The Perfect Bite

Sarah Perkins
  • 5.0 (5)
  • Food
  • Updated Weekly

Your fusion of food and entrepreneurship, The Perfect Bite brings you inspiring conversations with chefs, restaurateurs, CPG brand founders, food tech founders, and more in the food and beverage industry, highlighting their experiences and how they've cooked up something new. From emerging brands to established business owners, you'll learn from the best entrepreneurs in food, beverage, hospitality, and agriculture about how they started their businesses, what problems they're solving, the tough times they've overcome, and their best advice for entering these industries or starting your own business. We end each episode with the world's best and hardest question: What is your perfect bite?

  1. 2d ago

    BONUS EPISODE: LIVE! From the 2026 James Beard Awards Red Carpet

    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 one of the most special and spontaneous episodes The Perfect Bite has ever produced. This episode features interviews with nominees, honorees, past winners, award committee members, and food industry luminaries from across the country, all sharing what brought them to Chicago and, of course, their perfect bites. Timestamps below to let you choose where you want to hop to in the episode! Timestamps: 0:00 - Welcome and intro from the red carpet at the Lyric Opera of Chicago 0:30 - Who was James Beard? A brief history and foundation overview 2:00 - The James Beard Foundation mission and 35 years of awards 3:30 - The 2026 presenting sponsors, partners, and award programs 4:00 - CHIRLA: Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, 2026 Impact Award winners. Perfect bites: pozole and mom's enchiladas 7:30 - Nikki Fas: Outstanding Professional in Cocktail Service nominee. Puerto Rican flavors, pineapple cocktails, and a perfect bite of tostones with garlic 11:30 - Damian Diaz: No Us Without You, 2026 Humanitarian of the Year. On representing the immigrant community and a perfect bite of abuelita's enchiladas verdes 16:00 - Nathan Bentley: Best Chef Pacific Northwest nominee, Altura, Anchorage Alaska. On elevating comfort food and a perfect bite of the sweet prawn biscuit 21:00 - Belinda Chang: Two-time James Beard Award winner, now creating luxury hospitality experiences. On magnetic nails, Lady Gaga concerts, and a perfect bite of crème fraîche with Lipton French onion dip, lumpfish caviar, and a potato chip 26:00 - Johnny Hernandez: Best Chef Mountain nominee, Denver, traditional Mexican cuisine. On representing Denver and Mexico and a perfect bite of molote in the Centro Historico in Oaxaca 32:00 - Finn Walter and Audrey Walter: Best Chef Texas nominee, The Nicolette, Lubbock Texas. On a burgeoning food scene and a perfect bite of green chile posole from Old Mexico Grill in Santa Fe 37:00 - Chris Shepherd and Lindsey Brown: Southern Smoke Foundation, 2026 Impact Luncheon honorees. On mental health access for hospitality workers and perfect bites of the Monteverde meatball and a homemade grilled cheese 45:00 - Omar Tate and Cybille St. Aude-Tate: Best Chef Mid-Atlantic nominees, Honeysuckle, Philadelphia. On memory, storytelling through food, and perfect bites of acorn bread and the first strawberry from the farm 53:00 - Lee Anne Wong: 2026 James Beard Awards Committee member. On the diversity of this year's nominees and a perfect bite of tonkatsu from Budagumi in Tokyo 57:30 - Andrew Zimmern: Host of the 2026 James Beard Media Awards, Substack author of Spilled Milk. On overcoming nerves and a perfect bite of a fried chicken thigh 1:02:30 - Ope Amosu: Best Chef nominee, ChòpnBlọk, Houston, modern West African cuisine. On making culture accessible and a perfect bite of Buka stew 1:06:00 - Sam Toia: President and CEO, Illinois Restaurant Association. On keeping the James Beard Awards in Chicago through 2028 and culinary tourism 1:10:00 - Joe Cash: Best Chef Southeast nominee, Scoundrel, Greenville South Carolina. On classic French bistro in a burgeoning food city and a perfect bite of pristine uni 1:13:00 - Michael Tusk: Outstanding Chef nominee, Quince, San Francisco. On Joe Sasto's time at Quince and a perfect bite of a croque monsieur at Harry's Bar in Venice 1:22:30 - Erick Williams: Virtue, Chicago. On Midwest nice, team-first hospitality, and a perfect bite of Nancy Silverton's pizza dough recipe 1:23:00 - Nancy Silverton: 2026 James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award winner. On not going anywhere and a perfect bite of crusty, flavorful bread 1:30:00 - Vinnie Cimino: Best Chef Great Lakes nominee, Cordelia and ROSY, Cleveland. On bringing the whole team to Chicago and a perfect bite of the bread service at Monteverde 1:37:00 - Historia: Filipino pop-up, Las Vegas. On marrying journalism and food to bring Filipino origin stories to life 1:38:30 - Closing reflections, Soul and Smoke in the press room, and Mayor Brandon Johnson arriving Subscribe to The Perfect Bite podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen! Want to watch the entire episode? Head here to our YouTube! You can follow us on social media @perfectbitepod and sign up for our newsletter!

    1h 40m

  2. 6d ago

    Foodbevy: Building a Community of 5,000 CPG Founders

    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 coffee shop with a $4,000 grant, an architecture student with two degrees from Michigan and Illinois, and the founder of not one but two simultaneous CPG businesses: ChopBox, a meal kit company, and TeaSquares, a green tea energy snack that made it into Whole Foods Chicago in its first four months.  In this episode, host Sarah Perkins sits down with Jordan for one of the most candid, educational, and genuinely warm conversations about what it really takes to build in the CPG space. From a childhood surrounded by entrepreneurship on every side, to the night he collapsed on his kitchen floor in a panic attack and his wife helped him see that TeaSquares had to end, to the decision to build Foodbevy with an intentional stress level of 2 out of 10 and no plans to sell, Jordan is one of the most honest voices in food and beverage today. He also pulls no punches on the structural realities of the CPG industry: Why it is stacked against brands from the start, how distributors and retailers hold all the leverage, what AI is actually doing for small founders right now, and why building a personal mission statement might be the most important thing any founder can do before building a product. In this episode, we cover: Growing up surrounded by entrepreneurship on every side: a grandmother with a grocery store, a dad with grocery stores in Chicago, and a mom who got her culinary degree and ran a catering businessSelling Airhead candies out of cargo pants in fifth grade and his mom's leftover cookies in high schoolOpening a student-run coffee shop at Whitney Young High School with a $4,000 grant from the parents associationStudying architecture at University of Michigan and University of Illinois with a dual MBAWhat architecture taught him about creativity within constraints and entrepreneurshipChopBox: a meal kit business born during an internship in Michigan, run out of his mom's commercial kitchenTeaSquares: green tea energy snack bars made from puffed millet, almonds, and pepitas that got into Whole Foods in four monthsWhy having too many points of differentiation created a moat that kept customers out rather than competitorsRunning two CPG businesses simultaneously and almost everything himselfThe night he fell to his kitchen floor in a panic attack and finally realized something had to changeShutting down TeaSquares during COVID after corporate office revenue disappeared overnightWhy the CPG industry is structurally stacked against brands: retailers, distributors, and leverageSuja paying $1 million in slotting fees and getting cut six months laterOne point of differentiation being the right answer instead of white spaceFounding Foodbevy during COVID with a small membership fee and a founder meetup modelFounding Joyful Co. with a COVID relief box for first responders that became a corporate gifting businessHow Foodbevy has evolved: 250+ podcast episodes, webinars, articles, and a retail buyer directoryThe shift in CPG from e-commerce back to retail and what that means for founders right nowAI for CPG brands: three founders using Claude to build dashboards, sales analysts, and full business softwareHis conscious decision to run Foodbevy at a stress level of 2 out of 10, with no plans to sellHis daughter at age three pretend-negotiating with UPS and running her own art marketCreating a personal mission statement as the foundation of every business decision Find Jordan and Foodbevy: Website: foodbevy.comInstagram: @foodbevyLinkedIn: Jordan BucknerJoyful Co: joyfulco.com Subscribe to The Perfect Bite podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen! Want to watch the entire episode? Head here to our YouTube! You can follow us on social media @perfectbitepod and sign up for our newsletter!

    1 hr

  3. Jun 18

    Laura Scherb: Food Photography, Cookbooks and Community

    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 Photography Award finalist whose still life recreation of a 1600s oil painting stopped Sarah cold the first time she saw it. In this episode, host Sarah Perkins sits down with Laura for a warm and detailed conversation about what it actually takes to create the images that sell cookbooks, CPG products, and entire brands. From two grandmothers who shaped her relationship with food in completely different ways, to dying mashed potatoes green as a kid, to a decade long journey from governmental disaster relief consulting to picking up a Canon Rebel and never looking back, to the strobe lights that finally unlocked her signature style. Laura also pulls back the curtain on what a five day, 35 recipe cookbook shoot actually looks like, how she prices her work fairly for both herself and founders, and why she believes investing in real photography is always worth the wait. Plus a peek into Kitchen Sink Studio's culinary retreats, including an upcoming trip to Normandy with eight women this fall. In this episode, we cover: Two grandmothers, two completely different food philosophies, and how both shaped Laura's path into foodDying mashed potatoes green, pink, and blue as a kid and an early lesson in edible colorStudying writing at Carnegie Mellon and picking up her first camera, a Canon Rebel, while travelingA career detour into governmental disaster relief consulting and what it taught her about professionalismStarting the Page and Plate food blog, pairing books with meals, and dabbling in cateringThe moment she realized photography was the piece brands needed mostGoing all in on Page and Plate Studio in 2017 with a six month bet on herselfLil' Bucks and Emily Griffith: An early client relationship that has lasted nearly a decadeThe trial and error of self-teaching photography, manual settings, Capture One, and artificial lightingHow strobe lights and learning to manipulate light unlocked her signature textural styleWhy travel and changing scenery keeps her creative inspiration freshBehind the scenes of a commercial CPG shoot versus an editorial cookbook shootWhat a five day, 35 recipe cookbook shoot actually looks like, recipe by recipePricing fairly: Flexible payment structures and understanding where founders are coming fromPaying it forward: How other women photographers helped her get startedTwo IACP Photography Award finalist pieces, including a recreated 1600s oil painting still lifeKitchen Sink Studio with Emily Spurlin: Culinary retreats in the Driftless region of Wisconsin and an upcoming trip to NormandyHer honest take on AI in food photography and content creationAdvice for founders: find your people and ask for help Find Laura and her work: Instagram: @pageandplatestudioKitchen Sink Studio: @kitchensinkstudiosWebsite and portfolio: pageandplate.comSubstack: pageandplate.substack.com Subscribe to The Perfect Bite podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen! Want to watch the entire episode? Head here to our YouTube! You can follow us on social media @perfectbitepod and sign up for our newsletter!

    52 min

  4. Jun 11

    Adrienne Cheatham: From Top Chef to Top Food Podcaster

    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 she is launching something brand new: Eating History, a deep-dive food history podcast she is co-hosting with her husband Stephen Bailey, with its first season dedicated entirely to the origins and history of pizza. In this episode, host Sarah Perkins sits down with Adrienne for one of the most layered and beautiful conversations The Perfect Bite has had yet. From a childhood of chaotic, massive family gatherings with a mom from a family of twelve and a dad from a family of fourteen, to cooking Christmas cookies in batches for a solid week because they were too broke for gifts, to faxing her resume to Charlie Trotter's kitchen and ending up at Le Bernardin instead, to finally finding her voice through her family's Southern food heritage on Top Chef and pouring all of it into her cookbook Sunday Best. This is a conversation about what happens when someone who spent their whole career making other people shine finally gives themselves permission to be the person out front. And about what a marinara pizza and a husband who nerds out about history on his morning walks can do to change the entire direction of your life. In this episode, we cover: Growing up in a big, chaotic Chicago family where food was always a massive, joyful productionHer mom's famous "restaurant night" where leftovers became a candlelit dining experienceWhy her parents refused to let her go straight to culinary school and what journalism and business classes taught her insteadGetting her internship at Le Bernardin by faxing, mailing, and physically showing up with her resume for three weeksEight years at Le Bernardin, becoming exec sous chef, and copy editing Eric Ripert's cookbook Why she stayed past the one-year anniversary that most cooks treated as their exit dateLeaving Le Bernardin after a toxic kitchen situation and being recruited by Marcus SamuelssonBeing pushed out front by Marcus before she was ready: The New York Times documentary, meeting Gail Simmons, the De Gustibus demoTop Chef: Going in without watching the show and not knowing who she was as a chef yetThe gumbo challenge that changed everything: Winning with her mom's recipe and discovering the Sunday Best conceptThe real story of Southern fried chicken and why it was only made a few times a yearSunday Best: Writing the cookbook to honor her family's history, her grandfather, her mom, her mixed heritageThe James Beard Media Award nomination and what it meant to have her family's stories recognizedThe Chef's Cut podcast: Why Joe Flamm was always the obvious co-host choiceEating History: Co-founding a podcast production company with her husband Stephen and deep diving into the history of pizzaBarbecue Brawl on Food Network: Her first long-term showWhat it felt like to realize she is now actually a founderAdvice for founders: Perfect is the enemy of progress, just get started Find Adrienne: Instagram: @chefadriennecheatham, @chefscutpod, @eatinghistorypodThe Chef's Cut: Available on Apple, Spotify, and YouTubeEating History: Available on Apple, Spotify, and YouTubeSunday Best cookbook: Available wherever books are soldBarbecue Brawl: Airing on Food Network now Subscribe to The Perfect Bite podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen! Want to watch the entire episode? Head here to our YouTube! You can follow us on social media @perfectbitepod and sign up for our newsletter!

    1h 7m

  5. Jun 4

    From Broken Back to MasterChef: The Chef Out West Story

    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 the start of 2025, posting six pieces of content a week for three months. Two months in, a high-protein pistachio ice cream video went to a million views overnight. Everything changed. In this episode, host Sarah Perkins sits down with Josh for a conversation that is as bold and energetic as his food. From buttered noodles and Shake 'N Bake in a non-food family to obsessing over Jamie Oliver's 30 Minute Meals on his couch, to accidentally building a 100,000 person Facebook following he didn't even know existed, to partnering with his life partner Mackenzie to run one of the most exciting creator businesses in the food space right now. Josh is building a business that lets him play hockey twice a week, go camping on summer weekends, and never miss a birthday again. And his food is an exercise in maximalism the whole way through. In this episode, we cover: Growing up in a non-food family and not discovering food until his 20sSix years in corporate tech sales and the square peg, round hole feelingBreaking his back snowboarding and finding the Food Network on his couchObsessing over Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay, and Bobby Flay during recoveryCooking every day, feeding his friends, and building an early Instagram followingGetting called 13 minutes after submitting his MasterChef applicationQuitting his job before he even went on the showMasterChef as a kid in a candy store moment and total confirmationThe origin of The Chef Out West nameBeat Bobby Flay and the lobster-stuffed ravioli with crispy capers that judge Christian Petroni called an exercise in maximalismA decade running restaurants in Vancouver from cook to head chefPrivate cheffing for celebrities and saying yes to everyone except himselfWhy saying yes to every client in 2024 felt exactly like being back in a restaurantCommitting to content creation at the start of 2025 with a three-month deadlineThe high-protein pistachio ice cream video that went to a million views overnightKorean marinated eggs on rice and the momentum that built from thereThe three revenue streams powering The Chef Out West: brand deals, Facebook and YouTube view monetization, and website ad revenueAccidentally discovering 100,000 Facebook followers and the passive income that followedMackenzie and the creative-technical partnership that makes everything workThe digital cookbook planned for end of 2025 and the print cookbook to followDoing only one or two things at a time really well as a key operating standardBuilding a business around a life, not a life around a businessAdvice for founders: start the thing, film the content, make today day one Find Josh and The Chef Out West: Website: thechefoutwest.com (burger blueprint, recipes, stories)Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok: @thechefoutwestCrispy Edges: their insider community Subscribe to The Perfect Bite podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen! Want to watch the entire episode? Head here to our YouTube! You can follow us on social media @perfectbitepod and sign up for our newsletter!

    1 hr

  6. May 21

    Vinnie Cimino on Building Cleveland's Best Restaurants

    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 Vinnie for a conversation that covers the full arc of a remarkable career. From a childhood surrounded by big Italian-Slovenian family gatherings and his grandmother's restaurant in Kent, Ohio, to working at Greenhouse Tavern under Jonathon Sawyer, to pop-ups and vagabond cooking during COVID, to answering a mysterious Indeed ad posted by his future co-founder Andrew Watts that simply said he wanted to open the next great Cleveland restaurant. Cordelia, now approaching its fourth year, is exactly what it sounds like: a warm hug. Grandma's dining room meets James Beard-level cooking, with family photos on the walls, vintage 1950s silverware, and a seasonal menu built entirely around what local farm partners bring through the back door. ROSY is Cordelia's sibling, but generationally different: old world techniques, live fire cooking, and an Adriatic and Balkan-inspired menu in a 50-seat neighborhood space where 80% of guests just walk in off the street. And running underneath all of it is Vinnie's guiding philosophy: hospitality starts inward. Take care of your team and they will take care of your guests. It sounds simple. In practice, it looks like buying James Beard Awards tickets for almost 50 members of his staff, rolling out PTO for part-time employees, and his team eating cake together the day his nomination was announced while he was away cooking a benefit dinner across the country. In this episode, we cover: Growing up in a big Italian-Slovenian family with a grandmother who ran her own restaurant in Kent, OhioHis first mid-rare steak in college and the moment food really clicked for himGetting pulled into a kitchen at Russo's in Peninsula, Ohio and never really leavingTaking a $30,000 pay cut with a one-year-old and a new house to pursue cooking for realWorking his way up to CDC at Greenhouse Tavern within 10 months of joiningPop-ups, cooking in people's homes, and vagabond cooking during COVIDReconnecting with Andrew Watts through an Indeed ad looking for a chef co-founderOpening Cordelia: the inspiration, the vintage silverware, the family photos on the wallsA seasonal menu built around what the farms bring in, not the other way aroundWhy Cordelia's menu changes frequently while 40% stays as beloved staplesPartnering with 23 to 25 local farms including The Chef's Garden and a mushroom farm in DetroitThe "everyone's got the chef's table" feeling at ROSYROSY's Adriatic and Balkan-inspired wood-fired menu and the 50-inch wood-fired grillThree James Beard nominations and what it means to the whole teamShutting both restaurants down for Beard weekend so almost 50 staff can go to ChicagoCleveland Family Meal Project during COVID and how it has evolved into Food ConsciousA senior living facility in North Ridgeville centered around healthy food and cookingRolling out PTO for all staff, including part-time, because hospitality starts inwardWhat he is most proud of: watching young cooks become sous chefsHis advice for founders: the hardest part is starting, so just start at square one Find Vinnie and his restaurants: Cordelia: 2058 East 4th Street, Cleveland | @cordeliacleROSY: 2912 Church Avenue, Hingetown, Cleveland | @rosy.restaurantVinnie on Instagram: @chefvinniecimino Subscribe to The Perfect Bite podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen! Want to watch the entire episode? Head here to our YouTube! You can follow us on social media @perfectbitepod and sign up for our newsletter!

    40 min

  7. May 14

    Diaspora Spice Co.: Spices, Farmers and a New Cookbook

    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 Co.'s recipe editor and co-author, the woman behind some of the brand's most beloved and obsessively cooked recipes, including the strawberry cardamom bars that reliably spike website traffic every spring. In this episode, host Sarah Perkins sits down with both Sana and Asha for a conversation that covers the full arc: from a 23-year-old Sana buying a 350-kilogram turmeric harvest with her first ever tax refund and storing it in a co-op basement in Oakland, to selling out in four days and waking up to 700 orders after a New York Magazine gift guide mention, to building a company that now works with 100+ regenerative farm partners across South Asia and pays 3.9x above commodity price. And now, a cookbook that took five years, three months of travel across 10 Indian states and Sri Lanka, 14 languages, and one very memorable pumpkin chutney discovered in a kitchen in Kashmir as the cameras were packing up. Asha's origin story is equally delightful: she cold-walked her resume into Market Hall Foods after college, worked her way to the cheese department because that's where all the cool people were, and eventually slid into Sana's DMs with a photo of perfectly pleated cumin lamb dumplings with a turmeric wrapper that changed both of their lives. This episode is one of the most joyful, warm, and genuinely inspiring conversations The Perfect Bite has ever had. Two Bay Area women who love good food, care deeply about the people who grow it, and have spent nearly a decade proving that spice can be a vehicle for justice, storytelling, and extraordinary flavor. In this episode, we cover: Growing up with food: Sana eating all the graduation snacks at preschool, and Asha dictating recipes to her mom at age fourSana's time at high school in Italy and working on a vineyard and olive grove at 15Asha cold-walking into Market Hall Foods and gravitating to the cheese departmentThe turmeric latte trend that sparked Sana's curiosity about who was actually growing the turmericBuying a 350kg turmeric harvest with a $3K tax refund and storing it in a co-op basementSelling out in four days and waking up to 700 orders after Julia Turshen's New York Magazine mentionBuilding trust with farm partners by paying quadruple the commodity price on timeHow Asha slid into Sana's DMs with perfectly pleated dumplings and changed the trajectory of the brandThree months traveling across India and Sri Lanka for the cookbookThe pumpkin chutney discovered at the last possible moment in a kitchen in KashmirWhy they brought in regional cookware for every studio shoot (Kerala clay pots, Manipuri black pottery, Kashmiri copper)The strawberry cardamom bars that spike website traffic every springBusting myths about South Asian cooking: you can make most recipes in the cookbook with six spicesAn exclusive tease: Diaspora Spice Co. is opening a store (location and timing TBD)The Padma Lakshmi collaboration returning later this yearAsha's solo cookbook "Dinner Season" coming June 2027!Advice for founders: just start and get a good therapist Find Diaspora Spice Co.: Website: diasporaco.comInstagram and TikTok: @diasporacoAvailable in about 900 independent stores across the U.S, including Whole Foods CaliforniaThe Diaspora Spice Co. Cookbook: available wherever books are sold Subscribe to The Perfect Bite podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen! Want to watch the entire episode? Head here to our YouTube! You can follow us on social media @perfectbitepod and sign up for our newsletter!

    56 min

  8. May 7

    Caper is Reinventing Food Media | Max Tcheyan

    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. He was one of the earliest employees at Bleacher Report, grew The Athletic from startup to New York Times acquisition, and co-founded Puck, the subscription media company covering Hollywood, fashion, politics, and business with a talent-led model that changed how premium media gets built. Now he's applying everything he learned to the world he loves most: food, restaurants, and hospitality. In this episode, host Sarah Perkins sits down with Max for a conversation about what Caper is, why it needed to exist, and how he's building it. The founding team is a genuine Avengers assembly: journalists from The New Yorker, the New York Times, Artnet, Eater, and Bon Appétit who are equity partners in the business, not just employees. The editorial philosophy is built around what Max calls the "power triangle" of food: the hospitality groups (producers), the chefs and restaurants (actors), and the behind-the-scenes agents, the publicists, real estate players, consultants, and advisors, whose influence on food culture nobody is covering yet. There's also an underground chef competition happening in undisclosed New York City locations that sounds like Top Chef meets an underground rap battle. And yes, a podcast and video strategy is coming. This is one of the most forward-thinking conversations about the future of food media and food storytelling we've had on The Perfect Bite. If you care about what food journalism can become, and what food entrepreneurship looks like when it's treated like a tech startup, this one is for you. In this episode, we cover: Growing up with a northern Italian mother and grandmother and the Bolognese that got frozen and shipped to collegeThe double meaning behind the name Caper: the ingredient, the adventure, and why it elevated the brandDropping out of law school to join Bleacher Report as employee number five in 2007Building growth marketing before "growth hacking" was even a termThe Athletic: building a pure subscription model that sold to the New York TimesCo-founding Puck at TPG and what the talent-led subscription model taught himWhy food media felt like sports media in 2016 and why that was the signal to buildThe "power triangle" of food: hospitality groups, chefs/restaurants, and the agent classWhy the agent class in food, the publicists, consultants, designers, and advisors, is the most underreported story in the industryBuilding Caper's founding team: Emma Orlow, Chris Crowley, and Annie ArmstrongWhy equitizing journalists changes everything and protects editorial integrityThe subscription plus advertising model and why multiple revenue streams matterPartnering with Loewe as the first ad partner and the signal it sendsUnderground chef competitions in undisclosed New York locations: the events strategyExpanding beyond New York through contributors and category-anchored storytellingThe podcast and video strategy coming in the back half of the yearHis advice for founders: the hardest thing is to start, and the journey is the reward Find Caper: Website: caper.mediaInstagram: @caper.mediaSign up for free or join as a member - two subscription tiers availableMax on LinkedIn: Max TcheyanMax on Instagram: @mtcheche Subscribe to The Perfect Bite podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen! Want to watch the entire episode? Head here to our YouTube!  You can follow us on social media @perfectbitepod and sign up for our newsletter!

    43 min
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5
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About

Your fusion of food and entrepreneurship, The Perfect Bite brings you inspiring conversations with chefs, restaurateurs, CPG brand founders, food tech founders, and more in the food and beverage industry, highlighting their experiences and how they've cooked up something new. From emerging brands to established business owners, you'll learn from the best entrepreneurs in food, beverage, hospitality, and agriculture about how they started their businesses, what problems they're solving, the tough times they've overcome, and their best advice for entering these industries or starting your own business. We end each episode with the world's best and hardest question: What is your perfect bite?

Information

  • Creator
    Sarah Perkins
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    68
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Sarah Perkins
  • Show Website
    The Perfect Bite

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