then it was just erupted and at the same time you have your grandfather in the back hang up there father

and there's back and forth between the two of them

and uh yeah and that was beautiful yeah

So let's read your order back to you, see if you're happy with it, see how you feel about it.

So water, you would like some still water to begin with.

You would like some injira bread from Ethiopia with some variety of dips.

Starter, you would like ceviche.

And you got vodka in the ceviche, and what else were you having in that?

We had bourbon at the same time.

We got bourbon.

We got bourbon.

We got bourbon already to drink, yeah.

Maine, you would like.

What bourbon, by the way?

I just want to

nail that down.

I mean, I think we will actually go a little bit like it would be a bourbon from Kentucky, and then I would actually put peanuts, caramelized peanuts in it that's a really cool like I'm glad I asked that question that sounds absolutely amazing in the bourbon yeah delicious your main course you have Roddy Scott man in the barbecue yeah and then you've got Marco Pierre White

cutting up some Ethiopian raw beef for people yeah screaming at people of course absolutely screaming at people smoking away yeah side dish you've got some knocking roasted with garlic almonds and kale your drinks you have Ethiopian honey wine and some teller yeah from

Ethiopian beer and dessert you have princess cake made by your grandmother.

Yeah, feel good about that.

That's a party.

That's a party

that I think, out of all the menus we've had,

that meal is a full journey as well.

It is.

It took us through that.

I feel the whole way there.

Yeah,

I think everyone was

sitting in the desert during that.

That was incredible.

Thank you so much, Marcus.

Thank you so much for having me.

It was a lot of fun.

See you guys in Shortitch.

Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

Yeah, that's perfect.

Puck of time.

A lot of words.

A lot of words.

That's awesome.

awesome.

Marcus Samuelson.

Scrumdally umptuous.

Oh, okay.

You didn't tell me you were going to say scrum diddly umptruous there.

That's how I felt.

That's how you felt?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was a great meal featuring things that I didn't even know were things.

Things I didn't know were things, people I didn't know were people.

It's the best sort of episode.

So many people at this big party in the desert.

I never would have thought on this podcast we'd have raw raw beef.

Raw beef.

Chunk of raw beef.

And like on the opposite end of the spectrum, some beef has been, or some pork has been cooked for ages.

Yeah.

Oh, I love it.

It's really fascinating, delicious-sounding menu.

Thank you very much, Marcus.

There's not a cheer seed in sight.

Thank the Lord for that because I was enjoying his company so much.

But if he'd said a cheer seed, he would have been out that window.

I would have felt so bad.

So sorry, Marcus.

Really glad that no cheer seeds popped up there.

If you like the cut of Marcus's gib, his restaurant, Red Rooster, Rooster is open in Shoreditch and if you like the sound of that you can go on to redroosterldn.com.

Check it out.

You can follow Marcus on Twitter at at Marcus Cooks.

Ed, can people follow you on Twitter?

Oh, they can at Gamble Comedy Mate.

What about you?

At James Acaster.

Yeah, so there you go.

You've got a full to fully follow this episode on Twitter, you can now.

Also, if you live in London and you feel like coming to see me do my final performance ever of my Blizzard show, I am doing the Shepherd's Bush Empire on December the 20th.

Very nice set.

The perfect way to kick off your Christmas holidays.

I should cocoa?

What's that mean?

I should say so.

Is that what?

Yeah.

Oh,

I should cocoa very much.

Yes.

So pop along to the Shabu Emps to come and see me December 20th.

Go on to my website, edgamble.co.uk, for information on tickets.

My book's just come out, Perfect Sound, Whatever.

It's about how 2016 is the greatest year for music of all time.

And may I say, I've read it and I loved it.

I'm thinking about me in the future now.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Because James won't send me a preview copy.

If you like this podcast and you haven't subscribed, what the hell are you playing at?

Subscribe on wherever you get your pod shops from.

The pod shop.

Go down to the pod shop.

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Lovely stuff.

Thank you so much for listening again.

Say goodbye, James.

Goodbye.

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Hello, I'm Carrie Ad.

I'm Sarah.

And we are the Weirdos Book Club podcast.

We are doing a very special live show as part of the London Podcast Festival.

The date is Thursday, 11th of September, the time is 7pm, and our special guest is the brilliant Alan Davies.

Tickets from kingsplace.co.uk.

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