fever4flavor

Evan Young
  • 5.0 (10)
  • Food
  • Weekly

So what exactly IS flavor? Join host and Philadelphia native Evan Young as he goes on a journey to understand this most basic and enjoyable—but mysterious—human sense. Including interviews with restaurateurs, bakers, confectioners, foodies, flavor experts, researchers, and chefs at prominent Philadelphia restaurants, Evan digs in to get to the bottom of what flavor really means to us all. There are deep dives into interesting food and unique ingredients, how chefs think about dishes, how flavor is tied to nostalgia and memories, stuff we like to eat and stuff we don’t, and a whole lot more. --- If you want more content: fever4flavor.com podcast@fever4flavor.com Instagram | @fever4flavor  ©2026 FlavorTRP Holdings LLC.

  1. 5d ago

    Jamie Harrison Rubin of Southwark: on Malört, California cabernet, smoked trout croquettes, Budweiser, chianti, and orange wine

    Let's get into some wine! What's the best way to enjoy wine? As it turns out, according to Jamie Harrison Rubin, Wine Director at Philadelphia's Southwark and Ambra, wine does not need to be overthought, overwrought, or overanalyzed. It can simply be enjoyed and, even better, be enjoyed with friends. Jamie and I talked about California cabernets, chianti, what wine is and what wine shouldn’t be, and just for the hell of it, we talked about Budweiser too.

  2. Oct 21

    Rafael Larue of Livit Design: on pizza boxes, fresh basil aroma, Buddha statues, upholstered leather chairs, white porcelain toilets, and gophers

    The experience of flavor can be created, changed, and improved by a host of design choices that restaurateurs make. Whether it's the weight of the cutlery, the lighting, smells being piped out onto the street, your ability to see the kitchen at work or a dozen other factors, everything is a choice to be made that hopefully builds your dining experience into one that aligns to what the restaurant is trying to accomplish. In Season 2, episode 2 of fever4flavor, Evan sits down to talk about all of this with Rafael Larue, partner and Chief Creative Officer at Livit Design, a leading global food and beverage design and strategic consultancy firm.

  3. Oct 14

    Antimo DiMeo of Bardea Food Group: on filet mignon, caviar, Arby’s, ribeye, celery root, and stuffed baby squid with candied lemon

    Season 2 is BACK, starting with a great conversation that I had with Chef Antimo DiMeo at Ezme, just one of his restaurants in Wilmington, Delaware.  So by now I think you know that I’m very into food and very into flavor. What I don’t talk about too often on this podcast is that I’m also a total nerd for all things sci fi and fantasy. Listen as I connect the dots for you from my love of the Matrix—including one very specific scene in that movie—to my conversation with Chef Antimo about steak.

  4. Season 2 Trailer

    Season 2 trailer: just to whet your appetite...

    Season 2 of fever4flavor is coming soon!

  5. Season 1 Trailer

    Season 1: the finale, with more to come

    Are there five basic tastes? At this point, I can tell you only two things definitively about flavor and the pursuit of unwinding exactly what it is and how we can all appreciate it more. Thing one: Flavor is complex. And thing 2: I’m going to keep asking questions of the people who inhabit the world of flavor for a long time to come. Which is my way of saying… season 1 has come to an end. BUT there will be a Season 2 of fever4flavor. I can’t tell you exactly when that will be or who will be on it, but I do hope to continue talking to the kinds of people you’ve heard from here: chefs, flavorists, and other passionate experts. And I hope that season 2 can be 20 episodes, or 30, or even more. So check back in this space in the coming months for more news and an update. I can’t thank you enough for tuning in! As always, if you have any ideas for who I should be talking to, and fun foods or amazing recipes I should try, or anything at all related to flavor, or even to just say hello… you can drop me a line at podcast@fever4flavor.com. Until next time! This is Evan Young, this is fever4flavor, and I’ll be seeing you in Season 2.    --- If you want more content: fever4flavor.com podcast@fever4flavor.com Instagram | @fever4flavor   Produced by Studio D Podcast Production.

  6. 12/10/2025

    Andrea Kyan of P.S. & Co.: on dumplings, mohinga, amaranth porridge, mango lassis, and buttermilk

    You’ll hear me reference my travels quite a bit on this podcast. I always feel a little bit strange talking about the places I’ve been; I don’t want to sound like some kind of elitist, jet-setting, wealthy 1% kind of person who spends his weekends in Bali. I’m not that. But I did have the luck in my 20’s—which was a couple of decades ago for me—of falling backwards into an opportunity to live in Bangkok for a few years. As the travel hub in southeast Asia, I also had the luck, or the guts maybe, of traveling extensively throughout the region. On a backpacker’s budget, I got to sip coffee in Laos, eat banh mi in Vietnam, try adobo in the Philippines. As I “grew up” and came back stateside, I also ended up working a job that sent me to Europe a few times a year. Again, lucky me. But I’ll say this: what I took away from these travels was an unabashed love for all kinds of non-American cuisines, and in particular, the stuff you just don’t see all that often here in the US. For example: Burmese food. When I came across a cafe restaurant off of Rittenhouse Square called PS & Co, and saw they had a menu unlike any I’d really seen before in Philly—vegan and Burmese-inspired—I had to reach out. On a sweltering hot day, sun blazing down, PS & Co owner Andrea Kyan and I sat in a small outdoor garden behind her shop. With her newly rescued dog Ginger at her feet, we talked about her mother’s influence on her cooking, the challenges of operating a vegan restaurant, the consistency of vegan bread, and more. --- If you want more content: fever4flavor.com podcast@fever4flavor.com Instagram | @fever4flavor   Produced by Studio D Podcast Production.  ©2026 Sensational XP LLC. If you’d like to support Fever4Flavor, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Your input helps us make the podcast even better, points us to topics that are relevant to you, and helps us reach new listeners. All you have to do is open up the Podcast App on your phone, look for Fever4Flavor, scroll down until you see ‘Write a Review’ and tell us what you think. Join me next week as we continue to explore the infinite world of food and flavors here on Fever4Flavor.

  7. 12/03/2025

    Kelsey Bush and Sara May of Bloomsday: on white chocolate pistachio danishes, pop tarts, tiramisu, galaxy brownies, and palmiers

    I don’t quite remember when I started drinking coffee, but I suspect it was at some point in college. When I needed to stuff as much caffeine into my underslept and over-hangovered face to make it through midterms. But back then, coffee was simply a vehicle to transmit as much caffeine into my bloodstream as I possibly could. Now, coffee is an entirely different source of joy. I set the machine every single night; it’s among the first things I wake up to every single morning. A nice dark roast that slaps you awake with a daily jolt of complex flavor and aroma. A joke that too many people in my life have heard me say is that at any given point, my body is composed of about 88% caffeine. But when you go to a great cafe… it’s not just about the coffee, is it? Of course not! You gotta have a little bit of a pastry too, right? Maybe a plain croissant on some days. Maybe there’s caution to the wind, we’ll do a chocolate croissant, or a beignet kinda deal, maybe a sticky bun from Dot’s in Ocean City New Jersey. Best sticky buns in the actual universe.  The hunt for people who understand flavors with serious depth and complexity, like coffee and wine, but who also understand the importance of the onsite customer experience, eventually led me to two people, actually: Kelsey Bush, chef/owner of Green Engine Coffee, Bloomsday, and Loretta’s, and Sara May, the Events & Operations Manager for the Bloomsday restaurant group. Together, these self-proclaimed “gab specialists" and food and flavor veterans bring decades of experience covering the many ways that coffee, pastries, and an excellent dining experience can be delivered. So I sat down with them at Bloomsday with a sampling of orangedew and toad skin melon, and from white chocolate pistachio danishes to pop tarts, we chopped it up. --- If you want more content: fever4flavor.com podcast@fever4flavor.com Instagram | @fever4flavor   Produced by Studio D Podcast Production.  ©2026 Sensational XP LLC. If you’d like to support Fever4Flavor, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Your input helps us make the podcast even better, points us to topics that are relevant to you, and helps us reach new listeners. All you have to do is open up the Podcast App on your phone, look for Fever4Flavor, scroll down until you see ‘Write a Review’ and tell us what you think. Join me next week as we continue to explore the infinite world of food and flavors here on Fever4Flavor.

  8. 11/26/2025

    Paul Wise, Associate Member on the faculty at the Monell Chemical Senses Center: on salted coffee, hot mustard, Two-Buck Chuck, olive oil, and death wings

    As a working professional, my very first day at my very first corporate job, I stuffed envelopes. But the job was at a medical publishing company, and eventually, I worked my way up the ladder to spend a whole bunch of years there as a medical journalist. And if that sounds sexy to you, trust me, it’s a lot less sexy than it sounds. The good news is that eventually, I went on to other even less sexy-sounding jobs that we need not get into. But while I didn’t love being a journalist, per se, I will give it credit: it forced the most scientifically curious side of me to dig into complex topics and try to unwind them. Flavor, along with about a zillion other biological processes in the body, is a fascinatingly complex scientific topic just as much as it is a fun and unique way to enjoy an ice cream cone. This podcast would be nothing if we couldn’t find and talk to an actual PhD and expert on human perception of chemical stimuli. Luckily for all of us in and around Philadelphia, the Monell Chemical Senses Center on Market Street is a world-renowned institution dedicated to the science of taste and smell, and I was able to catch up with Paul Wise on the staff there. And I just started asking questions, from what the basic definition of flavor actually is, to what smell has to do with it all, to whether we can actually trust our eyes and noses and taste buds.  --- If you want more content: fever4flavor.com podcast@fever4flavor.com Instagram | @fever4flavor   Produced by Studio D Podcast Production.  ©2026 Sensational XP LLC. If you’d like to support Fever4Flavor, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Your input helps us make the podcast even better, points us to topics that are relevant to you, and helps us reach new listeners. All you have to do is open up the Podcast App on your phone, look for Fever4Flavor, scroll down until you see ‘Write a Review’ and tell us what you think. Join me next week as we continue to explore the infinite world of food and flavors here on Fever4Flavor.

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About

So what exactly IS flavor? Join host and Philadelphia native Evan Young as he goes on a journey to understand this most basic and enjoyable—but mysterious—human sense. Including interviews with restaurateurs, bakers, confectioners, foodies, flavor experts, researchers, and chefs at prominent Philadelphia restaurants, Evan digs in to get to the bottom of what flavor really means to us all. There are deep dives into interesting food and unique ingredients, how chefs think about dishes, how flavor is tied to nostalgia and memories, stuff we like to eat and stuff we don’t, and a whole lot more. --- If you want more content: fever4flavor.com podcast@fever4flavor.com Instagram | @fever4flavor  ©2026 FlavorTRP Holdings LLC.

Information

  • Creator
    Evan Young
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    16
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2025 All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    fever4flavor

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