The Perfect Bite

Dana Cree has spent her career asking questions most pastry chefs never think to ask. Why does brown sugar make ice cream icier? What is bubblegum actually made of? Can a green bean casserole taste incredible as a frozen pop? The answers led her from restaurant kitchens across three continents to Penn State's Ice Cream Short Course, a James Beard-nominated book, and Pretty Cool Ice Cream, the Logan Square shop and ice cream pop brand she has been running for eight years.

Dana grew up in the Pacific Northwest with a grandmother who was...

After a decade running Tail Up Goat, one of DC's most celebrated tasting menu restaurants, Jon Sybert and Jill Tyler did something most restaurateurs would never consider: They closed it on their own terms, gave their team almost a full year to celebrate and prepare, and started over. What they built in its place, Rye Bunny, is the restaurant they always wanted to run and the model they believe the industry needs more of.

Jon grew up in Chicago before landing in Northern Virginia and eventually dropping out of college to cook, drawn in...

This episode is sponsored by Vermont Nut Free Chocolates. Get 20% off your order through December 31st with code PERFECTBITE at vermontnutfree.com.

This episode is also sponsored by BLiS Gourmet, Michigan's small-batch producer of barrel-aged condiments, sauces, and caviar. Get 15% off your order through November 1, 2026 with code PERFECTBITE. Elevate your everyday cooking at blisgourmet.com.

This episode is also sponsored by Takeaways. Indulge your salt tooth with Takeaways' cheesy, protein-packed snack bars. Get 20% off with code PERFECTBITE at eattakeaways.com.

For nearly three decades...

This episode is sponsored by Vermont Nut Free Chocolates, your new favorite 100% tree nut and peanut nut quality chocolates. Get 20% off your order through December 31st with code PERFECTBITE at vermontnutfree.com.

This episode is also sponsored by BLiS Gourmet, Michigan's small-batch producer of barrel-aged condiments, sauces, and Midwestern caviar. Elevate your everyday cooking and get 15% off your order with code PERFECTBITE at blisgourmet.com through Sunday, November 1. 

Exclusions for both codes: One use per customer. Offer valid on products, not on shipping.

When you think of f...

Chef Dominique Leach is a pit master, fine dining veteran, food entrepreneur, community builder, and the woman behind one of Chicago's most celebrated barbecue restaurants: Lexington Betty Smokehouse. And if you think you know what a pit master looks like, Dom is here to expand your imagination.

In this episode, host Sarah Perkins sits down with Dominique at the brand-new Lexington Betty location inside the University of Chicago's Hutchinson Dining Commons, just days before students arrived. Dom talks about growing up in Humboldt Park, finding her footing through culinary school and eight years in...

They rented a cursed venue in Toronto with a leak and a fire alarm. They put everything they had into it. And by the end of the first week, there was a line around the block.

Erin Hayes and Kelsey Ramage are the co-founders of Black Lagoon, now in its sixth year, a Halloween-themed immersive cocktail pop-up experience running across 34 locations in North America every October. Erin came from the Chicago cocktail scene, where she led the programs at J. Parker, Three Dots and a Dash, and Lost Lake as the city became the...

She named her brand after her geriatric dog. She started her Instagram account while in chemotherapy and called it Cooking with Cancer. She photographed her own cookbook in her parents' basement with the help of her mom's mahjong friend Karen, a hobby photographer in her 70s who ended up with photos on the back cover of the finished book. And she has never once paywalled a recipe because she learned to bake from bloggers who were generous enough to share everything for free.

Alex George is the founder of Lily P Crumbs and the...

He was sixteen years old, court-ordered to an alternative school in Rhode Island, looking for a way to pass the time. A retired Johnson & Wales chef named Andy ran a vocational culinary program there. Kevin signed up. Chef Andy saw something in him. And that was the beginning of everything.

Chef Kevin O'Donnell is a multi-time James Beard Award nominee and the owner of Giusto and Mother Pizzeria in Newport, Rhode Island. Giusto is his flagship restaurant at Hammett's Hotel on the Newport waterfront, serving what Kevin calls freestyle Italian cuisine: not Roman, not...

About six weeks after winning the James Beard Jonathan Gold Local Voice Award, Ashok Selvam was laid off from Eater Chicago. He had been there for over a decade. He was the only full-time staff member. His fingerprints were on every single story, every headline, every post. And then his supervisor sent a message asking him to check his email.

What happened next is one of the most genuinely exciting food media stories of the past year.

Ashok Selvam is a co-founder of Ravenous, a worker-owned independent food and culture publication that...

Their grandfather worked at his Polish deli until he was 87. Their uncle is 75 and still running it. Nobody in the family told them the business was a good idea. And that didn’t stop Vanessa and Casey White from building one of the most beloved Polish American food brands in the country.

Vanessa and Casey White are the co-founders of Jaju Pierogi, a Polish American frozen pierogi brand they started in 2016 from their grandfather's handwritten deli recipes, scaled through New England farmers markets and brewery pop-ups on $70 Amazon griddles, grew through a COVID meal ki...

Just because a dish is well executed does not mean it has to feel stuffy. And just because you have culinary school training and a Michelin-starred kitchen on your resume does not mean you cannot dedicate your career to making dining the most fun part of someone's day. That is exactly what Avishar Barua is doing in Columbus, Ohio. And Columbus has never tasted better.

Avishar Barua is a two-time James Beard Award semifinalist and the founder of Agni and Joya's, the two Columbus restaurants that make up Serious Fun, his restaurant group built...

Some things feel like fate. Manny Ocasio was working at Zahav during a rare lunch service when Gina walked in looking for her friend. They barely spoke. Months later Gina walked into a bar and Manny was sitting there. Everything unfolded from that moment. And now they run one of Buffalo's most exciting new restaurants together, as partners in life and in business.

Manny and Gina Ocasio are the executive chefs and partners of Mira, a Mediterranean restaurant that opened in Buffalo's in November 2025, built around the simplest and most beautiful philosophy: the best...

She spent six years evaluating CPG founders from the other side of the table, sitting in boardrooms at TRUFF and Erewhon-backing growth firms while secretly thinking she would never be the one to jump. And then she ate one too many chocolate flavored protein bars at midnight in a finance office and finally said enough.

Ash Baxter is the founder of Takeaways, a savory puffed protein snack bar that she spent two and a half years developing, launched for pre-order on June 10th, started shipping June 24th, and has already sold 45,000 bars in its...

Kingo Yamanashi bought his first bluefin tuna for a dollar from a recreational fisherman. He did not have a refrigerated van. He did not speak English. He did not know how to break down a tuna or even have a scale to weigh it. He just put it in a van with some ice, drove it back to New York, and let the chefs cut whatever they wanted while he calculated the weight by feel.

That was 1977. Today, Yama Seafood is the purveyor behind the seafood programs at Le Bernardin, Masa, and more of...

She didn't want to move to Las Vegas. She moved anyway for a restaurant that was supposed to open March 16th, 2020. And then she stayed, kept pushing through two years of pandemic uncertainty, and built something so extraordinary that just the other month she became the 2026 James Beard Award winner for Best Chef: Southwest, the first time Las Vegas had been recognized on the James Beard platform in 15 years.

Chef Sarah Thompson is the executive chef of Casa Playa at Wynn Las Vegas, a coastal Mexican restaurant she opened in September 2021, now approaching its...

Some people spend their careers looking for the right place. Bob Bennett found his 22 years ago and never looked back.

Bob Bennett is the head chef of Zingerman's Roadhouse in Ann Arbor, Michigan, one of the most beloved and respected restaurant institutions in the Midwest. He started as a line cook before The Roadhouse even opened its doors, helped paint the outside of the building that summer, survived a soft opening of 300 people with one day of training, and has been there every day since. What keeps him? The team, the culture, the guests...

Because life is short. That is what BLiS stands for. And after 23 years of bourbon barrel aged maple syrup, wild Great Lakes caviar, smoked soy sauce, fish sauce, vinegars, and tamari built from a single forager's obsession with wild flavor and zero waste, it is hard to argue with the philosophy.

Chef Steve Stallard and Sarah Sherman are the co-owners of BLiS Gourmet, a Grand Rapids, Michigan-based artisan pantry brand that started with a bucket of live brook trout, a handful of barrels sourced from a trip to Kentucky, and a conviction that the...

Some restaurants feel like places. Via Carota feels like a person. Warm, unhurried, deeply intelligent, and completely unconcerned with trends. That’s not an accident. It is the direct result of two women who have spent decades building exactly the places they wanted to eat in, and refusing to compromise on a single detail along the way.

Rita Sodi and Jody Williams are the co-owners of I Sodi, Via Carota, Buvette, Bar Pisellino, Commerce Inn, Officina 1397, and Officina del Bere, among the most beloved and respected restaurant and hospitality concepts in New York City. Ri...

You can taste the love someone puts into their cooking. And the opposite is true too.

Norman Fenton is the Michelin starred, James Beard nominated chef and co-owner of Cariño, a modern Mexican restaurant in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood that is, in every sense, a love letter. A love letter to his wife Karina and their sons. A love letter to her family in Quintana Roo. A love letter to Mexican cuisine, culture, and the Latino community that has shaped his entire career and life.

In this episode, host Sarah Perkins sits d...

On June 15th, 2026, The Perfect Bite went live from the red carpet of the James Beard Restaurant and Chef Awards at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. As an official press credential holder, host Sarah Perkins spent two hours on the carpet meeting, interviewing, and asking the world's best and hardest question to some of the most celebrated names in food, hospitality, and beyond.

From the Humanitarian of the Year to lifetime achievement legends, from a chef putting Anchorage, Alaska on the map, to a restaurateur flying his entire Cleveland team to Chicago, this is...

Some people learn about the food industry from the outside. Jordan Buckner learned it from all sides at once, and then built the community he wished had existed while he was figuring it out.

Jordan Buckner is the founder of Foodbevy, a community and resource platform now reaching over 5,000 CPG founders and food and beverage professionals, and of Joyful Co., a corporate gifting company built around emerging CPG brands. But before all of that, he was a fifth grade entrepreneur selling Airhead candies out of his cargo pants, a high schooler running a student-operated...

In a world full of AI generated images, there is still nothing quite like a photo that makes you stop scrolling and say: Is that for real?

Laura Scherb is the founder of Page and Plate Studio, a food photography and styling business that brings CPG brands, cookbook authors, and editorial projects to life through imagery so textural and rich it practically pops off the page. She is also the co-founder of Kitchen Sink Studio alongside pastry chef Emily Spurlin, a board member of Les Dames d'Escoffier of Chicago, and a two time IACP...

Some people spend their entire careers supporting others before they finally step into the light themselves. Adrienne Cheatham spent eight years at Le Bernardin, years supporting Marcus Samuelsson at Red Rooster and Street Bird, and a lifetime believing she was meant to be the operational person behind the scenes. And then a call to Top Chef and a family gumbo challenge changed everything.

Adrienne Cheatham is a Michelin-starred chef, James Beard Media Award nominated cookbook author, Food Network personality, and co-host of The Chef's Cut podcast alongside Top Chef co-finalist Joe Flamm. And now...

He broke his back snowboarding, got stuck on his couch, and found the Food Network. Thirteen minutes after submitting his MasterChef application, a producer called him. And he never slowed down from there. 



Josh Gale is the founder and private chef behind The Chef Out West, a Canadian food creator and MasterChef and Beat Bobby Flay veteran whose bold, unapologetic, in-your-face food philosophy has taken the internet by storm. After years of corporate tech sales, a decade running restaurants in Vancouver, and a string of celebrity private cheffing gigs, Josh committed fully to content creation at th...

If you have been sleeping on Cleveland, Chef Vinnie Cimino is here to wake you up.

Vinnie is the co-founder of Cordelia, one of Cleveland's most beloved restaurants, and the brand new ROSY, a wood-fired neighborhood spot that opened just seven weeks before this conversation. He is also a three-time James Beard Award nominee, a community anchor through the Cleveland Family Meal Project and Food Conscious, and one of the warmest, most thoughtful voices in the Midwest food scene today.

In this episode, host Sarah Perkins sits down with...

Some brands set out to sell a product. Diaspora Spice Co. set out to change a supply chain, honor a culture, and bring the most potent, story-rich spices in the world into home kitchens across America. Nine years in, they are doing all three.

Sana Javeri Kadri is the CEO and founder of Diaspora Spice Co., a regenerative spice company built on a singular mission: put money, equity, and power into the best spice farms across South Asia and bring wildly delicious, hella potent flavors to your everyday cooking. Asha Loupy is Diaspora Spice...

What if food media got the Puck treatment?

That's the question Max Tcheyan asked and Caper is the answer. Max is the CEO and co-founder of Caper, a new food and hospitality media company built on the premise that the food world deserves the kind of serious, insider, character-driven storytelling that business gets from Puck, that sports got from The Athletic, and that Hollywood gets from Vanity Fair. The characters are there. The stories are there. The journalism just hasn't caught up yet.

Max knows how to build this...

Some brands feel like they were always meant to be national. Killer Brownie is one of them. But it took a 40-year journey, a nurse-turned-founder, and a tagline born from a dad sneaking Oreos to his kids to finally make it happen.

Chimene Mayne-Ross is the CEO of Killer Brownie, a gourmet brownie brand born out of Dorothy Lane Market, the legendary Dayton, Ohio specialty grocer her father built, that has grown over 500% since 2019 and is now coast to coast in Target, Kroger, Food Lion, Harris Teeter, and more. But Chimene didn't come into...

He hated pasta as a kid. Now he's the self-proclaimed Prince of Pasta, the Ruler of Rigatoni, the Sultan of Spaghetti, and one of the most exciting chef-turned-CPG-founders in the food industry.

Joe Sasto is the founder of Tantos pasta chips, co-founder of Ripi Foods frozen pasta, author of “Breaking The Rules,” and a familiar face across Food Network, Top Chef, and Netflix competitions. But what makes Joe's story genuinely compelling isn't the resume: it's the mustache, the energy, the happy accident that turned a forgotten tray of dried pasta in a Beverly Hills walk...

What is Big Dip Energy? You’re about to find out!

Alyse Whitney is a food journalist, cookbook author, Netflix judge, and certified Dip Queen who has spent nearly 15 years building one of the most distinctive voices in food media. Over 1,000 bylines. Bon Appétit, Food & Wine, Rachael Ray Every Day. Managing editor of Chrissy Teigan's Cravings. Ina Garten's cell phone number on hand. And a cookbook, Big Dip Energy, that she wrote, art directed, propped, and styled in nine months while convincing her publisher to let her include a "compundium" of puns at the...

What do you do when the thing you've dedicated your entire career to becomes the thing that's making you sick?

Chef Monica Glass spent years working in some of the most celebrated kitchens in the country, including Gotham Bar and Grill, Le Bernadin, and the Ritz Carlton Philadelphia, mastering the art and science of pastry. And then she was diagnosed with Celiac disease. The flour she had been breathing in and baking with every day was the very thing destroying her health.

She could have walked away. Instead she...

Some guests walk into a conversation and immediately make you feel like you've known them forever. Emery Whalen is one of those people.

Emery is the CEO and co-founder of QED Hospitality, a nine-restaurant group with locations across New Orleans, Nashville, and Kentucky that is doing something increasingly rare in the hospitality industry: Putting people first, actually meaning it, and building a business around that belief that has lasted a decade.

QED stands for "quod erat demonstrandum,” Latin for "Thus it has been proven." It's a punctuation mark at th...

Eric Skae is the CEO and co-founder of Carbone Fine Food, the fastest growing pasta sauce brand in America. In just five years, Carbone Fine Food has gone from zero to over $130 million through the register, adding an average of 156,000 new households every single month. And before that, Eric ran Rao's, where he took it from the number six pasta sauce brand in America and set the foundation that would eventually make it the number one premium sauce in the country.

In this episode, host Sarah Perkins sits down with Eric for one of...

In this special Podcasthon episode of The Perfect Bite, host Sarah Perkins sits down with Jake Tepperman, founder of Chicago Food Rescue, a nonprofit that rescues fresh, perishable food — produce, baked goods, prepared meals — from grocery stores, corporate offices, restaurants, and events, and delivers it directly to community organizations that feed people in need. No physical location. No warehouse. Just a network of volunteers, a powerful app, and a mission that is quietly changing how Chicago thinks about food waste and food access.

Podcasthon is the world’s largest annual charity podcast event in mid-Ma...

What if instead of waiting for a big brand to buy you out, you just built something bigger on your own terms?

That's exactly what Stefanie Garcia Turner, Regina Trillo, and Jocelyn Ramirez did when they merged their three beloved brands - Tuyyo Foods, Nemi Snacks, and Todo Verde - into one powerhouse under the Tuyyo Foods umbrella. And the food industry is paying attention.

In this episode, host Sarah Perkins sits down with the full executive team behind Tuyyo Foods 2.0 for a conversation that covers everything: Growing up...

Rachel Mansfield is one of those people where listing her titles doesn't even do her justice — OG food blogger, recipe developer, cookbook author, CPG investor, and now founder of cadootz!, the kids' snack brand that's checking every box health-conscious parents have been begging for. Oh, and she's doing most of it alongside her husband Jordan, while raising three boys and renovating a 90-year-old home. Casual.

In this episode, Rachel gets real with host Sarah Perkins about the winding, messy, beautiful road that got her here — from baking box-mix birthday cakes in high school, to gett...

From sommelier to restaurateur to hospitality consultant, Liz Mendez has built a career rooted in community, beverage expertise, and reinvention.

In this episode of The Perfect Bite, host Sarah Perkins sits down with Liz Mendez, founder of Aldea Hospitality, to talk about building sustainable careers in the restaurant industry, the rise of non-alcoholic beverage programs, and what it really takes to open — and close — a restaurant.

Liz shares her journey from Chicago wine professional to opening the beloved Spanish wine bar Vera, the lessons learned from entrepreneurship, and how she...

When I say Swedish hot dogs will change your life, it’s true! And they did for techie turned chef Amelia Eudailey. 

In this episode of The Perfect Bite, host Sarah Perkins sits down with chef and entrepreneur Amelia Eudailey, founder of the cult-favorite pop-up concept Hej Hej (pronounced “hey hey”!). Known for its Scandinavian-inspired hot dogs, Swedish candy, and playful menu, Hej Hej has built a loyal following through pop-ups, catering, and creative storytelling—all before opening a traditional restaurant.

Amelia didn’t follow a typical culinary path. After worki...

How do you build a lasting career in food when media, platforms, and business models keep changing?

In this episode of The Perfect Bite, host Sarah Perkins sits down with food writer, editor, cookbook author, and media entrepreneur Chandra Ram to talk about building a career that evolves with the industry instead of resisting it.

From restaurant PR to leading Plate Magazine for over a decade, working at Food & Wine, and now running her own independent publishing and consulting work, Chandra shares what it takes to stay adaptable in...

What does it actually take to build a better ingredient for professional kitchens?

In this episode of The Perfect Bite, host Sarah Perkins sits down with Susannah Schoolman, founder of Tourlami, to unpack how deep culinary experience can become a real competitive advantage in entrepreneurship.

Susannah shares how her background as a classically trained pastry chef revealed a major gap in the plant-based market: vegan butters that simply didn’t work in professional baking and kitchen environments. Instead of settling for “good enough,” she spent years testing, iterating, and engine...