Episodes

  • #325 Mirco Speri | Sincero

    #325 Mirco Speri | Sincero
    Oct 29 2025
    Sincero in Malvern is the second restaurant from chef Mirco Speri and the team behind Buono in Parkdale. While Buono captures the easy warmth of a bayside trattoria, Sincero brings a quieter confidence to Glenferrie Road. Open since April 2024, it’s already known for what Mirco calls Italian my way: familiar flavours, local produce, and the occasional twist; like seaweed inguine with Moreton Bay bugs and blood orange jelly. Mirco has spent three decades cooking around the world, from Michelin-starred kitchens in Europe to Melbourne’s evolving dining scene. At Sincero, that experience shows in food that feels both grounded and instinctive. He’s not chasing trends or nostalgia; he’s cooking with sincerity, curiosity, and the kind of calm assurance that only comes from doing something you truly love.
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    38 mins
  • #324 Anuj Sanghi | Bar Mercado

    #324 Anuj Sanghi | Bar Mercado
    Oct 27 2025
    Today I’m chatting with Anuj Sanghi, who’s opened Bar Mercado on Peel Street, right across from the Queen Victoria Market. The name Mercado means “market” in Spanish, and that’s really the heart of what Anuj has created, a place for people to gather, share food, drink, stories, and cultures. Every morning he walks over to the market to hand-pick his produce, chatting with the traders and letting what he finds inspire the day’s menu. The food at Bar Mercado is a vibrant mix of South American, Spanish and Latin flavours; think wood-fired chorizo with chimichurri, oysters with chilli and lime granita, slow-cooked lamb sandwiches and churros with dark chocolate. It’s not fine dining, but you can feel the finesse of someone who’s worked at places like Maha, Rockpool and Entrecôte. Anuj moved from Delhi to Melbourne to study at Le Cordon Bleu and never looked back. We talked about how his mum inspired his love of food, what he’s learned from his mentors, and how he’s building something that feels like community.
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    21 mins
  • #323 Harry Dhanjal | Atta

    #323 Harry Dhanjal | Atta
    Oct 26 2025
    Atta in Albert Park has quietly and confidently become one of Melbourne’s most enduring modern Indian restaurants. It’s been ten years since it opened, which is no small feat in this city, and behind it all is chef and owner Harry Dhanjal. Harry has spent that decade redefining how we think about Indian cuisine, balancing innovation and tradition, respecting the roots of each dish while bringing them to life in a contemporary, elegant way. Atta isn’t fusion, as Harry says, it’s modern Indian: thoughtful, beautiful, and deeply grounded in flavour and culture. We talked about the early days of Atta and what it took to get people to see Indian food differently, the fine line between innovation and tradition, and why for Harry, being a chef is as much about discipline and joy as it is about technique.
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    30 mins
  • #322 Ioannis Kasidokostas | Aegli

    #322 Ioannis Kasidokostas | Aegli
    Oct 12 2025
    When I walked into Aegli in South Melbourne, the first thing I noticed was the light: soft, golden, everywhere. Then I met Ioannis Kasidokostas, and it makes even more sense. Aegli was a goddess, Yanni tells me: elegant, dazzling, radiant, and that’s exactly what he’s built here. The space, the food, the feeling. Yanni doesn’t see hospitality as a job. He calls it a culture. It’s about philoxenia, the Greek art of making a stranger feel like they’ve come home. It’s there in how he talks about his team, the way he refuses to rush a service, and the stories woven through every dish. We talked about patience, trust, and what it means to build something that glows from the inside out. We talked about a raw prawn and nectarine dish that started as a lesson from his fisherman grandfather, a 90-day kopanisti that’s worth the wait, and a philosophy that Greek cuisine doesn’t need to reinvent itself, it just needs to remember where it came from. Aegli means light, but it’s also warmth. And I think that’s exactly what Yanni is serving. This was a wonderful conversation and I feel all the better for having met Yanni and chatted with him.
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    40 mins
  • #321 Rachel Miyazaki | Niji Sweets

    #321 Rachel Miyazaki | Niji Sweets
    Oct 4 2025
    Today I’m chatting with Rachel Miyazaki from Niji Sweets. If you’ve walked through Queen Vic Market lately, you might have stopped in your tracks at a stall that looks more like a jewellery counter than a lolly stand: trays of shimmering kohakutou, those jewel-like Japanese sweets that catch the light and your imagination all at once. Rachel trained as a pastry chef, working everywhere from LuxBite to Marvel Stadium, but with Niji Sweets she and her friend Yiying are doing something entirely different. We talked about how a childhood love of baking, a detour through computer studies, and a trip to Japan all converged on these edible crystals. From the patient, days-long process of crystallising agar to the thrill of seeing someone’s face light up when they bite through that crunchy shell into soft jelly, Rachel is bringing something rare and beautiful to Melbourne and I am very happy to have had the opportunity to sit down with her and hear all about it.
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    12 mins
  • #320 Luke Vu | Luke's Banh Mi

    #320 Luke Vu | Luke's Banh Mi
    Oct 2 2025
    When Luke’s Bánh Mì opened in the CBD, the response was extraordinary. Queues ran down Little Bourke Street, and more than 1,200 bánh mì were sold that first day. In fact, customers were averaging two or three each, so the real number was far higher. I went to the preview and then couldn’t resist coming back the very next day just to see it all unfold. I even filmed the line, and for the first time ever, something I posted went viral. But the real story is bigger than one opening. Luke Vu is a third-generation Vietnamese baker whose journey began in his family’s bakery in Ho Chi Minh City, with memories of wood-fired bread and early morning deliveries on his bike. After moving to Melbourne and completing a university degree, Luke still couldn’t shake the pull of the bakery. The lure of bread, pâté and pickles was too strong, and he soon set up his own shop, first in Reservoir, then in Moonee Ponds and South Melbourne, where the bánh mì quickly became local fixtures. That history, and the hard work behind every detail, made the leap into the city all the more powerful.
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    18 mins
  • #319 Julien Pascal & Julien Wurtlin | Babines

    #319 Julien Pascal & Julien Wurtlin | Babines
    Sep 29 2025
    Collingwood has no shortage of bars, but Babines stands out, thanks to the two Juliens behind it, Julien Pascal and Julien Wurtlin. When I first ducked in not long after they opened a year and a half ago (on the recommendation of a French friend, naturally), I was hooked: the cocktails, the anchovy toasts, the way the place already felt like it belonged. Since then, the pair have kept shaping and reshaping the space themselves into something great; renovations, late nights, a little trial and error. What started as a cocktail bar has grown into a neighbourhood dining room, where you can order salt cod fritters with that sharp little Caribbean sauce, or a Victorian hanger steak that rivals anything in France. The drinks list shifts with the seasons, equal parts French roots and Melbourne edge, and the late-night kitchen has made Babines a magnet for the industry crowd. I sat down with both Juliens to hear how they pulled it off: the DIY headaches, the Collingwood quirks, and why taking their time was the best decision they made.
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    43 mins
  • # 318 Sunny Gilbert | Oktoberfest at Hofbrauhaus

    # 318 Sunny Gilbert | Oktoberfest at Hofbrauhaus
    Sep 27 2025
    I’ve spoken to Sunny Gilbert at Melbourne’s Hofbrauhaus before and it was such a delight to catch up with him again, especially at this time of year. He’d just flown back from Munich, where Oktoberfest really is as big, loud and joyful as everyone says: ten beer tents, each crammed with 10,000 people, steins thudding on tables, bands lifting whole crowds onto benches. Back in Melbourne, at Hofbrauhaus, Sunny and his team are keeping that spirit alive all October: bigger bands, stronger beer, stein-holding contests, and plenty of schnitzel and knuckle to go around. Get your Dirndls and Lederhosen on and let’s go! Now, I have a spring head cold, so I apologise for my voice. I’d like to think it sounds resonant and alluring, but I am fairly certain it just sounds like I have a cold. The show must go on.
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    21 mins