Culinary Characters Unlocked
Emmy Winner, International Acclaimed Journalist, Executive Producer, Food & Travel Lover, and Creator of the Beloved show “Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives” David Page takes us deep into the world of chefs, restaurateurs, and everything “foodie” from the nationally and internationally awarded to the locally loved on Culinary Characters Unlocked. New episode every Tuesday.
Episodes
Matt Rebhan is the third-generation owner of his family’s Alpine Steakhouse and Butcher Shop in Sarasota, Florida. And a master of making the turducken – a turkey stuffed with a chicken, stuffed with a duck, which runs circles around a plain ol’ turkey for Thanksgiving. He first got national exposure for his turducken on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives back in
2007 and now sells hundreds each holiday season. He’s also got plenty to say...
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November 18, 2025 • 32 mins
A Michelin starred brewery! Cousins Jared Rouben (a graduate of both
culinary school and brewing school) and Jeremy Cohn, a Wharton business grad, began by opening Moody Tongue Brewing in Chicago, then expanded into restaurants. The one they run above their brewery, featuring a hyper-seasonal tasting menu with a beer pairing for each course, has earned a Michelin star. And their sushi restaurant in West Palm Beach, Florida got a M...
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Growing up in a military family, Chef Amy Mehrtens explored new tastes in
various places around the world. She trained at the Culinary Institute of America, then worked her way up to Sous Chef at the legendary Commander’s Palace in New Orleans. She is now Executive Chef at Copper Vine in NOLA, where she is expanding her repertoire beyond traditional New Orleans standards and going beyond the dining room to cater to guests at the ne...
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Northern Ohio native Vinnie Cimino is reinventing traditional
midwestern cuisine as “modern grandma” cooking at his Cleveland restaurant Cordelia. His signature dishes include a box of pull-apart
smashburgers topped with Kool-Aid pickles, steak tartare done as an homage to the Galley Boy cheeseburger at famed local chain Swensons, corned beef reimagined as corned lamb, and deep fried saltines, a throwback to his grandmother’s past ...
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Chef Diane Moua grew up a child of refugees in the tight knit
Hmong community, which at the time limited a woman’s professional
opportunities. Still, she followed her culinary dreams and became a wildly
successful pastry chef in Minneapolis. Then she took on an even greater
challenge – opening a restaurant of her own and adding savory Hmong cooking to her lauded baking. Now her restaurant, Diane’s Place has been named Food and Wine...
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After training under legendary southern chef Frank Stitt, then
working his way up to sous chef at New York’s famed Gramercy Tavern, Kyle Knall has become one of the hot young chefs turning once-sleepy Milwaukee into a culinary hotspot. His Birch restaurant features a farm to table menu and open fire cooking. And his French inspired Cassis will be opening soon.
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New Orleans baker Kelly Jacques was just named a Food and Wine
Best New Chef for 2025. After making her mark in New York, she is now running her own bakery in New Orleans, re-defining what to expect from baked goods with signature dishes that include the boudin boy, a highly elevated hot pocket—a croissant stuffed with boudin sausage and a boiled egg; a king cake named the best in New Orleans by the Times Picayune; muffaletta bread...
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Chef Casey Wall cut his teeth at New York’s legendary Spotted Pig and Le Cirque, before moving to Australia and opening a string of successful restaurants and bars. Now he’s come back to the states and settled in Austin, where his Le Calamar, blending French technique with Texas ingredients, has debuted to glowing reviews. And where his deboned and sweetbread stuffed chicken wings are a sensation.
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It’s a double helping of great eating off the beaten path. Erica Curry, who runs the Tennessee Pass Cookhouse at an altitude above 10,000 feet in Colorado explains how diners have to hike, snowshoe, or ski a mile to reach it. Once there, they enjoy four course meals featuring local ingredients, such as elk tenderloin with blueberry, sage, and
port reduction. Then in Anchorage, Alaska, owners Patricia Brown Heller, Heidi Heinrich-Le...
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Born in southern India, a region rarely represented on Indian restaurant menus in the U.S., Chef Vijay Kumar was raised in rural poverty. His culinary aspirations surfaced early and he attended culinary school in India then worked on cruise ships and in restaurants in a variety of locations before coming to the United States and finding a culinary foothold in San Francisco, where he led the kitchen team at Rasa and earned a Michel...
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Chef Kelly Franz developed her taste for great food growing up in Europe as part of a military family. She made her name during the culinary boom in Charleston, rising to Executive Chef at the storied Magnolias restaurant, which took low country cooking upscale. Now she has returned as Culinary Director to freshen up the menu, mindful that there are some iconic dishes that simply cannot be changed.
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Bobby Stuckey entered the culinary world as a teenaged dishwasher
and worked his way up through a range of front of the house positions until he achieved the rarely awarded rank of Master Sommelier and became a multi-award-winning restaurateur. The centerpiece of the restaurant group he co-owns, Frasca Food and Wine in Boulder, Colorado, which holds a Michelin star, has just won the James Beard Award as America’s Outstanding Restau...
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Classically trained chefs Jeanie Janas Ritter and Adam Ritter shared a culinary journey working at great and Michelin-starred restaurants throughout the US and internationally before coming back to their midwestern roots and working in Minneapolis, first for someone else, then taking the risk of opening a place of their own. Their venture, Bûcheron, French for lumberjack, was an instant hit, embracing the French bistronomy movement...
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Chef Cathy Whims was at the forefront of the culinary revolution in Portland, Oregon and decades later she retains that position there. Her Nostrana Italian restaurant continues to dish up the kind of regional cooking truly enjoyed in the small towns and villages of Italy, bolstered by great Oregon ingredients, and her pizza is listed among America’s fifty best. She reminisces about truly discovering Italian cooking on her first vi...
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Chef Thomas Bille describes his cooking at his suburban Houston restaurant Belly of the Beast as driven by “a love for food that warms your soul and speaks to our ancestors.” A child of Mexican immigrants, Bille grew up with great food – his father was a professional chef and his mother a fabulous home cook – and as a self-described latchkey kid he was making French toast and spaghetti for himself by the age of 8. He went on to att...
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August 22, 2025 • 21 mins
This special bonus episode comes from the folks at Gravy, a production of the Southern Foodways Alliance. Gravy shares stories of the changing
American South, and in this episode, producer Eve Troeh takes us to Brennan’s, an iconic restaurant in the heart of New Orleans’ French Quarter, where spectacle and tradition come together over a flambé pan. At Brennan’s, servers don’t just deliver dessert; they ignite Bananas Foster tablesi...
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Ali Clem says she was shocked when her La Barbecue restaurant in Austin, TX was recently awarded a Michelin star. She was mentored by members of a legendary Texas barbecue family, the Muellers of Louis Mueller Barbecue in Taylor, Texas and married founder Louis Mueller’s granddaughter, LeAnn Mueller. They worked together until Mueller’s
untimely death and Clem now runs the restaurant alone, honoring the legacy of Mueller and her fa...
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The Chang siblings, born in Peru, emigrated to the U.S. as children, and now living in Miami, have locked up the James Beard award for Best Chef South for two straight years. Valerie won last year for her cooking at her Peruvian restaurant, Maty’s. Her older brother and co-owner Nando just won the 2025 award for what he does at his restaurant within that restaurant, the Michelin-star-winning Itamae AO. It is a ten-seat counter at w...
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Born in Cannes, France, and raised in a food-centric French-Italian family, Nicholas Fanucci has run some of the greatest and best-known restaurants in America, including the French Laundry, Bouchon, Le Cirque, Le Bec-Fin, and more. Previously, he worked in Europe at legendary establishments including Alain Ducasse’s Louis XV. The restaurants he has worked at have amassed a total of more than 20 Michelin stars. His journey has been...
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Chef Yotaka Martin had never heard of the James Beard awards until she was nominated for the 2024 competition. She grew up in a small village in the north of Thailand and has only been in the U.S a few years. But she is well aware now. She didn’t win last year but she was just named the 2025 James Beard Best Chef Southwest for her cooking at the Phoenix restaurant Lom Wong, which she runs with her husband Alex. They met after he vi...
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