The Restaurant Guys
The Restaurant Guys is one of the original food and wine podcasts, launched in 2005 by restaurateurs Mark Pascal and Francis Schott. With roots as a daily radio show, the podcast features in-depth conversations with chefs, bartenders, winemakers, authors, and hospitality professionals—offering the inside track on food, cocktails, wine, and restaurant culture. New episodes and vintage conversations because the best stories, like the best bottles, age well. Expect insightful, opinionated, and entertaining conversations about food, wine, and the finer things in life. Subscribe for ad-free content, bonus episodes and invitations to special events! https://restaurantguysregulars.buzzsprout.com/ Contact: TheGuys@RestaurantGuysPodcast.com
Episodes
Recorded on location at Monteverde Restaurant & Pastificio in Chicago
Why This Episode Matters
- Grueneberg explains why being willing to step down in title to keep learning can be one of the smartest career moves in hospitality.
- Monteverde turns pasta production into part of the dining-room experience with its open pastificio, including filled pasta made to order.
- The restaurant’s batteria of balsamic barrels isn...
This is a Vintage episode from 2007.
Why This Episode Matters
- Father Greg Boyle explains how Homeboy Industries uses jobs, training and support to help former gang members build different lives.
- Rival gang members work side by side — and Boyle describes what happens when people who once saw each other as enemies begin to know one another.
- The conversation gets at something restaurants can do particularly well: teach skills, c...
Why This Episode Matters
- Til Death The Speakeasy is literally hidden beneath a working funeral home outside Kansas City and unlike most modern “speakeasies,” it really isn’t generally open to the public.
- The room comes complete with a casket bar, an urn used to smoke cocktails, mysterious doors and at least one unexplained doorbell incident.
- The basement’s secret-drinking history pre...
This is a Vintage episode from 2006.
Why This Episode Matters
- Long before sustainable seafood became a mainstream restaurant conversation, Rick Moonen was pushing chefs and diners to think about where their fish came from and how it was caught.
- Moonen explains why cooking fish requires precision and why buying the freshest fish often means abandoning your shopping list and letting the market decide dinner.
- From beluga caviar to Chi...
This is a Vintage episode from 2012.
Why This Episode Matters
- Chef Paul Virant explains how preservation can extend truly seasonal cooking well beyond the growing season.
- Canning and pickling can deepen a restaurant's relationship with local farmers while creating new possibilities in the kitchen and behind the bar.
- Preserving peak-season ingredients isn't necessarily cheaper. The value comes from flavor, identity and havin...
Why This Episode Matters
- Nicholas Harary explains why he chose to reinvent one of New Jersey’s most acclaimed fine-dining restaurants before the business forced him to.
- A surprisingly technical look at what separates great ice cream from mediocre ice cream: butterfat, overrun, and the cold chain.
- Nicholas, Mark Pascal and Francis Schott debate whether traditional fine dining is dead or simply evolving.
- The conversation turns ...
You’re hearing a preview of this subscriber bonus episode. Restaurant Guys’ Regulars can hear the full episode, plus other commercial-free bonus episodes, at restaurantguysregulars.buzzsprout.com .
This is a Vintage episode from 2006.
Why This Episode Matters
- Why one of the world's most prized ingredients commands extraordinary prices.
- How truffle cultivation began challenging the romantic image of hunters sea...
This is a Vintage compilation from 2010.
Why This Episode Matters
- A Real Housewives of New Jersey cookbook introduces one particularly memorable piece of dietary advice: avoid “stripper food.”
- “Juicy bits from Joe” require Mark to summon his Nutley Italian accent. Things deteriorate from there.
- A New York Times story about changing bachelor parties sparks a conversation about great food, ex...
This is a Vintage episode from 2010.
Why This Episode Matters
- Hardwick, Vermont became an early test case for whether local food and small agricultural businesses could help revitalize a struggling rural economy.
- Ben Hewitt challenges the feel-good version of the local food story: What happens when artisanal food creates jobs but remains too expensive for many people in the community?
- The conversation explores how small farms can c...
Why This Episode Matters
- Why wine may not be losing younger drinkers so much as failing to introduce itself to them well
- How small, independent producers can offer something industrial wine cannot: place, history and story
- Why wine education works better through tasting, comparison and discovery than scores and intimidation
- How restaurants, retailers and wine lovers can make wine more approachable to people just beginning to explor...
This is a Vintage episode from 2006.
Why This Episode Matters
- Erica Renaud explains why heirloom, traditional and open-pollinated seeds matter to agricultural biodiversity.
- Mark and Francis share how they worked directly with local farmers to plan crops, commit to purchases and even shoulder some of the farmer's risk.
- The conversation connects sustainable agriculture with something more immediate to a restaurant: better-tasting foo...
Why This Episode Matters
- Italian food isn’t one cuisine. Vincenzo Prosperi explains why Italy’s regional traditions matter—and what gets lost when everything is reduced to pizza, pasta and red sauce.
- Authenticity and innovation can coexist. The question isn’t whether chefs should create new dishes, but whether classics should be changed beyond recognition and still carry the old name.
- Social media is changi...
This is a Vintage episode from 2006.
Why This Episode Matters
- Why guests who are not drinking deserve a beverage experience equal to the food, not simply still or sparkling water.
- How sommeliers can build non-alcoholic pairings using the same principles as wine: weight, acidity, texture and flavor.
- Why thoughtful glassware and presentation communicate that every guest matters.
- How one memorable beverage program can turn the non-drin...
Why This Episode Matters
- What local sourcing looked like before restaurants had reliable farm-to-kitchen distribution.
- Why supporting local agriculture is an economic commitment not merely a menu description.
- How “farm-to-table” became vulnerable to greenwashing and what genuine sourcing requires.
- Why whole-animal butchery, preservation and culinary craft are increasingly difficult to sustain under modern restaurant eco...
This is a Vintage episode from 2010.
Why This Episode Matters
- Discover how wine can encourage creativity, conversation and more mindful experiences.
- Learn why comparative tasting helps develop your palate faster.
- Understand how fear of being wrong prevents people from describing what they taste.
- Hear why making time for memorable experiences may change how we perceive our lives.
The Conversation
The Restaurant Guys, Mark Pasc...
Recorded live at the House of Suze during Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans 2026.
Why This Episode Matters
- Discover how the American beefsteak became a tool for political organizing in New York and New Jersey.
- Learn the feast’s essential rules: endless meat, bread as a plate and no concern for remaining clean.
- Hear how Prohibition and women’s suffrage changed public drinking—and the beefsteak itself.
- Find out ho...
This is a Vintage episode from 2010.
Why This Episode Matters
- How a freedom-loving nation came to outlaw the manufacture, sale and transportation of alcohol through a constitutional amendment.
- Why women’s suffrage, progressive reformers, wealthy industrialists and economic politics created unexpected alliances on both sides of Prohibition.
- How Prohibition fueled corruption and organized crime while weakening Americans’ ...
Why This Episode Matters
- The Guys taste ʻŌkolehao, a nearly lost Hawaiian spirit made from kī root, and explore its unusual history and revival.
- Why Michelin retired its Green Star—and why judging sustainability is far more complicated than judging what arrives at the table.
- The economic problem facing bars devoted exclusively to non-alcoholic cocktails.
- A simple way to uncover better bottles and better values when r...
This is a Vintage episode from 2006.
Why This Episode Matters
- How America’s cocktail golden age flourished from the Gilded Age through Prohibition and how it eventually gave way to highballs and vodka.
- Why pre-Prohibition whiskey was stronger, more aromatic and dramatically different from much of what followed.
- How cocktail historians reconstruct forgotten drinks using antique bar guides, vintage bottles and nearly vanished i...
This was recorded on-location at Bar Convent Brooklyn 2026
Why This Episode Matters
- How five generations of the Hayman family helped shape London gin and why James Hayman sees himself as a guardian rather than an owner.
- Why Old Tom gin is not simply London Dry with extra sugar, and how its robust botanical profile changes classic cocktails.
- How authentic sloe gin is made with wild blackthorn fruit, months of infusion and considerab...
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