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The Recipe

The Recipe

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The Recipe podcast is hosted by Theo Randall, Chef Patron at the Theo Randall Cucina Italiana. In each episode we meet a special guest who loves food, and they’ll tell us all about their favourite recipe as we celebrate the stories behind the dishes that define us.2025 Listen To This Art Cooking Food & Wine
Episodes
  • How Lyme Disease Led Me to a Michelin Star: Chef Kirk Haworth on Plant-Based Cooking

    How Lyme Disease Led Me to a Michelin Star: Chef Kirk Haworth on Plant-Based Cooking
    May 15 2026
    In this episode, Theo is joined by the brilliant Kirk Haworth, chef and co-founder of Plates London, a restaurant that achieved a historic Michelin star for its holistic plant-based methodology and was crowned the 2024 Great British Menu Champion of Champions. From growing up in Northcote with his father, chef Nigel Haworth, to battling Lyme disease for six years and rebuilding his life through food, Kirk's journey is a testament to the transformative power of resilience, creativity, and cooking with purpose. After working in legendary kitchens including The Square with Phil Howard and The French Laundry in California, Kirk stepped away from traditional fine dining to create something entirely new, a restaurant that celebrates bold, inventive plant-based cooking without compromise, proving that vegetables can be just as exciting, indulgent, and technically brilliant as any meat or fish dish. Throughout the episode, Kirk shares his remarkable journey from growing up in a hospitality household in Lancashire to moving to London at 21 and struggling with the intense, isolating environment of Michelin kitchens like The Square, getting bitten by a tick in Australia and developing chronic Lyme disease that left him unable to walk up stairs or work for years, and spending six years moving from doctor to doctor trying to find answers whilst living back at home with his dad. He discusses the moment he had to stop cooking entirely to focus on his health, why changing his diet and cutting out processed sugars transformed his life, and how his illness inspired the creation of Plates, a restaurant that would never have existed if he hadn't got sick. Kirk also opens up about his mission to create a positive kitchen culture where his team works only four days a week, why he believes energy and how you make people feel is more important than the food itself, his community table initiative that offers free meals to people struggling with chronic illness, and why winning Great British Menu Champion of Champions after failing on his first attempt three years earlier was the best feeling of his life. You can find Kirk's full English Rice Pudding with Vanilla, Yorkshire Rhubarb and Medicinal Spice Milk recipe on the Filippo Berio website at www.filippoberio.co.uk/theo, and be sure to visit Plates London to experience his boundary pushing plant-based cuisine for yourself. The Recipe podcast is hosted by Theo Randall, Chef Patron at the Theo Randall Cucina Italiana. In each episode we meet a special guest who loves food, and they'll tell us all about their favourite recipe as we celebrate the stories behind the dishes that define us. Please do subscribe, follow, and share the podcast wherever you listen so you never miss an episode; and for more delicious stories and inspiring dishes. Follow The Recipe with Theo Randall: /therecipe.podcast (https://www.instagram.com/therecipe.podcast/) Follow Filippo Berio: /filippoberio_uk (https://www.instagram.com/filippoberio_uk/) Follow Theo Randall: /theo.randall (https://www.instagram.com/theo.randall/) The Recipe with Theo Randall is a Listen To This Production for Filippo Berio.
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    37 mins
  • What Makes the Perfect Recipe: Barney Desmazery on How He Writes Good Food Recipes

    What Makes the Perfect Recipe: Barney Desmazery on How He Writes Good Food Recipes
    May 8 2026
    In this episode, Theo is joined by the brilliant Barney Desmazery, the man often described as the architect of the modern British recipe and one of the most influential voices in food media. As Food Director at BBC Good Food for over two decades, Barney has overseen thousands of recipe tests, collaborated with every major celebrity chef in the country, and quietly shaped the way Britain cooks at home. From his early days training in the kitchens of southwest France to building one of the most trusted recipe databases in the UK, Barney's journey is a testament to the power of precision, passion, and understanding your audience. With his debut cookbook One Dish Four Ways, Barney is finally stepping out from behind the scenes to share his philosophy of seasonal cooking, clever shortcuts, and dishes that work harder for the home cook. Barney prepares his beloved Duck Parmentier, a deeply personal twist on the classic cottage pie that beautifully bridges his English and French heritage. Using tinned confit duck for convenience without compromising on flavour, a classic mirepoix of finely chopped leeks, carrots, and shallots cooked gently in duck fat, fresh thyme, bay, garlic, and flat leaf parsley, all topped with buttery, cheesy mashed potato and finished with crispy baked duck skin for texture and indulgence. This dish encapsulates Barney's cooking philosophy of making restaurant quality food accessible at home, celebrating comfort and tradition whilst embracing clever techniques like starting the mash from the outside in to avoid pushing the filling up, and using every part of the tin including the rendered fat for maximum flavour. Throughout the episode, Barney shares his remarkable journey from growing up in Notting Hill with a French mother and an English father who cooked his way through Elizabeth David to spending five months in a small village in the Dordogne called Les Eyzies de Tayac near Sarlat, where he discovered the magic of foraging wild mushrooms, cooking with ceps and discovering confit duck for the first time. He discusses why his French chef never raised his voice and ran the kitchen like an orchestra with half of it outside overlooking rolling hills, the importance of speaking polite French which the kitchen loved, and why his stage in Gascony taught him that food has a sense of place. Barney also opens up about losing his mother at 18 and gravitating towards two older women who fed him dishes like this, his annual foraging trips to Wales with chef Jonathan Jones from the Anchor and Hope, and why he believes the difference between development and testing is what makes Good Food recipes so reliable. You can find Barney's full Duck Parmentier recipe on the Filippo Berio website at www.filippoberio.co.uk/theo, and be sure to check out his debut cookbook One Dish Four Ways for 25 classic dishes reimagined across the seasons with clever twists and accessible techniques. The Recipe podcast is hosted by Theo Randall, Chef Patron at the Theo Randall Cucina Italiana. In each episode we meet a special guest who loves food, and they'll tell us all about their favourite recipe as we celebrate the stories behind the dishes that define us. Please do subscribe, follow, and share the podcast wherever you listen so you never miss an episode; and for more delicious stories and inspiring dishes. Follow The Recipe with Theo Randall: /therecipe.podcast (https://www.instagram.com/therecipe.podcast/) Follow Filippo Berio: /filippoberio_uk (https://www.instagram.com/filippoberio_uk/) Follow Theo Randall: /theo.randall (https://www.instagram.com/theo.randall/) The Recipe with Theo Randall is a Listen To This Production for Filippo Berio.
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    38 mins
  • Why I Left Ottolenghi After 20 Years: Sami Tamimi on Palestinian Cooking & Going Solo

    Why I Left Ottolenghi After 20 Years: Sami Tamimi on Palestinian Cooking & Going Solo
    May 1 2026
    In this episode, Theo is joined by the brilliant Sami Tamimi, a chef whose food is a powerful celebration of Palestinian heritage and one of the most influential voices in Middle Eastern cuisine. From growing up in the old city of Jerusalem in the Muslim quarter to building a remarkable career in London and co-creating the Ottolenghi empire, Sami's journey is a testament to the transformative power of following your passion, embracing your roots, and cooking with purpose. After spending two decades as head chef and partner at Ottolenghi, Sami stepped away to focus on his own voice, documenting the vibrant, vegetable-forward cooking of his childhood through his stunning cookbook Bostani, which means garden in Arabic. Sami prepares his beloved Couscous Fritters with Preserved Lemon Yogurt, a deeply personal dish that takes him straight back to his childhood sitting on the floor with his siblings, spooning up bowls of his mother's simple couscous with tomato and onion. Using caramelised onions for sweetness, vibrant red pepper paste made from sun-dried fermented peppers, sweet carrots, fluffy couscous cooked like a pilaf, and a punchy yogurt dressing with preserved lemon, capers, and fresh mint, this recipe beautifully encapsulates Sami's cooking philosophy of taking humble, traditional Palestinian flavours and making them accessible, colourful, and bursting with bold taste whilst staying rooted in the soul of home cooking. Throughout the episode, Sami shares his remarkable journey from being kicked out of his mother's kitchen as a young boy to starting his cooking career at 17 washing dishes in a Jerusalem hotel, being promoted to running breakfast service after just three months because he learned so quickly, and why he was a rebellious kid who wanted to be an artist but found his creative outlet through food instead. He discusses moving to London and meeting Yotam Ottolenghi at Baker and Spice where their shared love of cooking, Arabic and Hebrew language, and being two gay guys new to the city created an unbreakable bond, creating the concept for Baker and Spice that introduced Londoners to colourful, vibrant, uncomplicated Middle Eastern food, and why opening the first Ottolenghi restaurant in Notting Hill in 2002 felt like doing the River Cafe but with a Middle Eastern twist. You can find Sami's full Couscous Fritters recipe on the Filippo Berio website at www.filippoberio.co.uk/theo, and be sure to check out his beautiful cookbook Bostani for more inspiring Palestinian recipes that celebrate tradition, memory, and the joy of cooking. The Recipe podcast is hosted by Theo Randall, Chef Patron at the Theo Randall Cucina Italiana. In each episode we meet a special guest who loves food, and they'll tell us all about their favourite recipe as we celebrate the stories behind the dishes that define us. Please do subscribe, follow, and share the podcast wherever you listen so you never miss an episode; and for more delicious stories and inspiring dishes. Follow The Recipe with Theo Randall: /therecipe.podcast (https://www.instagram.com/therecipe.podcast/) Follow Filippo Berio: /filippoberio_uk (https://www.instagram.com/filippoberio_uk/) Follow Theo Randall: /theo.randall (https://www.instagram.com/theo.randall/) The Recipe with Theo Randall is a Listen To This Production for Filippo Berio.
    Show More Show Less
    26 mins
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