Jon Favreau is impressed by our cacio e pepe gnocchi with broccoli & walnuts

Yes! Chef! Nick and Angela are joined by Jon Favreau for an episode packed with appreciation for great food, and the creativity and passion that goes into making it. Jon arrives in the kitchen in the middle of a gigantic world press tour to promote his new movie, The Mandalorian and Grogu, the latest adventure in the Star Wars universe. The film, of which Favreau is director, co-writer and producer, is out in cinemas this week and boasts an all-star cast including Pedro Pascal, Sigourney Weaver and Jeremy Allen White. Jon is well versed with the culinary world, most notably with his 2014 film Chef, where he played a cook who starts up his own food truck. In order to prepare for the role, he schooled up on a range of cooking techniques with long-term collaborator, the Korean-American chef Roy Choi. Jon’s passion for chef life also extended to him getting his own commercial kitchen fitted and working with Choi on The Chef Show, where he shared meals with celebrity guests including Gwyneth Paltrow and one of our faves, Tom Holland. Add those credentials to his back catalogue of film work, which includes Iron Man, The Jungle Book and Elf, and you have the ingredients for a top quality Dish guest. The episode’s meal is a request from Jon: a simple but perfect Cacio e pepe gnocchi with broccoli & walnuts, a creation he admires from the best spot in the kitchen. The wine pairing is a bottle of Broglia Gavi DOCG. Enjoy this one, food lovers, as Jon shares his joy for food with us all. We get to level up the Fast Food Quiz, hear about DJing for Mark Ronson, find a rare Favreau knowledge gap, and ‘the clean plate club’ is born. You can watch full episodes of Dish on YouTube and on Spotify. All recipes from this podcast can be found at waitrose.com/dishrecipes A transcript for this episode can be found at waitrose.com/dish If you want to get in touch with us about anything at all, contact [email protected] Dish from Waitrose is made by Cold Glass Productions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:30Speaker 01

  After Faye Fruits Yogurt, I'm never going back. So fruity, so thick, so gorgeous from the packet. Called Faye Fruits Yogurt. It's a smooth and fruity snack. Gimme, gimme that Faye. Passion fruit or strawberry flavour, my way. And taste the coconut, gimme that Faye. Go down the shops for this fruity snack after Faye Fruits Yogurt. There's no going back.

• 0:51Speaker 02

  Dish from Waitrose is a Cold Glass production. This podcast may contain some strong language and adult themes.

• 1:04Speaker 02

  Hello, welcome to Dish from Waitrose. I am Nick Grimshaw.

• 1:07Speaker 03

  And I'm Angela Hartnett.

• 1:08Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:08Speaker 03

  Indeed. How are you?

• 1:09Speaker 02

  I'm good, I'm good, I'm good. I'm all right.

• 1:11Speaker 03

  I'm good, I'm good, I'm good.

• 1:12Speaker 02

  I'm good. It's an affirmation. No, I'm all right. I'm good. I thought about you the other day because I know it's... Well, it was a few weeks ago now when I got into bed, and obviously I still go to bed early for the radio, and I was awoken by the sounds of

• 1:31Speaker 02

  So I live quite near Arsenal.

• 1:32Speaker 03

  Of course you do.

• 1:33Speaker 02

  So you can hear the games when they're on. And I love that feeling. Love it, like when you can hear it in the kitchen, like if Arsenal score. But then it was later, it was half 12 or something.

• 1:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:45Speaker 02

  And I could hear people singing because Arsenal were through to the

• 1:49Speaker 03

  Champions League.

• 1:50Speaker 02

  Champions League final.

• 1:51Speaker 03

  Indeed, we are.

• 1:52Speaker 02

  Are you gonna go?

• 1:53Speaker 03

  I would love to go, but unfortunately the tickets are astronomical. But if anyone out there listening to this now would like to take me, just give me a call.

• 2:00Speaker 02

  Just give us a call, please. Yeah, DM us if you've got a spare ticket.

• 2:04Speaker 03

  No, of course we won. We beat Atletico Madrid and it was fantastic, yeah. Last time I was there was with you, Mish's dad and Mish, and we watched the game. And you were obsessed with the banging, the drums.

• 2:16Speaker 02

  The drummer. What was he back?

• 2:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, he was there, he was back.

• 2:18Speaker 02

  I love him. Who is he? I loved him. He's there beating a full blown drum. How does he get it in? Does he bring it every week? Like, is he employed? Like, I've got so many questions. He's great. I love the drummer. I'd like him in here on a dual record. Then he wants a bit dry, he goes on. Gets everyone going. And my mum has got her World Cup this week.

• 2:43Speaker 03

  Chelsea Flower Show.

• 2:44Speaker 02

  Chelsea Flower Show.

• 2:45Speaker 03

  Of course, she loves it.

• 2:45Speaker 02

  Chelsea Flower Show, that is Eileen's World Cup.

• 2:47Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:48Speaker 02

  Will be attending.

• 2:49Speaker 03

  She loves it, yeah.

• 2:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, she starts talking about it in February, not joking. What we're gonna do, what time, what we're gonna wear, what do I think the weather's gonna be like? I'd like to do a dish.

• 3:00Speaker 03

  Podcast, be fun.

• 3:01Speaker 02

  From Chelsea Flower Show.

• 3:02Speaker 03

  And our own garden.

• 3:04Speaker 02

  And our own garden.

• 3:04Speaker 03

  What would you grow in our garden?

• 3:06Speaker 02

  I don't know, whatever you want.

• 3:07Speaker 03

  What about radishes?

• 3:08Speaker 02

  Radishes, because they're in season right now, aren't they?

• 3:10Speaker 03

  They are in season right now, there you go. Yeah?

• 3:13Speaker 02

  That was actually the first link we've ever done. Um, and there won't be another for another four years. Can I grow a radish? I do, I am actually trying to grow stuff at the moment. When I say trying to grow stuff, just thinking about it. Um, but I've been Googling what to grow.

• 3:28Speaker 03

  Have you got a rosemary plant in your garden?

• 3:29Speaker 02

  Yes, I've got herbs.

• 3:31Speaker 03

  Right.

• 3:31Speaker 02

  Oh, I do wanna grow a radish. My dad used to say that a radish makes a salad.

• 3:35Speaker 03

  Do you always put radish in your salad?

• 3:36Speaker 02

  Always, every time. And I think about my dad every time I cut a radish.

• 3:39Speaker 03

  Oh, that's nice, yeah.

• 3:41Speaker 02

  Because I used to hate them as a kid, because they're so peppery and all.

• 3:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, I love a radish.

• 3:44Speaker 02

  And now I love them.

• 3:45Speaker 03

  They're good, they're great in salads. They're also great, these are without their leaves. Normally they can have a big bunch of leaves and you can eat all the leaves. Never, if you get your radishes with a big bunch of leaves, just wash the leaves, you can eat all those.

• 3:57Speaker 02

  And just put them in a salad.

• 3:58Speaker 03

  Put them in a salad, they're perfect. Or I think, one thing I love, if you don't wanna make fresh mayonnaise, take some mayonnaise, chop up some anchovies really finely in it and you make a lovely little anchovy mayonnaise and you can dip the radishes in there. And I think that's delicious. Or a really old school way of doing it, which is with butter and salt.

• 4:16Speaker 02

  Celery salt.

• 4:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, or just plain salt or salt. So you dip it in the salt, you have a little bit of the butter and a nice bit of bread and perfect. But I think they're good also, is we're all supposed to eat more pickled and fermented fruit, they're great to pickle radishes. Pickle them, keep them in fruit. Good serve with cheese and stuff.

• 4:31Speaker 02

  They definitely feel like they are good for you.

• 4:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:33Speaker 02

  Don't they? Do you know what I mean? There's something about them that feels nourishing about radish.

• 4:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:37Speaker 02

  I love radish. Okay, well enough radishes.

• 4:39Speaker 03

  Enough.

• 4:39Speaker 02

  Let's talk about our guest that we have today.

• 4:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:42Speaker 02

  Jon Favreau is gonna be with us, who is a filmmaker, director, writer, actor. Jon is here today to talk about The Mandalorian and Grogu, which you saw yesterday.

• 4:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:54Speaker 02

  But Jon, we've all known him for directing loads of massive.

• 4:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 4:58Speaker 02

  Everything from like Elf to Iron Man, which was a sort of star of the Marvel Universe story.

• 5:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:04Speaker 02

  And he also stars in.

• 5:06Speaker 03

  Chef.

• 5:06Speaker 02

  Chef, yeah, but he stars in Iron Man as well.

• 5:08Speaker 03

  That's true.

• 5:09Speaker 02

  Men from Friends, he played Pete, Monica's billionaire boyfriend in that.

• 5:13Speaker 03

  Even in a Seinfeld episode back in the day.

• 5:15Speaker 02

  Yeah. He really has touched a lot of culture, Jon Favreau, hasn't he?

• 5:18Speaker 03

  Yeah. And he seems, from when you read our interviews from him and you listen to him, he seems genuinely like a top guy, you know? Yeah. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

• 5:27Speaker 02

  And he loves cooking, he does like his own cooking shows as well.

• 5:29Speaker 03

  Huge fan, yeah.

• 5:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's a great clip that you may well have seen that went viral where he is cooking with Gwyneth Paltrow.

• 5:35Speaker 03

  Mm.

• 5:35Speaker 02

  Gwyneth, of course, star of many a Marvel film, she's in like The Avengers, she's in Iron Man. And Jon is cooking with her and he's like, oh yeah, you know we're doing Spider-Man? And she's like, I'm not in Spider-Man. And Jon's like, you are in Spider-Man. And she's like, no, I'm not in Spider-Man. He's like, you are with Tom Holland. And she's like, right, yeah, I am in Spider-Man. No idea, imagine forgetting you're in Spider-Man.

• 5:58Speaker 03

  I can believe that.

• 5:59Speaker 02

  And but yes, so he enjoys cooking, even movie stars who can't remember when they worked together.

• 6:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, that must be fun.

• 6:04Speaker 02

  Well, should we get Jon in?

• 6:05Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 6:05Speaker 02

  Let's welcome Jon Favreau to the dish.

• 6:09Speaker 04

  Hello.

• 6:11Speaker 02

  Welcome.

• 6:11Speaker 04

  Pleasure.

• 6:12Speaker 02

  How are you?

• 6:13Speaker 04

  Great, keep your hands clean.

• 6:14Speaker 03

  Oh, my hands are clean.

• 6:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:16Speaker 03

  It's all lovely to have you, Jon.

• 6:18Speaker 04

  How are you?

• 6:18Speaker 03

  Chef's chat.

• 6:19Speaker 04

  Very good.

• 6:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly, yeah.

• 6:21Speaker 04

  Thanks for having me.

• 6:22Speaker 02

  My pleasure, welcome, come on through.

• 6:24Speaker 03

  Come in, come and sit down.

• 6:24Speaker 02

  We're gonna get you a drink. This is your gnocchi that you're about to.

• 6:27Speaker 04

  Oh, very, did you, did you just shape these yourself?

• 6:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, we did.

• 6:30Speaker 03

  Maybe this morning, yeah.

• 6:32Speaker 04

  Perfect finger size for, for gnocchi.

• 6:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, actually a little thumb size, though. When you did, I showed Nick once.

• 6:38Speaker 04

  Nick was eating it too?

• 6:39Speaker 02

  Not today, they didn't go, I, I didn't have to do it once.

• 6:41Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 6:42Speaker 02

  I did it once, never asked again.

• 6:43Speaker 04

  It takes a lifetime.

• 6:44Speaker 02

  Never again, it's that late.

• 6:48Speaker 02

  Should we welcome our guest now?

• 6:49Speaker 03

  Yes, we should.

• 6:50Speaker 02

  Let's do this. We have a really multi-talented man with us today. The recipe, I feel, for a great dish guest, you know. Here to talk about the latest adventure in the Star Wars universe, but also he is the writer, director and star of the film, chef.

• 7:04Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 7:05Speaker 02

  So he knows what he's talking about here. Please, a round of applause for Jon Favreau, everybody.

• 7:09Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 7:10Speaker 02

  Hello.

• 7:11Speaker 04

  Hello.

• 7:12Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 7:13Speaker 03

  Welcome.

• 7:14Speaker 02

  Welcome, Jon.

• 7:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, good to have you with us.

• 7:17Speaker 04

  Oh, my pleasure. I'm very excited for this.

• 7:19Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, thank you for being with us. How are you? How is life for you at the moment?

• 7:23Speaker 04

  I'm fantastic. And also, this is one of the few times when I'm arriving here already acclimated to the time zone.

• 7:29Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 7:30Speaker 04

  Because I've worked my way around the world, from the west to the east, and so I'm completely acclimated to the European time zones. Yes. Often it gets a little surreal when you're... You may notice it when you have people coming from across the pond, they land here and they give answers that don't seem coherent. It's usually because of jet lag.

• 7:52Speaker 03

  Or the drink we've given them.

• 7:53Speaker 04

  Well, that's who you're...

• 7:54Speaker 03

  Either or, yeah.

• 7:55Speaker 02

  It's a powerful combination, jet lag.

• 7:57Speaker 04

  But jet lag and being pissed are very similar.

• 7:59Speaker 03

  It is true, actually, yeah.

• 8:01Speaker 02

  Well, there's so much to talk about today, but I think we should start by saying cheers.

• 8:05Speaker 04

  Cheers.

• 8:06Speaker 02

  We're gonna have this sort of non-alcoholic spritz to start.

• 8:08Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 8:09Speaker 02

  Cheers, Jon.

• 8:10Speaker 03

  Cheers.

• 8:11Speaker 02

  To kick off the proceedings.

• 8:12Speaker 04

  By the way, can I admire the ice in there? This is not something, your typical ice cube, can you tell me? Is this something that you froze yourself, or was this sculpted by a bartender?

• 8:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, it was our own recipe, actually, Jon. And yeah, it's just a giant ice cube.

• 8:28Speaker 04

  Which is what you need.

• 8:29Speaker 03

  And water.

• 8:30Speaker 04

  Make a home. But it's all about technique, isn't it, Jon?

• 8:32Speaker 02

  It's all about technique, right?

• 8:33Speaker 03

  You see, I like a giant ice cube.

• 8:35Speaker 04

  Same.

• 8:36Speaker 03

  But sometimes you talk to Bum, and they're like, no, it sort of waters down the drink, but not for me. I like that.

• 8:41Speaker 04

  I would say, as somebody who used to be a bartender, I'd say less so, because less surface area.

• 8:45Speaker 03

  Exactly, yeah.

• 8:46Speaker 02

  It's a good ice cube.

• 8:47Speaker 03

  Good ice cube.

• 8:48Speaker 02

  Thank you, Jon. That was my contribution.

• 8:50Speaker 04

  Hey, you're well done.

• 8:51Speaker 02

  To what we're gonna be having.

• 8:52Speaker 04

  Well done, so we're one for one.

• 8:53Speaker 03

  We're on the way.

• 8:54Speaker 04

  This is a good one. I gotta get my publicist to raise, as he has. Way to go.

• 8:59Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 9:00Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 9:01Speaker 02

  But yeah, you are in this sort of this whirlwind of launching this huge movie around the world. And you know, I was just chatting to your team and you were like, they were just saying it's like week two.

• 9:11Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 9:11Speaker 02

  Of going around the world and doing things like this. Do you ever get time to be off and enjoy food and go out for dinner?

• 9:18Speaker 04

  Yes, we definitely build in some time. I learned that the first time I traveled around was promoting was with Robert Downey Jr. were promoting the first Iron Man film. And he said, let's build in a few days, let's fly the wives out. And we stopped in Paris and we stayed at the Bristol. And it was lovely and it was really nice. And I, you know, you're in work mode and then you get to really enjoy the local cuisine, the people, travel about. So, yeah, we built in this time, we built in a little bit of break in Madrid, which was wonderful. We spent a lot of time in Mexico City. And these are great food cities too. And when I'm at home, I don't go out to eat much, but when I'm on the road, I feel like I have to, there's certain things I have to try. And I have to say this has been, the food, food is, seems to be getting better everywhere.

• 10:01Speaker 04

  I don't know if it's because of global culture or the internet or chefs traveling back and forth, but I have to say every, every town that I've been in have had delightful, delightful meals, yeah. I've seen London specifically has gone, has become like a culinary capital of the world. When I was first here around the time we were, I was at a part in a movie called Wimbledon. And there were less, less choices. There was a few standouts, but you had to seek it out here. There's so many, and not just, not just British cuisine, but international cuisine that has, you know, the, I think people are, are more open to different, different culinary traditions from different parts of the world and appreciating it. And I think that's also from the information age. And I think also people are communicating more.

• 10:44Speaker 04

  And rewarding good service, good, good, good food. So you could look up, you could go on like, I don't know, like the Infatuation, a great, great website that Chef Roy Choi, who I work with, he turned me on to it. So every city we go to, or my kids who are in their twenties, they're very comfortable looking and searching things out. So any place we go, we'll find these amazing restaurants, even if you don't know anybody locally, you could seek it out. You used to have to have a friend that would bring you, you know. Tip you off. Well, now it's ubiquitous.

• 11:12Speaker 03

  Now you seek it that no one else knows. That's the real thing. You wanna find something no one knows. You can keep it. Everyone shares.

• 11:19Speaker 02

  How do you feel about that? Because I know I I saw an interview recently that Tyler, the creator did. One of the questions in the interview was, you know, what are your spots? What are your secret places? He was like, I'm gatekeeping my favorite places. Because obviously everyone shares things and then, you know, your your neighborhood restaurant can go like viral on TikTok. And you can't get in.

• 11:39Speaker 03

  I know. Well, no, we did a show. There's a tiny place if you're next in Venice and you may well have been. Called Altestieri, which is tiny, twenty four seats, run by Bruno and Luca. And every time I see someone who used to go there, they come up and they go, it's your fault. We can't get in now. You've ruined it for them. You've ruined it. And I said, well, listen, Luca and Bruno didn't need to say yes. And also, they need to fill every seat every day. Cause they're twenty four covers. That's all they have. And if a table of two don't turn up, that is big money to them to lose. So.

• 12:08Speaker 04

  Well, it's interesting because the business model of, you know, of of restaurants is that you, the margins are so slim. You have to have every seat filled. And the internet has been, I think they had had impact on a few different trades. I think a restaurant's one of them where you could actually make a difference. In the old days, a movie, the internet couldn't really make you hit if you weren't a hit. But if you were selling seats to a comedy show or you had a restaurant or a pop up or a food truck, you can, the internet could get you off the ground. That's what the movie Chef kinda was about. That was around oh eight. Now I think everything's changed. Now I'm seeing that the publicity that I'm doing now has flipped.

• 12:48Speaker 04

  Now it's all about either influencers or people who have a small but loyal audience is important. That that's more than a general trying to do a talk show that a lot of people are casually watching. You don't get the same impact as you do if you do a podcast or a show where you have a dedicated audience who's gonna really listen and lean in. Yeah.

• 13:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, totally.

• 13:10Speaker 03

  Very true.

• 13:11Speaker 02

  Hey, you mentioned chef there and we mentioned it at the start of our chat. After you did that, we we heard that you installed a proper. What do they call it, industrial kitchen? Yeah.

• 13:20Speaker 03

  Professional kitchen, yeah.

• 13:22Speaker 02

  Professional kitchen was installed.

• 13:23Speaker 04

  Well, if you saw the chef's show, which we ended up doing, which is still on Netflix. We did it a few years back. You could see what it was, but I fell in love with visual. And I still can't remember opening cabinets, what's where. I love open shelving. I love having a big kitchen. And the big thing that is the game changer that people don't really appreciate is a good hood. To have good ventilation in a kitchen. And then you have a central table. And I find that it's a great way to have a communal experience with friends. Because a lot of people that I know and deal with, people in my family, friends, they're not all in the same field. There's not a lot of overlap of what to talk about.

• 14:05Speaker 04

  But when you're cooking together, and as long as somebody wants to cook, you figure out who has the skills and the experience. And you work together as a team. Even if somebody's like, hey, I don't know how to cook. You're like, okay, here, prep this. And you give them, it's just like in a restaurant.

• 14:19Speaker 03

  Very democratic, isn't it?

• 14:20Speaker 04

  It is. So it's like, hey, do this right, you know? But even if it's picking parsley, even if it's preparing the mises for the mirepoix, you know? You show them what it is and they're learning as they're going. And then together you make this meal. Then you present that meal to the rest of the guests and you all feel like you shared this experience. I think it's a great way to spend time together.

• 14:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, I love that idea. John, you did that. You pitched that perfectly.

• 14:43Speaker 03

  You can see everyone around the station.

• 14:45Speaker 02

  But I'm so, I'm so tired and such a stress head in the kitchen.

• 14:49Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 14:49Speaker 02

  I'm like, get out.

• 14:51Speaker 04

  Now, do you clean as you go or do you have a mess when you're done?

• 14:54Speaker 02

  I have a mess when I'm done, but Meesh, my boyfriend, hates to cook, but he loves to clean.

• 14:58Speaker 04

  Oh, okay.

• 14:58Speaker 02

  So we are the dream team. We could open a restaurant. We've got it down.

• 15:02Speaker 04

  Oh, because I've seen, I could tell a chef because they're, it's as clean when they leave the kitchen or when they get there. They're always cleaning their station. Organization, there's a, that was one of the things, because I had to play a chef. So a lot of it was Roy Choi teaching me the way a chef thinks more than, you know, so that comes down to everything from seasoning to how you treat your station, to where you put your towel, where the knife goes, all of those things. And so some of it's technique that we learn in culinary training, which is your knife cuts and your mother sauces and all that, but. A lot of it is a disposition, a lot of it's an attitude.

• 15:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:42Speaker 04

  And a lot of it's about organisation.

• 15:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:44Speaker 04

  I noticed that there's a certain, you know, the way you cut the tape for the labels, the way you label things.

• 15:49Speaker 03

  There's quite a bit of OCD, I think, with a lot of it, yeah.

• 15:52Speaker 02

  Do you run a clean station? Are you quite strict on it?

• 15:54Speaker 03

  At work, yeah.

• 15:55Speaker 02

  At work?

• 15:56Speaker 03

  You know, that's where the olive oil lives. And it lives there every day, it doesn't change. The salt lives next to it, the pepper's behind it, the spoons are there. And I like nothing more than if I'm coming in on a later shift.

• 16:07Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 16:07Speaker 03

  And I just walk onto the service, there's my cloth, my apron, my spoons, they've got it all laid out.

• 16:12Speaker 04

  Are there rituals that you still like to do on your own? Do you sharpen your own knives? Do you?

• 16:17Speaker 03

  Uh, well, I get my husband's sharp.

• 16:18Speaker 04

  I see. Well, he's a chef as well.

• 16:20Speaker 02

  He knows.

• 16:21Speaker 03

  But I have a weird one, I need to just go to the bathroom and see my teeth. I like to have a clean mouth.

• 16:26Speaker 04

  Oh, good.

• 16:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, I do, people, I do it just to make, and it gives me a-

• 16:30Speaker 04

  I'm looking forward to this meal. What do you do?

• 16:33Speaker 02

  It's a toothpaste.

• 16:35Speaker 03

  Flavor knocking. Nobody needs five minutes of quiet time, you know. It's just getting out of the kitchen to get your head clear.

• 16:41Speaker 02

  No, but you know what, that is a good, Annie Nightingale, the legendary radio host. When I started doing radio, that's one of the things she told me. She said, no matter what time your radio show is, you should brush your teeth.

• 16:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:52Speaker 02

  It's like a new start.

• 16:53Speaker 04

  Oh, it's like, well, we have a tradition. There's a trick that I learned from the assistant directors.

• 16:58Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 16:59Speaker 04

  Is you always change your socks at lunch. It sounds like nothing.

• 17:04Speaker 02

  On set?

• 17:05Speaker 04

  Like, yes, when you work half a day, you break for lunch.

• 17:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:08Speaker 04

  Change your socks.

• 17:08Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 17:09Speaker 04

  And then second half of the day, it's like you're walking, it's like you just had a night's sleep.

• 17:13Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 17:14Speaker 04

  You think I'm kidding?

• 17:15Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 17:16Speaker 04

  Try it.

• 17:16Speaker 02

  I'm gonna do that, John.

• 17:17Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 17:18Speaker 02

  I might change mid-interview.

• 17:19Speaker 04

  Do it.

• 17:21Speaker 03

  On that note, I'm gonna make you some food.

• 17:23Speaker 02

  I love that. I love that idea.

• 17:25Speaker 04

  Do it when we're, when I'm putting cheese on the pasta.

• 17:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:27Speaker 04

  That would be great.

• 17:28Speaker 02

  Excuse me, John. I wanted to talk to you about cooking for guests as well.

• 17:33Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 17:33Speaker 02

  And, you know, like you have done on the chef show on Netflix.

• 17:35Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 17:36Speaker 02

  It was much like this, it's chatting and it's food. And you also cooked for, like, we did right here in this very room for Tom Holland.

• 17:43Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 17:44Speaker 02

  And Tom Holland had his first oyster with you.

• 17:46Speaker 04

  He did, and we were, in all fairness, that was an episode where- We were in Atlanta when we're filming, um, we were filming Spider-Man. Or maybe it might have even been, I, they get, I get confused. Gwyneth, by the way, Gwyneth didn't remember that she was even in Spider-Man.

• 17:58Speaker 02

  I loved the Gwyneth bit.

• 18:00Speaker 04

  But I think it was, it was Avengers when we were meeting with Tom. But I forget, cause sometimes we film them similarly. But yes, we were having, uh, we were actually having a meal at a restaurant together with the cast. And we offered him his first oyster. He had his first oyster. He's, by the way, I don't know what your experience here was like. I've known the guy for years. I've been in Avengers films, Spider-Man movies with him. Has not changed one bit. Sweetest guy you've ever met. And I'm so happy things are going so well for him. And he was an open-minded, delightful guy, funny, humble and open to. And look, anybody's gonna try an oyster for the first time as an adult, gets a lot of respect from me.

• 18:36Speaker 02

  Do you know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we had the best time with him. He was really great.

• 18:40Speaker 04

  He was really. He loves food, too.

• 18:41Speaker 02

  He loves food, yeah. What was his favorite thing again, Ange?

• 18:45Speaker 03

  You know what it is. Well, we did a roast lunch.

• 18:48Speaker 02

  It was Christmas.

• 18:49Speaker 03

  It was Christmas.

• 18:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, it was Christmas.

• 18:51Speaker 03

  And we have a thing you don't necessarily have. I don't know if you have. I've, I've go to a lot of Thanksgivings, but we call them pigs in blankets.

• 18:56Speaker 04

  Oh, sure.

• 18:57Speaker 03

  But it's a big tradition and I forgot about them and served them burnt ones. Well, you know, that's.

• 19:02Speaker 04

  I love to watch what you're doing. I know, I know on your show. Do you mind if I stand and watch? Cause I learned by watching. What are we doing here?

• 19:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, come on, Ange.

• 19:11Speaker 04

  What are we doing here?

• 19:12Speaker 03

  Oh, this is the pressure now. So we're doing cacio e pepe.

• 19:15Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 19:15Speaker 03

  And so what I've, a friend of mine does a technique where she basically puts the cheese with a little bit of, um, cooking water already.

• 19:22Speaker 04

  Gran a padano?

• 19:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, so you've got the pecorino and a bit of Parmesan.

• 19:26Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 19:26Speaker 03

  With the, um.

• 19:28Speaker 04

  Now, is that pasta water?

• 19:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's a little bit of the pasta water.

• 19:31Speaker 04

  And you've cooked pasta in here already?

• 19:33Speaker 03

  Cooked their pasta in there already because we need to have, as you know, the starch and the gluten.

• 19:38Speaker 04

  Yes, of course.

• 19:39Speaker 03

  To sort of make it thick. So that's now.

• 19:40Speaker 04

  That's the magic ingredient. By the end of the night in the kitchen, in a professional kitchen, I hear the pasta water gets really magical.

• 19:46Speaker 03

  Thick and, yeah.

• 19:46Speaker 04

  Yes, it's like a slurry.

• 19:48Speaker 03

  And we're gonna heat it so that.

• 19:49Speaker 02

  I do like your jacket, John.

• 19:51Speaker 04

  That's the, that's the chef touch, by the way.

• 19:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:53Speaker 04

  Heating the, uh, heating the, the, the plates.

• 19:56Speaker 03

  So we're gonna slightly warm this pan.

• 19:58Speaker 04

  So I missed the technique. technique part, which is the shaping of the pasta.

• 20:01Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 20:01Speaker 04

  I'll have to tune in.

• 20:02Speaker 02

  We definitely got a video of that.

• 20:04Speaker 03

  We have, yeah.

• 20:04Speaker 02

  And yeah, because we've done the.

• 20:06Speaker 03

  And it will be on this episode as well.

• 20:07Speaker 02

  Oh, amazing.

• 20:08Speaker 03

  We did some earlier.

• 20:09Speaker 04

  And you've spent some time in Italy. Is that where you learned your pasta skills?

• 20:13Speaker 03

  My grandparents were Italian.

• 20:13Speaker 04

  Oh, very nice.

• 20:14Speaker 03

  So they came from Emilia Romagna, so near Bologna.

• 20:17Speaker 04

  Oh, mine too. Might as well. Benevento. Yes.

• 20:19Speaker 03

  So we're a tiny little village about up in the hills. But again, it's one of those places that every menu is the same. You know, you go to the village, there's four restaurants, but no menus different. You know, and I love that about Italy, that it's also regional. People just don't change.

• 20:35Speaker 04

  So now you've mixed pasta water with the pecorino.

• 20:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:40Speaker 04

  And with some of the pepper already.

• 20:43Speaker 03

  Some of the pepper already.

• 20:44Speaker 04

  This is much different now than how I would have.

• 20:46Speaker 03

  I mean, this is one, I'm not the best. Anyway, we're gonna give it a go, John. That's all I can say on live camera. No, I mean, as in like making this, this is not a sauce from our region.

• 20:57Speaker 04

  Right. So what are you, your pasta dish that you would normally do would be like a pomodoro? What's the, from the region?

• 21:04Speaker 03

  The one I love is the fettuccine ragù. So a veal bolognese, in bianco, very little tomato sauce. I don't know about your grandparents. She never used to use tin. She'd always use the conserva.

• 21:15Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 21:16Speaker 03

  Tiny little bit. So it was very much, you know, not so, it just didn't, it wasn't very tomatoey. You know, I know in New York, they love tomato in their sauces.

• 21:26Speaker 04

  They do. They have their own version of it. My grandmother was Italian by way of the Bronx. So it's a different menu.

• 21:32Speaker 03

  No, it's true though. Yeah. Because my cousin, she's, her husband, her son married a Neapolitan from that sort of Bronx and she's all spicy. It's all, you know.

• 21:42Speaker 04

  Meatballs and Sunday gravy.

• 21:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:46Speaker 04

  They don't call it sauce. They call it gravy. So there's all.

• 21:48Speaker 03

  So this is, yours will take a little bit longer. Right. So I've just got to do next.

• 21:52Speaker 04

  So this is for him. That's his preparation. Look at you, two hands going. Now you're keeping the pasta water going for.

• 21:57Speaker 03

  Just in case I need to.

• 21:59Speaker 04

  A little thickening, but that's looking nice.

• 22:01Speaker 03

  It's getting there.

• 22:02Speaker 04

  You want me to get out of the way now?

• 22:03Speaker 03

  No, no. I'm gonna give you this, John. This can be part of the service.

• 22:06Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. Thanks, John.

• 22:07Speaker 03

  There you go. Thank you.

• 22:09Speaker 02

  Thank you, John.

• 22:10Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 22:12Speaker 02

  What do you like making? What pasta do you like to make, John?

• 22:14Speaker 04

  Oh, I like a pomodoro with, um, with, uh, when you infuse like the scarpet style where you infuse the oil with a little bit of garlic.

• 22:23Speaker 02

  Mmm.

• 22:24Speaker 04

  Uh, also, you can't go wrong with the one I do in the movie chef, which is aiolo.

• 22:27Speaker 02

  Uh huh, yes.

• 22:28Speaker 04

  You seem like you're a genius. And I've taught my kids each to cook at least one good dish. And one of my daughters just is excellent with the pasta dishes because you gotta have one where you could blow people's minds. Just one, one good one. And, and, and the pasta aiolo is one that's easy to, easy to look, seem like a genius.

• 22:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:48Speaker 04

  Uh, how hungry? I'll give you the big one.

• 22:49Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 22:50Speaker 04

  Gluten free right there.

• 22:51Speaker 02

  Thank you. Yeah, that is my gluten free dinner here.

• 22:53Speaker 04

  How hungry are you, chef?

• 22:54Speaker 03

  A little bit, a little smidgen.

• 22:55Speaker 04

  Just a little bit?

• 22:56Speaker 02

  Smidgen.

• 22:57Speaker 04

  Okay, there we go.

• 22:58Speaker 02

  Are there any things, John, that you are, uh, we know what you're a fan of, but anything that you're not a fan of? Are there any foods, no goes for you, any flavors?

• 23:06Speaker 04

  Unfortunately, I still have like a, a small kid where there's foods where I don't like it that much and I'll, I'll gravitate away. It'll keep me from enjoying it. Um, anything with a heavy mayonnaise, I don't like that texture. Um, that, that's a big one. Goat cheese, I never got a taste for. Like, I don't like avocados, but I was just in Mexico City and they sliced some avocado onto something I was having. And sometimes it's just you haven't had it the right way or in the right circumstances, the right quality. And that's what the chef friends of mine say. And so I'll tend to try things I wouldn't normally try, uh, if it's under the right circumstances and inevitably I'm rewarded for being adventurous.

• 23:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:44Speaker 04

  Oh, that looks delightful, chef. Thank you.

• 23:46Speaker 02

  Oh, yes. John, please start. You start and we can discuss how this was made. So ketchup, pepinocchi.

• 23:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:53Speaker 02

  Today. Um, tell us, Angela, how does one listening to Dish construct this?

• 24:00Speaker 03

  So you can, Waitrose, our lovely people at Wait, you can buy the sauce ready made. You can also buy the gnocchi ready made.

• 24:05Speaker 04

  Really?

• 24:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, they do a lovely sauce there. But we made the gnocchi from scratch. So you boil your potatoes and once they're just cooked, drain them well through a potato riser.

• 24:15Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 24:15Speaker 03

  And so they come out nicely mashed and allow that to cool. That's quite key because then what happens is all the steam comes off and it's much easier when you come to all the moisture. Then I mix it with, and John will appreciate it, I did it a l'occhio. So I didn't measure anything and I just do it by the eye. So then I added pasta flour, some Parmesan and some egg and bound it all together. And then tested to check that it all stuck together and then just roll them into little sausages.

• 24:42Speaker 04

  How do you know when it's right if you're doing it by?

• 24:44Speaker 03

  So you basically, it binds together like a pasta dough, it comes together. And then I roll them into little gnocchi and I put them in boiling water and test them.

• 24:51Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 24:52Speaker 03

  I basically check that it doesn't split or fall apart. And so I tested it and yeah.

• 24:57Speaker 04

  How do you work the ribs into it?

• 24:58Speaker 03

  And then you use, you either have the little gnocchi board or the old school, your grandmother would have done mine would be on the fork. You do it on the fork, you flip it on there. That's the old way, yeah.

• 25:07Speaker 04

  That's great. This is, by the way, this is, texture is great. I love how you got the, it's so hard to get the salt level right when you're dealing with such salty cheese. It's perfect because it could get too salty if you over salt.

• 25:19Speaker 03

  Oh, thank the Lord.

• 25:20Speaker 04

  But it's right on the edge where it's like, you want, you want, you want it in there. And the pepper's coming through. This is tremendous. Thank you so much. It's delicious. Are you satisfied with the chat?

• 25:29Speaker 03

  I am. I was nervous about this.

• 25:31Speaker 04

  Were you nervous?

• 25:32Speaker 03

  Well, because.

• 25:32Speaker 02

  John knows.

• 25:33Speaker 03

  John knows, exactly. It's like having Gordon opposite me or Massimo, you know, he knows, he knows.

• 25:38Speaker 04

  It's not in your wheelhouse either, which I didn't know. I was trying to do something and thinking that you had Italian, I wanted one of your specialties. But this is nice because this is still, I don't know if people know, we're, we're taping this a little bit earlier in the day. So this is a perfect meal for right now.

• 25:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. Not too thingy.

• 25:54Speaker 02

  There's something so Moorish about that sauce.

• 25:58Speaker 03

  It's the cheesy, isn't it? Yeah. And that's what you've got to love about Italian food is it's three ingredients.

• 26:04Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 26:04Speaker 03

  You know, it's cheese, it's pepper and it's either pasta or gnocchi. And, and most great Italian dishes are like that. They just don't mess around, you know?

• 26:12Speaker 04

  How is this balancing, chef? Where am I getting all this acid from? Is it from the cheese?

• 26:16Speaker 03

  Probably the cheese, because the pecorino is more acidic than the Parmesan.

• 26:20Speaker 04

  It's amazing how well it balances, because you'd think it was a heavy bite, but it's not. It's actually like a really well-balanced. It's filling, but it doesn't feel heavy. It's very good.

• 26:30Speaker 03

  And then the sauce we've made, it's literally is a balancing act of the pasta water with Parmesan, pecorino and the toasted peppercorns. But it's getting that balance of not bubbling the cheese too much, so it emulsifies with the water. And the trick we do, because we made these gnocchi, and there won't be, there'll be a bit of starch, but not like dried pasta. We boiled some dried pasta beforehand, so we had the starchy cooking water to make the sauce. And we're serving it with a little salad of steamed broccoli with some walnuts, a little bit of lemon and olive oil.

• 26:59Speaker 02

  If you want to try this recipe at home, waitrose.com/dishrecipes. All the ingredients are on there, the how-to. There's going to be a video of Ange doing it, right?

• 27:08Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 27:08Speaker 02

  Yes, you can watch Ange do it.

• 27:11Speaker 04

  This is definitely a different tech, advanced technique.

• 27:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 27:14Speaker 04

  There's ways you could get away with it that's simpler, but this is made for a beautiful texture, a beautiful bite. So thank you so much.

• 27:21Speaker 03

  No, no, thank you.

• 27:22Speaker 02

  And there's a wine pairing, too.

• 27:24Speaker 03

  So we've got a fantastic Gave. It's a lovely Italian crisp white wine with high acidity that will cut through the creamy, salty pecorino cheese.

• 27:33Speaker 02

  Mmm, yes, perfect.

• 27:37Speaker 02

  Shall we talk about the Mandalorian and Grogu?

• 27:39Speaker 04

  I mean, hold on a second.

• 27:40Speaker 02

  Shall we? Yes, come on.

• 27:43Speaker 03

  My body's finally, I saw it yesterday, and because you're in a small movie theater and every sound vibrated through me.

• 27:50Speaker 04

  Oh, it's a loud movie.

• 27:51Speaker 03

  I finally, no, not vibrating anymore.

• 27:54Speaker 02

  I love you going to see it midday on a weekday.

• 27:58Speaker 04

  That's it.

• 27:59Speaker 02

  I love that. And yeah, tell us about this, because you've been working on this for what, three years?

• 28:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, close to three years.

• 28:04Speaker 02

  And how does it feel now, knowing that, you know, it's about to be released to the world and all that work is going to be, going to be seen?

• 28:10Speaker 04

  We had worked on the streaming show, which we had a lot less time to do. We would have to do eight episodes a year. Now we got to do a two-hour film in a long amount of time, for much, much, yeah, three years, like you said. And one of the things that we always felt bad about was that we never got to see Star Wars. When I grew up, I saw it for the first time. I was 10 years old, in New York. I think it had such an impression, not just because of what was on the screen, but the energy in the room.

• 28:34Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 28:35Speaker 04

  It's a crowd-pleasing film. And with Star Wars, everything that you're seeing, the audience is cheering, they're laughing together. And as a young viewer, I think you pick up on the energy in the room a lot. It imprints upon you, what people laugh. That's how you learn what's funny, what's exciting. Your tastes are being developed at that moment. And so now to be able to go to the theater and to see this. And we built it for IMAX. We partnered with IMAX. So it's, as you saw, we built big sets, we have big set pieces, big creatures. You know, we use old technology like stop-motion, CGI, animation. All those things come together and make for this big spectacle. And I love that the fans are gonna get to react and pick up on all the little things that we put in for them.

• 29:19Speaker 04

  But I also love that it's been almost seven years since Star Wars has been in theaters. And there's a whole generation that's old enough now to see Star Wars that may not have been old enough last. And this might be the first Star Wars movie they see in a movie theater. So that's fun, too. So that's part of why I enjoy going around the world, showing parts of the movie, and then finally going back to LA for the premiere soon. And then, and now I could also sneak into the theaters and watch reactions, which is a big thrill.

• 29:43Speaker 03

  Well, I think you've made an incredible movie.

• 29:45Speaker 04

  Ah, thank you. Thank you so much.

• 29:47Speaker 03

  And also, what I loved about it, you were locked in from the minute you sat down. You know, that first scene locks you in. There was no buildup. There was no... Because I was like, oh my god, what happened in the last one? I'm trying...

• 29:57Speaker 04

  And I'm glad you had no trouble following it.

• 30:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, no.

• 30:01Speaker 04

  The hope here is that, look, everybody knows Grogu, Baby Yoda.

• 30:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:04Speaker 04

  He's been, he's part of our culture. People kind of know who the Mandalorian is. He's a gunfighter. He's tough. The other one's a kid. They're paired up. And they're hunting down bad guys. He's now a good guy. I wanted that to be, you know, the original Star Wars was Episode IV. He dropped us in the middle of a story.

• 30:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:20Speaker 04

  Uh, but with the assumption that you didn't have to know anything about anything. Now, if you watch that movie today, there's been prequels and sequels.

• 30:28Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 30:29Speaker 04

  There's context. But at the time, you were just dropped in the middle of the story. You knew Darth Vader was the bad guy, you knew he was a good guy. And I wanted to reach out to people like you and also to younger generation who may not have ever. They're not Star Wars fans yet. I want, I want them to learn what's been going on for 50 years. So it, so that was a big one. You also want to make the fans who've been there. You want to give them lots. So somebody else who's like me, who's seen a lot of it, they'll see a lot in the margins. And what's going on. But if you don't know, I want them to be able to bring somebody like you and you're both gonna have a great time.

• 31:02Speaker 03

  No, it was brilliant. And two hours flew by because there's been a lot of big movies that have gone on and people are very much. Oh God, am I gonna get, you know, well, The Irishman was a long film, you know, there's a lot, but yeah, actually.

• 31:14Speaker 04

  Was that the last movie you saw? Wow, you really are a casual fan.

• 31:20Speaker 03

  No, but like Marty's movie.

• 31:21Speaker 04

  And that was on Netflix.

• 31:24Speaker 04

  Lot of brains. But I hear you.

• 31:25Speaker 03

  And it's still on pause. I still haven't finished it. I'm waiting to go back to it.

• 31:29Speaker 04

  Well, you're friends with Mark, with Mark Ronson, yes? Yeah, yes. I know Mark as well. We worked together on Jungle Book on the music and I love, you know, DJs are me are very interesting because there's a. It's again, another sort of facet, another side of the same coin.

• 31:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:44Speaker 04

  They love their music, they're music aficionados, but they want, they're gonna play what the room, what works for that situation. And they might have their set, but they'll change it and work it and bring in old stuff, new stuff. And, and I love watching Mark DJ. He's great and I love even hearing the stories about the heyday of even when he would. Bring the vinyl in the crates because you're, each room is like a puzzle. And, and I did some amateur because I liked it. I grew up in the eighties in New York, so I have an appreciation for it. And people like Mark who took the old music that I grew up with, with some new stuff and combined it. But the real art form of DJing is understanding how to make a room feel.

• 32:28Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 32:28Speaker 04

  And I think that that's similar to what a chef does, similar to what a filmmaker does, which is you want to create an experience. Because people remember experiences. I remember going to Emerald's with Roy Choi when we were guest judges on Top Chef.

• 32:42Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 32:43Speaker 04

  And Emerald was there in New Orleans. He said, "Stop by, we gotta run back, we don't have time." He said, "Just stop by and say hello, stop by Emerald's." "Okay, we'll stop by and say hello." We go to say hello, they grab us.

• 32:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:56Speaker 04

  They drag us back into the chef's table in the kitchen.

• 32:59Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 33:00Speaker 04

  And the sweep came, one course after the other. And Emerald sat there telling a story about, "This was my banana cream pie. These are the first soft-shelled crabs of the season. These are boudin sausages." The fact that I remember all this.

• 33:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:14Speaker 04

  Is amazing, because I don't remember things like this.

• 33:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 33:16Speaker 04

  But he created a story around this meal, and I'll never forget that meal.

• 33:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:21Speaker 04

  Because, and he was sitting there looking us right in the eye as we ate it. And it was the best food you've ever had.

• 33:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, of course.

• 33:27Speaker 04

  I really, that's when I, something clicked for me, because we were getting ready to film the movie. So that's why it's such a fascinating field to me. And I love the dichotomy of these people who seem to be unconcerned with what other people think. Until, why did they leave three?

• 33:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:42Speaker 04

  No key opener. How come, you check in the, as a chef, do you check the plates as they come back from the kitchen?

• 33:48Speaker 03

  Well, no, you come in and our waiters are conditioned, conditioned, trained that if someone's left a lot, like if someone sent back that amount.

• 33:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 33:54Speaker 03

  They would bring it to us to say they've left this amount. And you're, yeah, because you'll say why, you'll have asked them. And then the people might say, "Oh, it's not, I'm too full." Or, you know, if someone's left a whole bit of fish, I might taste the end bit, which I know they haven't. Just, was it over salty? Did the, you know, you have to check.

• 34:10Speaker 04

  How do you feel?

• 34:11Speaker 03

  Um, well, when I, if someone's left something.

• 34:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, how does it?

• 34:15Speaker 03

  Well, I've been around long enough to not, everyone's got an ego, but I'm also know if we're not up there. If I know we're short that night.

• 34:23Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 34:24Speaker 03

  Or the guy on the meat and fish isn't most experienced, then I'll just go back and they write something.

• 34:28Speaker 04

  Or if you're trying something new, right?

• 34:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. You're always questioning stuff. So I think, you know, I, but I'm also someone that will front up, like, if I know someone's had a bad night, and it does happen occasionally, I'll go to the table. You know, and, you know, there's one time I literally sent the main courses before the pasta.

• 34:44Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 34:45Speaker 03

  And the waiter went and then I went to the table and I said, I said, absolutely my screw up. I'm so sorry about that. And they were just, and they were like, doesn't matter. We'll have the pasta after, you know, I think you've got to own your mistakes. You can do that in a much easier situation than a film to be honest. You can't really do that.

• 35:00Speaker 04

  But with film, what's good is I don't, it's not, the, the ser-, there's no service. It's consistent. So you're locked and loaded, you could sit back and watch.

• 35:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 35:08Speaker 04

  But the same thing happens if you have like a screening, a test screening or a preview.

• 35:12Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 35:12Speaker 04

  And somebody gets up and walks out.

• 35:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:15Speaker 04

  You're like, I've had, I know people who like producers will walk up and ask, why are you getting, like, I gotta use the bathroom. Like, oh, okay. But you're watching if people walk out or do things or how they're acting or too. That's it. That's why I like comedy, by the way, because comedy you know.

• 35:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:29Speaker 04

  It's a laugh or not a laugh. You could think a movie's not playing at all.

• 35:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:32Speaker 04

  And at the end, you see people get up. If it's not a comedy, they're emotional. They clap, they sit in their chair and watch all the credits. You could tell, it's hard to read the room, but with comedy, you get instant feedback. And I think it's my background in comedy that's helped me as a filmmaker. Because you don't have that feedback. You have to have it built in.

• 35:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:49Speaker 04

  And there's nothing like dying on, onstage when you're trying to do improv in the back room of a pub. When people don't even know they're a comedy show. You know what I mean?

• 35:57Speaker 02

  What's all this information going on here?

• 35:59Speaker 03

  Who is this guy?

• 36:00Speaker 04

  Turn the game up.

• 36:03Speaker 04

  And you're there, can I have a suggestion of an occupation and a flavor of ice cream?

• 36:10Speaker 02

  So when you've got like manage the, you know, your, your chefs in the restaurant, if it's a night. You've got to manage your, your actors onstage and you've got to look after everybody on there. And the incredible cast of, you know, Pedro Pascal, Jeremy Allen White, Martin Scorsese.

• 36:25Speaker 04

  Yes, yes.

• 36:25Speaker 02

  No less. I mean, how surreal is it to direct Martin Scorsese?

• 36:30Speaker 04

  And also I, you know, I would add Sigourney Weaver. Anybody who I grew up on a pedestal.

• 36:35Speaker 03

  Yes. Yeah.

• 36:36Speaker 04

  Uh, is always a little bit of a weird, am I in a simulation moment? You know what I mean? Pedro, we've been working together for eight years. So before he was a household name. The people, genre fans knew him from like Game of Thrones, Narcos. They knew his face. They knew he was. Cool, but there's a whole swath of actors that are like well-known and appreciated. But he's hit this other level now between Last of Us and Fantastic Four. He's just, he's now a household name. And now I have a helmet on a guy who's the biggest movie star, one of the biggest movie stars in the world. So that relationship is we sort of grew together.

• 37:18Speaker 04

  So there's an appreciation of talent, but there's not the intimidation of Martin Scorsese. Where, you know, I was on his set, I had a small role in Wolf of Wall Street. If you look at my movies, especially my independent films, you can see how much I was influenced by them. My father brought me to his films. So he's one of, you know, he's a Mount Rushmore director for me. And then Kathy Kennedy, who was running the studio at the time, and the producer. When we mentioned we might want to, you know, he was on our wish list. She said, I'll give him a call. And she called me and says, yeah, he'll do it. Like it was nothing, because they were friends. And he shows up, he could not have been more fun, playful, improvisational, laughing. You know, because we do it the way we do it.

• 38:00Speaker 04

  Anything that we record, we can adjust and rewrite. Because all the animation follows the audio recording. And then we had all the video footage. So the animators, the character designers built something around his performance. So it was, it was a once in a lifetime memory.

• 38:17Speaker 02

  I can't wait to see it. It's gonna be out in just a couple of days, May the 22nd. So yeah, I'm so excited. I love an event film moment like this. You mentioned Matt Ronson earlier. You've DJed for Mark at his party?

• 38:30Speaker 04

  Oh, here, okay, so interesting story. So I am a DJ. I haven't done it in a while, but I, because they have these new digital systems like Serato, where you can use MP3s, you don't have to have a library of albums. You could use your computer and turntables to DJ, and I would do it at home. And I just liked that I could do it at all, but it was clearly an amateur thing. I've done it for friends in my house or, you know, at a party. And I was good enough that I'm like, oh, he's a pretty good DJ, but not like, oh, he's a DJ. Oh, he's not, you know, for somebody you don't know, it's like he is a cook. I could cook a great meal, but you don't want to throw me in a professional kitchen. You know what I'm saying? I'm enough, I could surprise you and then, and then I gotta get off stage.

• 39:15Speaker 04

  So, um, when I work with DJs and I have before, I love to get pointers and have them show me stuff. And he, you know, and he, sometimes they'll give you different songs and things or, or some insights into it. And so we, we would mess around and he'd show me some stuff. Of course, he's a world-class DJ. He said, I'm having, after we were doing that for a while, he, when we're doing Jungle Book, he says, I'm having a, a, an after, after party at, at, at, at the house. Come by and a few of my friends are gonna do, each are gonna do a half hour set. It's just in the living room. I'm like, alright, so I bring my, my laptop. I show up. Whatever this was, was the after, after party, the year that Uptown Funk won, which was his song.

• 39:56Speaker 02

  After the Grammys.

• 39:57Speaker 04

  So everybody, it wasn't his living room. It was this rented house and everybody, Jay-Z's there.

• 40:05Speaker 04

  Okay, okay, Favreau, your turn.

• 40:09Speaker 04

  Now, all I play is old hip hop, R and B, 80, you know, old music that I know a couple of new things. But that's also what that crowd liked. So all of a sudden, I'm there spinning and everybody's dancing in this living room. And it was like a high point of my life and it was, somebody took a picture. Now, the story behind the picture is I couldn't get my files to work.

• 40:36Speaker 04

  But it looks like every DJ is looking at my screen like, what's he playing?

• 40:42Speaker 04

  So the picture is actually how I remember it.

• 40:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, let's go with that.

• 40:48Speaker 04

  But it was, it was really, really fun and I've done it a couple of times since, but I haven't. It actually feels similar to cooking. It's sort of the same itch and also filmmaking. So anything creative like that. So I've been very busy making all these TV shows. So I haven't done it in a while, but how do you top that? I can't, I can't ever get, that was like a dream come true. And it was all thanks to Mark. By the way, Clean Plate Club?

• 41:12Speaker 03

  Oh, lovely. Thank you.

• 41:13Speaker 04

  Yes, Roger and John, come on.

• 41:15Speaker 03

  Thank you, John. Thank you.

• 41:17Speaker 04

  For the show, delicious. That's more about you than about me.

• 41:19Speaker 02

  Thank you, Anne. Yeah. John Favreau, let's do your fast food quiz. What is your favorite way to eat eggs?

• 41:24Speaker 04

  I like soft scrambled with sourdough toast. It's one of my favorite meals in the world. If you've not been taught how to properly scramble an egg, you don't know what I'm talking about.

• 41:36Speaker 02

  They can be awful or the best.

• 41:38Speaker 04

  That's right. And we tend to eat them overcooked because runny eggs are bad. But if you have it, if you keep whisking it as you go and you cook it over a low heat and you have a proper butter with it, it could be, it's a transformative meal. It's one of the best bites you'll have.

• 41:56Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 41:57Speaker 04

  Agreed, chef? Am I wrong?

• 41:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, totally agreed.

• 41:59Speaker 04

  With a good sourdough. And especially a home baked sourdough, which I enjoyed.

• 42:03Speaker 02

  You do that as well?

• 42:04Speaker 04

  I haven't recently.

• 42:05Speaker 03

  John, you're like making sourdough. Next up, what's your favorite sandwich filling?

• 42:11Speaker 04

  Sandwich filling? I'd have to, well, I'd say, I think you call it a cheese toastie here.

• 42:15Speaker 03

  Okay, yeah.

• 42:16Speaker 04

  But, but a properly executed grilled cheese sandwich, which by the way, we do in the movie chef and on the chef show. But I learned from Roy's show, I had if you properly butter it, you could get a lot of textures, a lot of flavors. I love a cheese toastie. I've taught my kids how to cook that too, and they blow their friends' minds.

• 42:31Speaker 02

  And what is the dish you miss the most when you're away from home? So when you're on these press tours, what's the one thing that reminds you of home?

• 42:38Speaker 04

  I'd say, in New York, and there's a lot of places you can get now. It used to be bagels from New York. You could get good bagels a lot of places now. But I'd still say it's that red sauce chicken parmigiana.

• 42:47Speaker 03

  Oh, right.

• 42:47Speaker 04

  Something like that. You could even get good pizza everywhere. It used to be New York, I'd have to hit all the stations of the cross. You got your pizza, you get your, you get your bagels. But now it's, I still can't find the same as like a good red sauce neighborhood pizza spot where you can get chicken parm.

• 43:04Speaker 03

  What's your favorite kitchen utensil?

• 43:07Speaker 04

  I'd say a fish spatula.

• 43:09Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 43:10Speaker 04

  That's an underrated one.

• 43:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:11Speaker 04

  That and a bench scraper. But, but, uh, those are two things that people.

• 43:14Speaker 03

  A bench scraper?

• 43:15Speaker 04

  Bench scraper.

• 43:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:16Speaker 04

  Those are two things people don't use enough in their home kitchen, but professional chefs.

• 43:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:21Speaker 04

  Use a lot. Also, cooking tweezers.

• 43:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:24Speaker 04

  That's a new, that's a new thing.

• 43:26Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 43:26Speaker 04

  And that's nice, cause it's not, it's not tongs where you're ripping the food apart, but yet you can have the same control.

• 43:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:32Speaker 04

  And you might not be able to use long chopsticks.

• 43:34Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 43:34Speaker 04

  So I think those, there's different ends, some with paddles, some pointing.

• 43:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:38Speaker 04

  But cooking tweezers, you'll look like a chef, but you actually have a lot of control and.

• 43:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:42Speaker 02

  Maybe I do.

• 43:43Speaker 04

  Would you agree?

• 43:43Speaker 03

  I'll get you them for your birthday.

• 43:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, they're very good.

• 43:45Speaker 02

  So that is our regular fast food quiz that we do.

• 43:48Speaker 04

  Uh oh.

• 43:48Speaker 02

  But I feel we need to level up for the first time ever, John.

• 43:51Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 43:51Speaker 02

  Um, we're gonna do fast food quiz, the chef edition.

• 43:54Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 43:54Speaker 02

  This is for people who cook. Chef-y edition of the fast food quiz, Angela, you start, please, for John.

• 44:00Speaker 03

  Um, what's your favorite kind of vinegar?

• 44:02Speaker 04

  Rice wine vinegar.

• 44:03Speaker 02

  Uh, what is your favorite cut of beef?

• 44:06Speaker 04

  Brisket.

• 44:07Speaker 03

  What's your favorite fermented food?

• 44:09Speaker 04

  Uh, New York sour, Coeur d'Albany.

• 44:10Speaker 03

  Okay, yeah, they're good.

• 44:12Speaker 02

  What's your favorite pan to cook in?

• 44:14Speaker 04

  One for everything, cause if it's for eggs, you need non-stick.

• 44:18Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 44:18Speaker 04

  But, um, I think I prefer steel, uh, uh, a steel pan that has, um, that you could treat as a saucing pan. But I like the heat transfer for, cause I'll usually do things where I'm browning.

• 44:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:32Speaker 04

  Browning meats or cooking like a grilled cheese sandwich. So I like like a hammered steel, that's the one I'm always grabbing for. You can cook fried eggs in it.

• 44:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:40Speaker 04

  Not great for omelets, but everything else, I like where a lot of heat retention, the heat's faster than cast iron.

• 44:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:45Speaker 04

  But I like, also you get a fond, so you could also get, make a nice little sauce off of it.

• 44:50Speaker 02

  What is your best mother sauce?

• 44:54Speaker 04

  The tomato, I guess. Bechamel's great to, as a, as a foundation for other things. I love a good roux, so there's not, but, but I think tomate is the one that probably, uh, is the most flexible for the things I like to cook.

• 45:09Speaker 02

  Filet for in on the mother sauce.

• 45:10Speaker 03

  So you've got five mother sauces and they're all based on the roux or the bechamel, which is flour and butter, which you mix together. Then you'll add milk to it. Um, and then you can do, another one is a hollandaise. Then there's an espanyol, which is the tomato one. Then there's the brown mother sauce where you brown the roux.

• 45:27Speaker 04

  Well, the espanyol and, and tomato, right?

• 45:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, they're the same type, yeah.

• 45:31Speaker 04

  They're, they're very similar. I think one is one with stock and, or, or, uh, one has the mirepoix also, I don't, it's been a long time.

• 45:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:38Speaker 04

  Espanol has the mirepoix.

• 45:39Speaker 03

  The mirepoix, yeah. And then the other, the tomato. And then you've got your hollandaise, which is when you're emulsifying your eggs. And then there's one other final one.

• 45:47Speaker 04

  Gravy?

• 45:48Speaker 03

  No, well, it is like gravy.

• 45:49Speaker 04

  Vil, village?

• 45:50Speaker 03

  Volute, that's it, thank you, John. It's the volute where you're adding a stock to your roux.

• 45:54Speaker 04

  Oh, yes.

• 45:55Speaker 03

  Yes, and other sauces.

• 45:57Speaker 02

  One more for John on the not very fast food quiz.

• 46:01Speaker 03

  And what is your best sausage?

• 46:04Speaker 03

  There you go.

• 46:04Speaker 04

  It's very personal.

• 46:07Speaker 04

  I'd say, uh, good old New York, uh, Hebrew National, uh, hot dog.

• 46:13Speaker 03

  Oh, I love a hot dog.

• 46:14Speaker 02

  You, I always think of you with hot dogs.

• 46:16Speaker 03

  I love a hot dog. One of the things I like at a movie is the hot dog. I love a hot dog.

• 46:20Speaker 04

  What would you say here? Bang, bangers, uh, bangers and mash?

• 46:23Speaker 03

  Well, no, hot dogs, we do do hot dogs. But you do bangers and mash is the, yeah, I don't know why we call it bang.

• 46:28Speaker 02

  Nish always gets a hot dog at the cinema.

• 46:30Speaker 03

  I love a hot dog.

• 46:31Speaker 04

  And you have toad in a hole, is that a sausage?

• 46:33Speaker 03

  That's another one, yeah, toad in a hole.

• 46:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:35Speaker 03

  And I like the ritual of a hot dog. So you've got the caramelized onions, then you have the red sauce, and then you have that yellow, yellow mustard. Yeah, me, me should go to the movies.

• 46:44Speaker 02

  You should.

• 46:44Speaker 03

  Neil always goes, what are you ordering that for? I say, I love a hot dog.

• 46:49Speaker 02

  Uh, John, before we go, we have an end of the show question. This is for you, John.

• 46:53Speaker 04

  The high chair, we're bringing a baby out?

• 46:55Speaker 02

  The baby's coming up.

• 46:56Speaker 04

  Baby Yoda's here.

• 46:57Speaker 02

  Baby Yoda. This is a bag of like Londonese snacks for you, British snacks.

• 47:02Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 47:02Speaker 02

  For you to enjoy.

• 47:03Speaker 04

  Can I also say something? I mean, this is, this is the most comfortable chair, sitting at a breakfast table.

• 47:09Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 47:10Speaker 04

  I'm telling you, I, I, I, we've been sitting here for an hour.

• 47:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 47:13Speaker 04

  And, uh, uh, it's, I could move, that's the part, I'm just saying. Okay, let's go to the next. I appreciate these things as I, as I look in, uh, uh, you know, look at my home kitchen. It's hard to pick these things. I, I've become, I've become very, uh, uh, you know, aware of these things. I just want to say, uh, the food is great, the company was great, the meal is great, the environment is great. Thank you.

• 47:33Speaker 03

  Fabulous.

• 47:33Speaker 04

  Before we answer the last question.

• 47:35Speaker 02

  Thank you, John.

• 47:36Speaker 03

  Thank you, John.

• 47:36Speaker 02

  Come on, big up the chair.

• 47:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 47:38Speaker 04

  And what chair would you choose?

• 47:43Speaker 04

  End of the show question, please be outlined. Hi John, thank you for coming on Dish. That was a feast. To win the Waitrose goodie bag, Angela is going to ask you a question related to your character Pete Becker, who appeared a reasonably well-known, on a well-known show called Friends.

• 48:00Speaker 02

  Reasonably well-known show.

• 48:01Speaker 04

  Fear not. I have a fear that there's one question that you're gonna ask me, that I asked my wife if she remembered, and she didn't remember it, and I didn't remember it. And I'll tell you afterwards if you're gonna ask me what that question was.

• 48:11Speaker 03

  Okay, that's a good one.

• 48:12Speaker 02

  Okay, so, Ange, you ready for the question?

• 48:14Speaker 03

  I'm ready. Are you ready, John?

• 48:14Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 48:15Speaker 03

  Okay, so, where did Pete take Monica on their first date?

• 48:18Speaker 04

  That was the question.

• 48:18Speaker 03

  Oh. And there's two parts to it, and what did they eat?

• 48:22Speaker 04

  I took her to eat.

• 48:24Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 48:24Speaker 04

  And it was in a European country.

• 48:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 48:27Speaker 04

  And I, and, and my wife said it was either Italy or France. I, I'm gonna say it's...

• 48:34Speaker 04

  It was probably a city, so I'll say Paris.

• 48:37Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 48:37Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 48:38Speaker 02

  What do you think you ate on the date?

• 48:40Speaker 04

  I'm so mad that I did not Google this yesterday. Because we were literally talking about this very thing, not knowing it would come up here. I'll say, or, geez.

• 48:51Speaker 03

  I'm giving you a clue, because you've got the country wrong, so all I'm gonna say is Italy.

• 48:55Speaker 04

  Italy.

• 48:56Speaker 03

  So if you could...

• 48:57Speaker 04

  Pasta in Italy?

• 48:59Speaker 03

  Think of another great, you've mentioned it a few times. No, you're not.

• 49:03Speaker 02

  We'll have the goodie bag.

• 49:04Speaker 04

  Take the gift bag.

• 49:05Speaker 02

  We'll have the goodie bag.

• 49:06Speaker 03

  It was Rome and you ate pizza. God damn it!

• 49:11Speaker 02

  Iconic episode.

• 49:12Speaker 04

  So mad.

• 49:13Speaker 03

  So mad.

• 49:14Speaker 04

  By the way, is that where you, you go to Naples for pizza, though?

• 49:17Speaker 03

  I agree, the question's wrong. I'm with you, John. We're giving it to you.

• 49:20Speaker 04

  Maybe that's why it didn't work out with them.

• 49:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:22Speaker 02

  Yeah. Maybe that's why she was like, yeah, he's a billionaire, but Rome for pizza?

• 49:26Speaker 03

  It should have been Naples.

• 49:28Speaker 04

  Mind you, they didn't send me to Rome. They just took me to the next set and they, they hung up a picture, a picture of Rome, and I sat there with some guy pretending to be Italian accent.

• 49:39Speaker 03

  John's won it on the loan of knowing what the mother sauces are.

• 49:42Speaker 02

  Exactly, come on, yeah.

• 49:45Speaker 03

  God.

• 49:46Speaker 02

  He's been talking about kitchen tweezers.

• 49:48Speaker 03

  Exactly. He knows how to where to put the olive oil. He knows where to put the salt.

• 49:54Speaker 02

  Get him in there.

• 49:56Speaker 03

  John has won a loan. I've been happy to be guessed.

• 49:58Speaker 02

  The goodie bag is yours.

• 49:59Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 49:59Speaker 02

  John Fabro, everybody. Thank you, John.

• 50:03Speaker 03

  You've been amazing. Thank you so much.

• 50:05Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 50:08Speaker 02

  If that episode has left you wanting more, find us on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. Just search Dish.

• 50:15Speaker 03

  If you want to make any of the meals I cook on Dish, head to waitrose.com/dishrecipes for all the ingredients and the recipes.

• 50:23Speaker 02

  Email your questions, thoughts and suggestions too. [email protected]

• 50:29Speaker 03

  Dish from Waitrose is a Cold Glass production. Waitrose, the home of food lovers.