Podcast

Table Talk

Lara Prendergast and Olivia Potts interview notable guests about their life, through the food and drink that has come to define it. Lara is the Food and Drink Editor of Spectator Life and Olivia is Spectator Life’s Vintage Chef.

Lara Prendergast and Olivia Potts interview notable guests about their life, through the food and drink that has come to define it. Lara is the Food and Drink Editor of Spectator Life and Olivia is Spectator Life’s Vintage Chef.

Table Talk

With Nell Hudson

Nell Hudson has starred in Outlander, Victoria and the latest Texas Chainsaw Massacre film. Her debut novel, Just for Today, is out now: it’s about a group of twenty-somethings in London, having ‘heady, reckless fun’. Nell speaks to Lara and Olivia about how she’s enjoying veganism and the one meat she misses, growing up on

Play 21 mins

Table Talk

With Nuno Mendes

Born in Lisbon, Portugal. Nuno Mendes grew up on a farm which inspired a passion and understanding for food. He attended the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco but after over a decade in North America, he decided he wanted to return to Europe. Moving to London, Nuno founded the cult domestic pop-up known as

Play 29 mins

Table Talk

With Tommy Banks

Tommy Banks is the youngest ever UK Michelin-starred chef, awarded in 2013 when he was aged 24, and is the owner of the restaurant The Black Swan which Tripadvisor named the best restaurant in the world. On the podcast, Tommy talks to Lara and Liv about how he turned to food after his dreams of

Play 24 mins

Table Talk

With Ameer Kotecha

Ameer Kotecha is a British diplomat, pop-up chef and food writer. His first cookbook the Platinum Jubilee Cookbook, in which he chronicles 70 recipes related to the Royals, Diplomacy and the Commonwealth comes out on April 28th. He has also launched alongside Fortnum & Mason’s the Platinum Pudding competition, which hopes to discover the next

Play 20 mins

Table Talk

With Michael Heath

Michael Heath is a British strip cartoonist and illustrator and has been working nonstop since the 1950s. He has been cartoon editor of The Spectator since 1991. On the podcast, he talks to Lara and Liv about carrying German bombs into the local pub like milk bottles during the second world war, being given chewing

Play 35 mins

Table Talk

With Lance Forman

Lance Forman is the owner of H. Forman & Son, Britain’s leading salmon smokers and author of Forman’s Games. He was elected a Brexit Party MEP for London in the 2019 European election but quit the party to endorse the Conservatives. On the podcast, Lance reflects on his childhood in a traditional Jewish upbringing, eating

Play 22 mins

Table Talk

With Mitch Tonks

Mitch Tonks is an award-winning restauranteur and chef. He runs the Rockfish restaurant group in Devon and Dorset, and the Seahorse restaurant in Dartmouth. He has written six cookbooks. On the podcast, he tells Lara and Liv about playing cards after dinner, enjoying his school’s ‘bright green custard with chocolate pudding’, and inventing his own

Play 18 mins

Table Talk

With Beata Heuman

Interior designer, Beata Heuman is known for her work based on playful, original designs characterised by Scandinavian attention to detail and longevity. Living in London, Beata published her own book last year Every Room Should Sing and believes that the same principle applies to her cooking. On the podcast, Beata talks about her life as

Play 23 mins

Table Talk

With Rory Stewart

Former Tory MP, Rory Stewart, has played many roles throughout his life. An academic, a diplomat, and a soldier. Rory is currently a senior fellow at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. On the podcast, he talks about eating sandwiches on a homemade raft as a boy in Malaysia, his university days spent talking

Play 17 mins

Table Talk

With Russell Norman

Russell Norman is an award-winning restauranteur, writer and broadcaster, and the founder of the Polpo restaurant group. Last year he launched Trattoria Brutto. On the podcast, he tells Lara and Liv about enjoying Spam fritters, blagging his way onto the Orient Express, and how he changed careers from teaching to cooking.

Play 31 mins

Table Talk

With Ed Smith

Ed Smith is a food writer and chef who started his acclaimed blog Rocket and Squash while he was working as a solicitor. On today’s podcast, he tells Liv and Lara about how his passion for good food started, why he left the world of law, the changing nature of the London food scene, and

Play 25 mins

Table Talk

With Poppy Cooks

Poppy O’Toole runs Poppy Cooks on TikTok, where she shares cooking videos with her two million followers. She trained as a chef at a Michelin-starred restaurant, and lost her job in March 2020 because of Covid. She started Poppy Cooks to pass the time during lockdown. Her potato series, which got millions of views, made her

Play 24 mins

Table Talk

With Bee Wilson

Beatrice ‘Bee’ Wilson is an acclaimed food writer and journalist, who has authored several books on topics from how bees make honey to the history of the sandwich. On the podcast, Bee discusses the fad of clean eating, how the internet has changed food culture, working with her charity TasteEd, her time as a contestant

Play 44 mins

Table Talk

With Alf Dubs

Lord Alf Dubs is a politician. He moved to the UK as a child when the Nazis invaded what was then Czechoslovakia, and went on to become an MP, a parliamentary under secretary for Northern Ireland, and a member of the House of Lords. He is a campaigner for refugee rights. On the podcast, he

Play 24 mins

Table Talk

With Theo Fennell

Theo Fennell is a jewellery maker. He has been designing and making jewellery in Fulham, London for over forty years and in 2008 founded The Original Design Partnership. On the podcast, he talks to Lara and Liv about his childhood growing up in the colonies during the last days of the British Empire. He gives

Play 28 mins

Table Talk

With Dee Rettali

Dee Rettali is an artisan baker. She founded Patisserie Organic in 1998, and afterwards the Fortitude Bakehouse in London. She is the author of Baking with Fortitude: sourdough cakes and bakes. On the podcast, she tells Lara and Liv about enjoying tinned fish, relying on the custom of cyclists in lockdown, and learning from 1970s

Play 21 mins

Table Talk

With Rachel Roddy

Rachel Roddy is an author and food writer based in Rome. She has written for several publications, including the Financial Times, the Telegraph, Food and Wine, The Spectator, and has a weekly column in the Guardian. On the podcast, Rachel talks to Lara and Liv about growing up in Hertfordshire, coping with an eating disorder,

Play 30 mins

Table Talk

With Laurie Woolever

Laurie Woolever is a writer and editor, and for nearly a decade worked as the assistant to the late author, TV host and producer Anthony Bourdain. On the podcast, she talks to Lara and Liv about tending to garden peas from the age of four, finishing co-writing a book with Bourdain after he passed away,

Play 29 mins

Table Talk

With Grizelda

Grizelda is an award-winning cartoonist for publications including The Spectator, the New Statesman and Private Eye. She was Pocket Cartoonist of the Year in 2018. On the podcast, she tells Lara and Liv about her brother’s infamous cooking, how she comes up with ideas for cartoons, and why she only knows four recipes.

Play 24 mins

Table Talk

With Ed Balls

Ed Balls is an acclaimed broadcaster, writer, economist, professor and former politician who served as shadow chancellor from 2011 to 2015. On the podcast, he tells Lara and Liv about the importance of Sunday lunches growing up, his long history of making bespoke children’s birthday cakes and the times he turned his campaign team into

Play 18 mins

Table Talk

With Charlie Stebbings

Charlie Stebbings is an acclaimed food director and photographer. On the podcast, he talks to Lara and Liv about photographing M&S’s melt in the middle chocolate puddings, treating himself to baked beans and red wine and measuring mayonnaise from a syringe.

Play 41 mins

Table Talk

With Rory Bremner

Rory Bremner is one of Britain’s leading comedians, impressionists and political satirists. On the episode, he tells Lara and Liv about his first impression (of a school history teacher), doing shows with Ainsley Harriott, getting stuck in a storm in Turkey at the same time as Betty Boothroyd, and helping refugees and asylum seekers through

Play 26 mins

Table Talk

With Molly Baz

Molly Baz is a cook, recipe developer, video host, cookbook author, and a self proclaimed weenie lover. On this episode, Molly talks to Lara Prendergast and Olivia Potts about her food revelation with an Italian house-mother in Florence, her time working for Bon Appetit and about her new cook book COOK THIS BOOK, which revolutionises

Play 35 mins

Table Talk

With Ella Al-Shamahi

Ella Al-Shamahi is a presenter, comedian, and an explorer recognised by National Geographic. On this episode, Ella talks to Lara Prendergast and Olivia Potts about her ill fated early days as a domestic house wife, her critiques of the paleo diet and the time she had to try turtle – not a fan.

Play 43 mins

Table Talk

With Jack Whitehall

Jack Whitehall is an actor and comedian, however during the pandemic he has also started a food blog, FoodSlut. On the episode, he talks to Lara Prendergast and Olivia Potts about his public love of McDonalds, his secret love of The Ivy and the time he once saw a man attempt to make a grilled

Play 18 mins

Table Talk

With Calum Franklin

Calum Franklin is executive head chef at Holborn Dining Room, and an internationally renowned pie-maker (dubbed ‘The Pie King’ by Jamie Oliver). On the episode, he talks to Lara Prendergast and Olivia Potts about how his menus try to recreate the nostalgia of his simple childhood meals, like fish pie; the centrality of pies to

Play 25 mins

Table Talk

With Craig Brown

Craig Brown is an awarding winning critic, satirist and former restaurant reviewer. His most recent book One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time, won the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. On the podcast, he talks to Lara and Olivia about the horrible food at Eton, his utter failure to bake a cake, and proposes

Play 24 mins

Table Talk

With Patrick Jephson

Patrick Jephson is a consultant, journalist, broadcaster and New York Times best selling author. From 1988 to 1996, Patrick worked first as Princess Diana’s equerry and then as her private secretary. He is also currently a historical consultant on Netfilx’s The Crown. On the podcast, he talks to Lara and Olivia about bonding over mealtimes

Play 33 mins

Table Talk

With Jonathan Drori

Jonathan Drori CBE is a Trustee of the Eden Project and Cambridge Science Centre, an ambassador for WWF, and was for nine years a Trustee of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. In a previous life at the BBC, he was executive producer of more than 50 prime-time science documentaries and popular series, and he is

Play 25 mins

Table Talk

With Sebastian de Souza

Sebastian de Souza is an English actor and author. On the podcast, he tells Lara and Liv about eating too much on set, enjoying cornflakes, double cream and sugar, and writing after a drink. His new book, Kid, is out now.

Play 30 mins