Joiners

Joiners
  • 4.8 (100)
  • SOCIETY & CULTURE
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

In Joiners, hosts Tim Tierney and Danny Shapiro take a casual stroll through the world of hospitality by chatting with its most colorful characters.

  1. 2D AGO

    Episode #184 - Margaret Pak of Thattu

    It didn’t always seem inevitable that Margaret Pak would end up running one of Chicago’s most thoughtful and distinctive restaurants. She studied statistics, built a long career in finance and analytics, and spent years inside corporate systems where stability and structure were the goal. But alongside that work she fostered a quieter obsession for the culture surrounding food and food service. After a series of career pivots, unexpected layoffs, and some chance meetings with some of the city's more eccentric culinary characters, Margaret began following that instinct into kitchens, pop-ups, food halls, and eventually full restaurant ownership. Curiosity became craft, mentorship, and a deep respect for process: learning knife skills on prep shifts, absorbing lessons from chefs and collaborators, and shaping a truly authentic culinary voice. Today, Margaret is the co-owner and chef behind Thattu, an Avondale restaurant focused on Kerala cuisine, pop-up collaboration, and creating opportunities for emerging chefs., She joins us in the studio to talk through her winding journey, touching on career reinvention, the realities of building a restaurant from the ground up, and what it means to honor tradition while finding your own way forward -- and so much more!

    1h 36m

  2. DEC 15

    Episode #183 - Paul Abu-Taleb of Pilsen Yards, Beaumont’s, and The Bull Moose

    Before he became a hospitality lifer, Paul Abu-Taleb was considering a PhD in History -- he’s the type who could absolutely have ended up teaching undergrads how to think, argue, and spot patterns. Instead, he’s applied that same mindset to restaurants: building places that don’t just serve people, but actually hold communities together. We get into how Paul went from a restaurant-family childhood in Oak Park to a formative chapter in Whitefish, Montana, and back to Chicago to help shape Pilsen Yards. He tells us about taking on the huge project of bringing Beaumont’s back as a real-deal neighborhood restaurant -- including the debut of The Bull Moose, an upstairs steakhouse and cocktail lounge. We’re also talking: what “good taste” means operationally, why some concepts just don’t match their neighborhoods, framing the math of making restaurants work -- and so much more!

    1h 20m

  3. DEC 8

    Episode #182 - Chase Bracamontes of Chef’s Special Cocktail Bar

    Chase Bracamontes grew up chasing triple axels as a competitive figure skater, but these days her rink is the bar and the dining room. She is the former wine and spirits director at The Publican and now partner and beverage director at Chef’s Special Cocktail Bar in Chicago, whose path from junior-elite ice rinks to a Chinese American cocktail bar says a lot about how she thinks about pressure, comfort, and hospitality. She joins us in the studio to talk about how a life defined by competition turned into a career built on creating places people actually want to haunt. This week, we’re talking what defines a cocktail classic, how New York and Chicago hospitality cultures shape the people working inside them, how serving American Chinese food means embracing both the comfort it brings and the conversations it inevitably sparks, and so much more!

    1h 23m

  4. DEC 1

    Episode #181 - Martin Kastner of Crucial Detail

    This week, we sit down with Martin Kastner, the award-winning designer responsible for some of the most iconic objects in modern gastronomy. From Alinea’s game-changing serviceware to the now-legendary Porthole Infuser, Martin has spent his career reshaping how we experience food and drink — and the rituals around them. He takes us from his early days as a Czech metalsmith, to conceptual art school, and into a decades-long collaboration with Grant Achatz that helped redefine fine dining. We talk about the origins of his most influential pieces, the importance of “good friction,” designing objects that guide behavior, and so much more.

    1h 13m

  5. NOV 24

    Episode #180 - Bailey Sullivan of Monteverde

    This week, we sit down with Bailey Sullivan, executive chef of Monteverde Restaurant & Pastificio and a Top Chef: Destination Canada finalist, who seemed almost pre-programmed for a life in restaurants: raised at Goldyburgers, her family’s Forest Park burger joint, and glued to Food Network and Top Chef as a teen. She walks us through a career that runs from early gigs at Noodles & Company and Black Dog Gelato to a formative internship at two-Michelin-starred Acadia, ramen battles at Yusho Logan Square, a trial by fire at Parachute, and an eight-plus-year climb through every rung of Monteverde’s kitchen ladder before taking the top job. Along the way, we talk: what Top Chef doesn’t show you, no-heroes kitchen culture, fugazi tiramisu, and so much more.

    1h 40m

  6. NOV 17

    Episode #179 - Jacques Pépin

    This week's guest is an icon, a chef’s chef, and a tireless culinary educator -- it's not hyperbole to suggest that the entirety of food media as we know it, a food media that respects food and the process of making it as a skill to be fostered and shared, is in his profound debt. Raised in his parents’ restaurant near Lyon, Jacques Pépin went from unpaid apprentice and presidential chef for Charles de Gaulle to redefining American cooking after moving to New York in 1959, even turning down an offer to become John F. Kennedy's White House chef to learn the science and scale of food at Howard Johnson’s. His landmark books La Technique and La Méthode, followed by decades of PBS series from The Complete Pépin to Julia & Jacques Cooking at Home, made rigorous French technique approachable for home cooks everywhere. Now he’s channeling that lifetime of craft into the Jacques Pépin Foundation, which supports community kitchens and culinary job training for people facing barriers to employment -- all while celebrating his 90th birthday with 90 dinners across the country. He calls into the Joiners studio from his home in Connecticut to chew the fat with the boys in a conversation that spans seven-day-a-week apprenticeships in postwar France to dinner parties with Julia Child and James Beard -- including who actually did the dishes.

    1h 3m

  7. NOV 10

    Episode #178 - Ken Fredrickson of High Road Wine and Spirits

    This week, we’re enjoying some poured wine (his favorite) with the indefatigable Ken Fredrickson -- Master Sommelier, restaurateur, and founder of High Road Wine and Spirits, whose career runs from Charlie Trotter’s and Spago to Jackson Hole, Denver, Las Vegas, and Chicago’s most intentional wine lists. He went from Idaho ranch kid to the 40th American Master Sommelier in just five years, then bet big on his own programs, built and sold distributors, and kept doubling down on family-made bottles with real stories behind them. He joins us in the studio to talk about what that obsession costs, what it creates, and why he still believes in taking the high road. We're swirling the glass around how to actually train a world-class palate (and why your nose is lazier than you think), the Wild West politics of wine lists, the future of terroir-driven Italian spirits -- and so much more.

    1h 37m

  8. NOV 3

    Episode #177 - Curtis Duffy of Ever, After, & The Canvas

    This week, we’re thrilled to be joined by Chef Curtis Duffy, the culinary dynamo behind Ever and After. He's earned a constellation of Michelin starts for his meticulous, innovative approach to fine dining, where every dish showcases his obsessive attention to detail and zero-waste philosophy. He has a new book out called Fireproof: Memoir of a Chef, which chronicles his journey from a turbulent childhood in Ohio through the kitchens of Charlie Trotter and Grant Achatz to becoming one of America’s most celebrated chefs. We talk: the philosophy behind his silent kitchen, how he finds inspiration in unexpected places, the hard lessons from Grace that shaped Ever, what it takes to achieve greatness, and so much more!​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

    1h 38m
See All (188)

4.8
out of 5
100 Ratings

About

In Joiners, hosts Tim Tierney and Danny Shapiro take a casual stroll through the world of hospitality by chatting with its most colorful characters.

Information

  • Creator
    Joiners
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2025
  • Episodes
    188
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2022 All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    Joiners

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