August 17, 2023
Ms. Rogers is the chef behind London’s River Café , an eatery established in 1987 that dishes up seasonal concoctions and British ingredients. For the sixth edition, she speaks with Mr. Gray, a Bronx-based chef and cofounder of Ghetto Gastro , a collective that plays with the shared elements between food, art and design.
For 23 minutes, the two delve into the podcast’s underlying theme of philosophizing, unscripted, about the culture of tomorrow.
Through profound questions and an intimate conversation, the chefs reveal to listeners their backgrounds, passions and roles in the global culinary landscape.
Ms. Rogers and Mr. Gray share a love of their regions, uplifting the food and cultural traditions of the local ecosystems to their establishments. The latter specifically weaves in an element of justice.
“As I was a young adult going out to eat in Manhattan, I often saw or heard hip-hop playing on the soundtrack of a restaurant, but then when you look around the restaurant, you don’t see Black or Brown people dining,” Mr. Gray says in the episode.
“When you look in the kitchen, you don’t see many Black or Brown people working, except maybe the dishwasher,” he says. “So I was like ‘what’s the way that we could use food as a medium and a language to celebrate the culture of the Bronx – which is largely [about] hip-hop – and also kind of create this Pan-African idea of food, taking things from the past and bringing it into the future?’”
An intercontinental conversation uncovers the connections between two chefs
