The Restaurant Guys
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The Restaurant Guys is one of the original food and wine podcasts, launched in 2005 by restaurateurs Mark Pascal and Francis Schott.
With roots as a daily radio show, the podcast features in-depth conversations with chefs, bartenders, winemakers, authors, and hospitality professionals—offering the inside track on food, cocktails, wine, and restaurant culture.
New episodes and vintage conversations because the best stories, like the best bottles, age well. Expect insightful, opinionated, and entertaining conversations about food, wine, and the finer things in life.
Subscribe for ad-free content, bonus episodes and invitations to special events!
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Contact: TheGuys@RestaurantGuysPodcast.com
Episodes
258 episodes
Comic Cocktail History | David Wondrich
Why This Episode MattersA great bartender needs more than recipes and a great cocktail doesn’t necessarily need more ingredients.Black and Filipino bartenders helped shape American drinking and preserve traditions that migh...
The Cost of Three Michelin Stars | Rudolph Chelminski
This is a Vintage episode from 2005.Why This Episode MattersEarning three Michelin stars is a triumph. Keeping them brings financial commitments, public scrutiny, and relentless pressure.Rudolph Chelminski knew Berna...
A Fire, a Do-Over & The Bear | Brian Lockwood
Why This Episode MattersWhat it takes to reopen a restaurant after a fire shuts it down just three days into business.How a shared-space kitchen becomes a lesson in building one restaurant team.What went into train...
Southern Smoke Festival 2026 | Vol. 2: French Brasseries, Caviar Camp & Great Brisket
Why This Episode MattersKyle Knall explains why Milwaukee offers the community support to build ambitious restaurants—and a life outside them.Jason Ryczek takes us inside Caviar Camp, from getting into tanks with sturgeon t...
Southern Smoke Festival 2026 | Vol. 1: Building Better Restaurants
Why This Episode MattersCan restaurants offer exceptional food and hospitality while giving their employees a better life? These owners explain how they’re doing it.Birdie’s challenges the traditional fine dining model with...
The Lost Books Behind the Cocktail Revival | Greg Boehm
This is a Vintage episode from 2010.Why This Episode MattersGreg Boehm explains how obscure pre-Prohibition cocktail books became useful again as ingredients and serious bartending returned.He shares how Mud Puddle B...
Kenta Goto & Noah Rothbaum | The Goto Bartender’s Guide & the Art of Precision
Why This Episode MattersKenta Goto explains why the first sip of a cocktail is like a job interview: you get one chance to make the right impression, so every detail from ice and dilution to the order of operations matters.
Martini Expo 2026 | Vol. 2: Colin Asare-Appiah, François Monti & Ryan Maybee
Recorded on location at the Martini Expo in Chicago.Why This Episode MattersColin Asare-Appiah takes The Guys inside Ajabu, the cocktail and spirits festival connecting bartenders across Africa and the wider cocktail...
Martini Expo 2026 | Vol. 1: Toby Maloney, Jackson Cannon, Federico Lombardi & Dan Smith
Recorded on location at the Martini Expo in Chicago.Why This Episode MattersToby Maloney looks back at the first wave of the modern cocktail renaissance from Milk & Honey to The Violet Hour and explain...
Hospitality Should Be Fun | Rick Tramonto
This is a Vintage episode from 2006.Why This Episode MattersRick Tramonto makes the case for fine dining that is polished and precise without being stiff or intimidating.The Guys tackle an enduring hospit...
Pasta, Balsamic & Calm Chaos: Inside Monteverde | Sarah Grueneberg
Recorded on location at Monteverde Restaurant & Pastificio in Chicago Why This Episode MattersGrueneberg explains why being willing to step down in title to keep learning can be one of the smartest career moves i...
Nothing Stops a Bullet Like a Job | Father Greg Boyle
This is a Vintage episode from 2007.Why This Episode MattersFather Greg Boyle explains how Homeboy Industries uses jobs, training and support to help former gang members build different lives.Rival gang members work ...
Last Call at the Funeral Home: Inside a Secret Speakeasy | Andrew Loos & Phil Worden
Why This Episode MattersTil Death The Speakeasy is literally hidden beneath a working funeral home outside Kansas City and unlike most modern “speakeasies,” it really isn’t generally open to the public. The room ...
Are We Loving Seafood to Death? | Rick Moonen
This is a Vintage episode from 2006.Why This Episode MattersLong before sustainable seafood became a mainstream restaurant conversation, Rick Moonen was pushing chefs and diners to think about where their fish came from and h...
Preserving the Seasons: Canning, Pickling & Seasonal Cooking | Paul Virant
This is a Vintage episode from 2012.Why This Episode MattersChef Paul Virant explains how preservation can extend truly seasonal cooking well beyond the growing season.Canning and pickling can deepen a restaurant's ...
Knowing When to Change: Ice Cream, Fine Dining & Reinvention | Nicholas Harary
Why This Episode MattersNicholas Harary explains why he chose to reinvent one of New Jersey’s most acclaimed fine-dining restaurants before the business forced him to.A surprisingly technical look at what separates great ic...
The Mystique, Money and Madness of Truffles | Jane Black | Preview
You’re hearing a preview of this subscriber bonus episode. Restaurant Guys’ Regulars can hear the full episode, plus other commercial-free bonus episodes, at restaurantguysregulars.b...
Stripper Food, Bachelor Parties & Other Bad Ideas | Inside Track
This is a Vintage compilation from 2010.Why This Episode MattersA Real Housewives of New Jersey cookbook introduces one particularly memorable piece of dietary advice: avoid “stripper food.”“Juic...
Can Local Food Save a Town? | Ben Hewitt
This is a Vintage episode from 2010.Why This Episode MattersHardwick, Vermont became an early test case for whether local food and small agricultural businesses could help revitalize a struggling rural economy.Ben He...
How Do We Get a New Generation Into Wine? | Tony Margiotta
Why This Episode MattersWhy wine may not be losing younger drinkers so much as failing to introduce itself to them wellHow small, independent producers can offer something industrial wine cannot: place, history and story
Heirloom Seeds, Local Farms & Better Food | Erica Renaud
This is a Vintage episode from 2006.Why This Episode MattersErica Renaud explains why heirloom, traditional and open-pollinated seeds matter to agricultural biodiversity.Mark and Francis share how they worked directl...
Authentic Italian Food vs. the Algorithm | Vincenzo Prosperi
Why This Episode MattersItalian food isn’t one cuisine. Vincenzo Prosperi explains why Italy’s regional traditions matter—and what gets lost when everything is reduced to pizza, pasta and red sauce.Authenticity and innovati...
Non-Alcoholic Pairings at Thomas Keller’s Restaurants | Paul Roberts
This is a Vintage episode from 2006.Why This Episode MattersWhy guests who are not drinking deserve a beverage experience equal to the food, not simply still or sparkling water.How sommeliers can build non-alcoholic ...