Lara Prendergast is executive editor of The Spectator. She hosts two Spectator podcasts, The Edition and Table Talk, and edits The Spectator’s food and drink coverage.
32 min listen
Jose Pizarro is a Spanish chef, writer, and restauranteur. He came to London in 2000 and opened a series of well-loved Spanish restaurants, including Jose's Tapas Bar. He is the author of five cookbooks. In this episode, he talks to Lara and Livvy about growing up on a farm in Spain, why he loves sherry, and bringing tapas to Britain. Presented by Lara Prendergast and Olivia Potts.
27 min listen
Lara speaks to Olivia Potts, Spectator Life’s Vintage Chef and co-host of the Table Talk podcast, about Olivia’s new book, A Half-Baked Idea. Before she became a food writer and Cordon-Bleu trained chef, Olivia was a former president of the Cambridge Union and a high-flying criminal barrister. But her mother’s death changed all that. Tune in to hear a story of love, grief, hope, and cake. Presented by Lara Prendergast.
34 min listen
Tracey MacLeod is a broadcaster and food critic, known for hosting the BBC's The Late Show and for regularly guest starring in Masterchef. She is friends with Helen Fielding, who based the character of Jude from Bridget Jones on MacLeod. In this special edition of Table Talk, brought to you live from the sofas of Latitude Festival, MacLeod talks about her life through food. Presented by Lara Prendergast and Olivia Potts.
31 min listen
Jeremy King, one half of the restaurateurs Corbin and King, is behind some of the most iconic restaurants in London, including the Ivy, the Delauney, and Fischers. In this episode, he talks about why he left banking for hospitality, how he redecorates restaurants according to their architectural influences, and people watching in his establishments.
28 min listen
Lara and Livvy talks to food writer Tom Parker-Bowles about his mother's roast chicken, prep school gruel, and why, as a food critic, he still loves McDonald's. Presented by Lara Prendergast and Olivia Potts.
From our US edition
‘I’m not a breakfast guy at all, fortunately,’ Donald Trump explained in a recent interview. ‘I like the lunches but the dinners is what I really like.’ The US president is right. In the English-speaking world, breakfast is a drag. Devotees explain solemnly that it’s the most important meal of the day. It’s certainly the most boring. In Britain and America, there is rarely any joy in breakfast food and that is deliberate. The puritanical believe that a clean house is godly – and the same is true for their gut. To me, however, it would have been far more unnerving if Trump had said he enjoyed a five-grain bowl every morning, washed down with a glass of wheatgrass. And hold the dairy – almond milk only, please.
12 min listen
Jo Thompson is a prize-winning garden designer, whose upcoming book 'Rhubarb Rhubarb' is a correspondence between a hopeless gardener and a hopeful cook, taking a look at both gardening and cooking. Jo tells Livvy about the fresh buffalo mozzarella in her family home in Italy, her father's Italian restaurant, and the one dish she can make with her eyes closed. Presented by Olivia Potts.
Philip May seems a decent cove. He’s been stoic and loyal but I can’t help hoping that the next prime minister’s spouse will be a bit sparkier — and give us something to talk about other than Brexit. I suspect that it will be a woman. If so, who? We have Lucia, Jeremy Hunt’s wife. He famously could not remember whether she was Japanese or Chinese. Then there’s Dominic Raab’s Brazilian wife, Erika, a marketing executive at Google. We discovered from a newspaper profile that the Raabs have a duck-egg blue and cream kitchen in their Surrey home. Sarah Vine, wife of Michael Gove, is well known for her acidic columns in the Daily Mail. If she makes it to Downing Street, will she be allowed to keep writing them?
Philip May seems a decent cove. He’s been stoic and loyal but I can’t help hoping that the next prime minister’s spouse will be a bit sparkier — and give us something to talk about other than Brexit. I suspect that it will be a woman. If so, who? We have Lucia, Jeremy Hunt’s wife. He famously could not remember whether she was Japanese or Chinese. Then there’s Dominic Raab’s Brazilian wife, Erika, a marketing executive at Google. We discovered from a newspaper profile that the Raabs have a duck-egg blue and cream kitchen in their Surrey home. Sarah Vine, wife of Michael Gove, is well known for her acidic columns in the Daily Mail. If she makes it to Downing Street, will she be allowed to keep writing them?
18 min listen
Actress Cressida Bonas talks to Lara and Livvy about growing up on shepherd's pie and pop-tarts, her trypophobia, and the best curry she's ever had.
28 min listen
In this episode, Michelin star chef Nathan Outlaw joins Lara and Livvy to talk about his love for Cornwall and seafood, training under celebrity chef Rick Stein, and how he totally didn't help his ten year old daughter win a baking competition.
30 min listen
In this episode, broadcaster and writer Adrian Chiles joins Lara and Livvy to discuss a childhood of Croatian home cooking, how an incident with a Turkish lamb turned him vegetarian, and why he prefers 'mindful drinking' to 'drinking responsibly'.
31 min listen
Alissa Timoshkina is a chef, food and film writer, and the founder of the KinoVino supper club. Today she joins Lara and Livvy to discuss Soviet food culture, her journey from film to cookery, and ‘the cabbage myth’.
36 min listen
Jeremy Lee is the chief proprietor of the landmark Soho restaurant, Quo Vadis. In this episode, he talks to Lara and Livvy about why he was such a bad waiter, what it is like to cook and eat with Simon Hopkinson and Alistair Little, and his undying love for puddings.
28 min listen
Journalist and author Rachel Johnson joins Lara and Livvy on this episode to talk about what it was like to share with a student house with Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall, then budding student chef, about cooking rice found in a Greek bin for her children, and why 'American food' is an oxymoron.
40 min listen
In this episode of Table Talk, Lara and Livvy talk to Ella Risbridger, chef and writer, whose new recipe book is Midnight Chicken: & Other Recipes Worth Living For. It's part memoir, part cookery; exploring mental health, friendship, love, and the redemptive power of food and cooking. On the podcast, Ella talks about the man that she moved from Dubai to London for, what it's like to be the cover girl of Aga Living (can you tell she grew up with an aga?), and the recipe for the best roast chicken in the world. Please note that this podcast features a candid discussion of suicide and suicide ideation.
32 min listen
Lara and Livvy talk to broadcaster and writer Iain Dale about his life through food and drink. Or rather, the food and drink he doesn't like. It turns out that Iain is the fussiest eater to come on the podcast, but he tells us about the food and drinks that he does like (chicken fajitas, German schnitzels, and Lilt) as well as about what it was like to grow up on a farm, being food poisoned in Russia, and why he buys his crisps from eBay.
From our US edition
My face is important. Your face is important, too. All our faces are important. That’s why I’d like to take some time to tell you about my beauty regime. As the youngest ever female congresswoman, I’m delighted that I live in an era where women can be both into mascara and Martin Luther King, serums and Shakespeare. You know what I call that? Freedom. I double cleanse, systematically. This means washing my face twice, to remove all the impurities. There’s nothing wrong with impurities, but do I want them on my face? No. Do you want them on your face? No. Scrub scrub scrub, with your muslin cloth. I aim for that sort of ‘I just owned Trump’ kind of a glow.
37 min listen
Lara Prendergast and Olivia Potts talk to Bryony Gordon, columnist at the Telegraph and author of Eat, Drink, Run. They have a frank conversation about Bryony's relationship with food and mental health, and Bryony comes clean about her toddler's metropolitan diet and why dinner parties are totally not for her.
28 min listen
Sophia Money-Coutts is former features editor at Tatler magazine, and now columnist for the Sunday Telegraph. Her new book, The Plus One, came out earlier this year. In this episode of Table Talk, Lara and Livvy talk to Sophia about how cheese fondue helped her get through her parents' divorce as a child, how an ex-boyfriend berated her poppadom manners, and the best way to juggle a clutch bag and canapés at writers' parties. Presented by Lara Prendergast and Olivia Potts.