320: Melissa King & Julius Roberts

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0:31For me as a chef, there's so much nostalgia in a dish. And like, I think a lot of dishes are starting to be lost, at least in my own culture. I know that there's things that people my age don't know how to make, but like my grandma knows how. But like those recipes don't get passed down or, you know, it's written on a random piece of paper and there's no measurements. This is Taste. I'm your host, Eliza Barbanel. Melissa King is a Top Chef icon, and she's also much more. The champion-turned-judge is also the host of Tasting Wild, a far-out outdoors cooking show, who still finds time to be in the kitchen with pop-ups across the country.

1:12It's so fun to have her on the show to talk about cooking with her old Top Chef cohort, plus career-defining gigs like appearing on Sesame Street and cooking for the Met Gala.

1:29Melissa King, this is Taste. Thanks for coming on the podcast. Hi, thanks for having me. So you're visiting New York. I have to know, do you have any fun food plans while you're in the city? I've been here for about a week, so I've actually been to a few places. I went to Double Chicken, went to Paros, which is a friend of mine from Top Chef, George Pagonis. He just opened that in Tribeca. And I've also been here for a pop-up dinner series with Chase Sapphire. It's the Seaport Food Lab over at the Tin Building. And so I've been here for about three days cooking away. What are the highlights from the menu that you're doing there?

2:08It's really a Chinese and Italian mashup dinner. And what we did was we prepared a Chinese and Italian inspired menu. I made scallops with prosciutto XO. I also I have partnered with two other chefs, Chefs May Lynn from Top Chef as well, and Sylvia Barbin, also from Top Chef. So each of us kind of broke down and took a different course. May Lynn made braised Wagyu beef cheeks with a Cantonese curry on top of braised daikon and a side of polenta with a ginger scallion sauce. Sylvia made a beautiful butternut squash capoletti that had a scallion oil and Szechuan pepper walnuts and a little Parmesan fondue.

2:55I love all of these dishes. Did you guys put your heads together and talk about how they would all go together? Or was it just kind of like you're bringing your best and you're going to see how it goes? It was a little bit of both. I think, you know, when I was thinking about who I wanted to do the dinner with, you know, these are friends of mine that I've cooked with before. We've obviously competed against each other as well. And I wanted us to each kind of showcase a little bit of our stories and who we are as people and where we come from. And so being a Chinese-American, it was really important to me to kind of put myself on that plate.

3:27And so it became a collaborative effort once we started kind of digging into the details of each other's dishes and what we each wanted to prepare. So we kind of work together to add different garnishes and find ways to kind of elevate the dish. Definitely. And when you're cooking with your top chef folks, do you feel competitive with them? I have to ask. I mean, what's interesting is like people always think, you know, we're so competitive against each other. But really, I think when you're competing on the show, you're just competing against yourself, to be honest. So, yeah, in these settings where we're doing, you know, these pop-up dinners together, it's all just fun.

4:06And we're having a good time just kind of creating and, you know, really finding inspiration through each other and the foods that we are deciding to present together. Definitely. And I think that's very classic to say that you're competing against yourself. But it's true. And also when you have people that you're cooking with that are bringing their A-game, I would imagine that it would also inspire you to kind of dig a little deeper and show up for them as well. Absolutely. And that's, at least I feel really proud of what we've created together at the Seaport Food Lab. You know, we really came up with some beautiful dishes that I think were creative and inspiring and dishes that I would, you know, if I had a restaurant tomorrow, I would put that on the menu.

4:47Yeah, and I would be there to eat all three of those back to back. So we're talking about competition. I have to bring up the fact that you hold more challenge wins than anybody else on Top Chef. Do you think your family is surprised to know that or do they're like, yeah, Melissa is going to come out on top? I mean, I hope I hope they're surprised. I think they're just really proud, especially the second time around watching. I mean, I'm proud of myself for just being able to get through it all because it is an extremely stressful competition to be in. But yeah, I think I crushed it. Yeah, you definitely did.

5:23Do you have any tips for handling the stress and the pressure in the moment or you just kind of power through? You know, honestly, you are throughout the competition, you're so sleep deprived, you're exhausted. For me, I was taking trying to take it a day at a time. I was meditating throughout any breaks that we had and just sort of trying to decompress from it all. But I think slowing down was something I had to keep reminding myself and like to stay focused. Can you talk more about slowing down? You know, at least like for me in my daily life, I try to even I'm so busy throughout my work life, but I try to take moments to escape and like be out in nature, like go for a walk, even if it's, you know, 10 minutes, like try to just do something for yourself to slow to slow your mind down.

6:12And I find that to be quite important, even like whether I'm competing on Top Chef or any situation, you know, it's really good to just take time for yourself. Yeah. You know, I was speaking with Clancy Miller this morning who has a new book for the culture out. And she said the exact same thing as her advice was to to actually live life and be in the moment. And it sounds obvious, but I think it's a reminder that we all could use in many ways. Yeah, I think so many, particularly chefs, we're so like head down, focused on the food. We dedicate our lives to what we do. And we have to remember there is life outside of a restaurant or outside of your passion.

6:50There are other passions out there. And so for me, it's not always just food. It's film, music, fashion, all these other categories that I can tap into to allow my creativity to expand. Definitely. Maybe not on TV, but when you're cooking at home, do you listen to music? Oh my gosh, all the time. I'm like always listening to music. I'm a big Spotify user and Spotify fan, and I have a couple playlists that people can follow. Okay, not to put you on blast, but what was your most listened to Spotify artist last year? Oh, I'm positive. It's drama. And I feel like anyone that knows me knows that I'm obsessed with this band called Drama.

7:31What's the vibe? uh it's it's crying in the club music if i if i'm gonna label it as anything it's crying in the club uh emotional you know the lyrics are can be kind of happy i guess they label themselves as happy sad music and would you but i love it i like thrive on emotional music and even if i'm not sad i just i don't know i love being in my feelings yeah and that's cooking music for you too It is. Well, I guess when I'm in the kitchen, it's like a little underground hip hop or old school hip hop. Sometimes I could all of a sudden it becomes like Madonna and Whitney Houston. So I have a bit of range.

8:13I love all of those. I love that together. I think for me, when I'm cooking, sometimes I'll just do one album so that I have a sense of pace and flow. And Miseducation of Lauryn Hill is kind of always one of those albums. So good. Classic. Okay. So you have good music you're listening to. I'm curious, like when you are going to compete, do you do anything to prep? Do you do practice challenges? Well, when you compete, you have no idea what they're going to throw at you on the show. So it could really be anything. So I remember when I was, you know, prepping before I went on to my all-star season.

8:47Or no, actually, it was my first season, season 12. I had no idea what the show was going to be like. And I was on YouTube Googling things like how to butcher an alligator, how to butcher a turtle, you know, like things that I just like thought they would throw at us, but they obviously never did. So I prepared in all the wrong ways my first season when I went back to compete on All Stars. I did, you know, test out different recipes or just things that I made sure I showed up with a plant based dish or I had a gluten free dish in the back of my head. because you just, again, never know what they're going to throw at you in a 30-minute quick fire.

9:27Yeah, that sounds like maybe a better approach than watching How to Butcher Alligator videos. Although now I kind of want to go look those up after this. Oh, it's wild. Do you think you could do it? I'm sure. I mean, I've done all the research. Yeah. I'm ready to go. The knives are in the bag. I have one under the desk right now. Really? Yeah, sorry. So between the two seasons, do you have any dishes that stand out as if you were going to have a restaurant, this is what you would put on the menu? Yeah, certainly the scallop with prosciutto XO dish that I just did at the Tin Building with the Seaport Food Lab.

10:03That one was a dish that is so special to me. You know, we were in Italy for the finale and we were at a prosciutto factory and we had to come up with a dish using prosciutto. and for some reason I just really wanted to make an exo sauce and I was thinking about these flavors that I grew up with. I'm Cantonese-American. My family's from Hong Kong. Exo sauce is such a classic condiment, but it's oftentimes made with dried scallops and it has a little bit of cured ham or cured meat. And so I decided to reverse that and I made the bulk of the sauce with prosciutto and served it on top of a seared scallop.

10:47But it was also because I couldn't find any of those ingredients in the middle of, you know, Tuscany. All those Chinese ingredients weren't available to me, but, you know, we had batarga. We had, you know, instead of Thai chilies, there were Italian pepperoncinis and chilies. So I was able to kind of create these substitutes that actually worked really beautifully. And so I felt really proud to be able to present that dish this week. Definitely. And I think it's so cool to think about the way that constraints can lead to the kind of innovation that you just wouldn't be able to necessarily do if you had everything available to you at once.

11:22Exactly. And that's, I think, the beauty of the competition or, you know, Top Chef in general for me has opened up my culinary brain and it really, you know, gets you to create things that you never thought you ever would. Definitely. And I want to ask you about this show, Tasting Wild, that you do. Have you always been drawn to the outdoors? I have. Yeah, I love I love nature. I love finding inspiration through, you know, just literally walking through the Golden Gate Park or just anywhere that's outdoors. I think there's just so much beauty to it all. And so being able to do Tasting Wild was such a in a way a challenge.

12:01But also I was just excited to be a part of these adventures and to see what I would come up with at the end of each episode. because I had to create a dish based off of what we were foraging. Definitely. If you could redo one of those experiences and bring some friends with you, which one would you want to do? Oh, they were all so cool. I think the Big Island, that one was really incredible, just being on top of a volcano. And also I was cooking on a black sand beach, and we had fish from a spear fisherman. So that one I thought was a really beautiful way to just sort of capture the essence of the island in my dish.

12:43And your friends would also probably like want an excuse to get to go with you. And then we get to just hang. Yeah. So now do you like to cook outside? I mean, I do. I've always enjoyed outdoor cooking, cooking on live fire. I think like any chef loves an excuse to do that. Definitely. It challenges you in so many ways. And a lot of the show for Tasting Wild, I was cooking outdoors on live fire. Definitely. Yeah. So I've been seeing a lot on Instagram lately. Maybe you know the name for this technique. I can only describe it as people that have been kind of trussing up vegetables and meat and then just hanging it.

13:18And hanging it. Over a fire. Yeah. Have you been noticing? I feel like this is a trend that I'm seeing. I see it all over. I think, you know, Francis Malman. Yeah. Yeah. He kind of just started. He's like the coolest guy. You look at his Instagram and you're like, wow, I want to do that in the middle of, you know, South America. Yeah. Just go to Argentina. Exactly. Have you done that kind of technique before? More so camping or like my brother-in-law has one of those Brio fire pits at the house. And so, yeah, we'll connect a little spit on it. But I haven't done it to that magnitude that Frances does.

13:55Yeah, I have not. But I feel like every time I see one of these clips, it just looks so peaceful. I want to be like a vegetable swinging over the fire. I feel like that'd be a nice way to live. That'd be awesome. So you have all these different experiences in food TV. I'm curious what you think makes for good food television. I mean, there's I feel like so much has been done from Top Chef and competing to is it cake? You know, there's such a range of food television out there. And I'm actually excited to see what's next, because like I obviously I guess if I thought of that million dollar idea, then I'd be creating that show right now.

14:39But, you know, it's exciting just to see that food TV has become what it is today. Yeah, that it continues to expand. I think of like when I was growing up watching the cooking demos was probably the only kind of food TV that there was in some kind of way. And now there is, is it real or is it cake? Which is not even food TV. It's kind of like sleight of hand magic. Oh, absolutely. I'm like, is that cake? I don't know. Yeah, actually the podcast mics in the studio are cake. We'll cut into them at the end. So if you wanted to forecast crystal ball a little bit, what is something that you'd like to see more of in the food TV world?

15:16I personally love storytelling through food. I think, yeah, again, there's competition cooking. There's shows like Is It Cake? But I would personally love to see more storytelling and like who are the people behind it and what is their story? What is their journey? just for me I've always wanted to like hang out in a kitchen with a bunch of grandmas from different countries and like learn from them and so honestly that would be a show I would try to create or pitch is there's so much for me as a chef there's so much nostalgia in a dish and like I think a lot of dishes are starting to be lost at least in my own culture I know that there's things that people my age don't know how to make, but like my grandma knows how, but like those recipes don't get passed down or, you know, it's written on a random piece of paper and there's no measurements.

16:09Yeah. So I would love to just see again, yeah, more storytelling through food. Well, I would definitely watch the Melissa King Grandma show. Have you been to the Grandma restaurant on Staten Island? I've heard about it and I need to go check it out. Have you been? No, I also haven't been, but it's something that we keep on talking about on the show because I think a lot of people have admiration for the older generations and the recipes that they have. And I know personally, like whenever I think about getting older, getting older in the context of cooking is something I'm really excited about is like, if I'm pretty good at making something now, 40 years from now, I'm going to be just as good as all the other grandmas.

16:44So it's something that I'm interested in, but I haven't ventured over to Staten Island yet. I mean, that's the way I was thinking about food is like, I think of my own grandma and the matriarchs of my family. And like you look at kitchens and it is heavily male dominated or it's getting better. But yeah, there's some sort of beauty in like the passing of knowledge to each generation through a dish. And like you said, like, will it be as good, you know, 40 years later or 20 years later? Cooking is all repetition and it really I believe it does get better with time. Yeah, I think it has to. I think whenever someone I know isn't excited about getting older, I'm always like, but don't you want to be an amazing cook?

17:26Yeah, exactly. I do. So I have to know, what was it like appearing on Sesame Street? Because that's like a life goal of mine. That was like the best day of my life. Tell me everything. I had so much fun. Just first of all, yeah, it's Sesame Street. There's so much, again, nostalgia attached to that. And when I was on set, you know, there was Cookie Monster as my sous chef and Elmo. And we were debuting a new Muppet named Ji Young, who is the first, you know, Korean American Muppet. And so that was just a special, I think, moment for me as a chef to be able to like, literally, I was like watching Sesame Street and learning English as a child, and then flipping over to Julia Child.

18:12And I was, you know, five years old. And now I'm at my age today and I'm able to actually be on Sesame Street. So it truly was a dream. And I was also, we were making Asian foods and we were able to sort of show a bit of, you know, my culture and just to represent the Asian American community was really powerful for me. Definitely. What were the dishes you were making? We made dumplings and dapoki and just, yeah all these like we're just really trying to introduce children to the beauty of asian foods i love that yeah and and this is maybe a weird question but when you are around the muppets and they have handlers obviously do you make eye contact with the muppet or with the person when you're there you don't even notice the handlers really you are so immersed in staring at you know, like Elmo's eyes and like talking directly to them because they're just so in character.

19:12And again, like the second you hear their voice, it's like you're transported back to your childhood. And it's like, oh, there's Cookie Monster. And, you know, we're just hanging out in the kitchen. I'm like thinking about that. Yeah, it's like meeting a celebrity, but also an alien kind of at the same time. I was freaking out the whole time. If you could go back on Sesame Street and do another cooking demo, what would you do? I would love to teach kids about noodles and rice and just kind of, yeah, again, cook again with Cookie Monster. I think he was the best sous chef. He ate all my food. He just devoured the entire table of dumplings that we had.

19:50And they weren't even cookies. They weren't cookies, but he was all about it. And so, again, I just love getting kids excited about food and in any way that I could share a bit of my knowledge and my background with them, I'm all for it. Definitely. And on the flip side to Sesame Street, I know that you curated the 2022 Met Ball Gala menu for adults alongside Anna Wintour. How did you approach that? Yeah, it was a collaborative effort with Marcus Samuelson and a couple other chefs. And so we each took a course. And yeah, it took a couple months to actually develop the dish that I ended up creating.

20:31for the first course. And, you know, Anna is very particular about what she wants. And I think that's a good thing. And so it was really helpful for us as chefs to be able to plug into, okay, we need to make something that represents the Met theme, but also represents a bit of ourselves as chefs and also, you know, can be plant-based. And so we were, I found it to be almost like a Top Chef challenge. I was about to say, it's a similar constraint. So what was the final dish that you ended up with? I made a hamachi crudo with a citrus broth. It had a Szechuan chili oil and a yuzu kosho olive tapenade.

21:14That sounds so good. A little bit of everything, bringing all the beautiful flavors of America all in one dish, but keeping it light and refreshing for the first course. And then the vegan option was compressed melon instead of the hamachi. Cool. And then you got to go. How did you feel about getting all dressed up? Was it so exciting? That part was wild. I like didn't realize we'd also get to attend the Met Gala and the Met Ball. And so that was really a once in a lifetime experience that I truly will never forget. It was amazing people watching. Yeah. Who did you see? Did you watch anyone eating your dish to see if they would like it?

21:54Oh, I mean, I sat at the table, was watching everybody around me just to see like, okay, do they like this? Do they enjoy it? Are they having a good time? And yeah, there was a lot of great feedback all around. Yeah, I'm sure everyone liked it. I guess I'm wondering if there was one celebrity that you were like, oh, I really want to know if Anne Hathaway is going to like this or something. I mean, I was sitting at the Vogue table, so I was sitting kind of with Anna Wintour's team and all of them, you know, they just kept giving me all these great compliments and feedback about the dish. Definitely.

22:29It was cool. So are you cooking at home at all these days? I feel like I'm always, I mean, I'm one of those chefs that does cook at home when I do get down time. I love cooking for my friends and hosting dinner parties. I'm, you know, from San Francisco, and I know through the pandemic I was bread baking and had my sourdough starter and got pretty obsessed with that. So I'm always trying to, yeah, cook at home as much as I can. winter is a big time for me for cooking at home but I often find myself in what I feel like is a tv competition situation where I have like one friend who's vegan and then one friend who can't eat chickpeas which is what I was going to serve the vegan and it's hard for me to figure it out do you have any suggestions for like a very flexible maybe like winter group cooking moment for winter yeah I'm putting you on the spot right now on the spot sorry I mean I again you come from San Francisco, all my friends are like vegan or gluten-free and all these things.

23:25But I think a lot, like a big spread of dips and like charcuterie and then also trickling in all your veg, that's always just gives people options from that point on. Even, you know, at the Seaport Food Lab, we created like this Chinese-Italian charcuterie spread and I mixed in a little bit of like Asian paki sticks and like dried squid onto like this beautiful salumi board that had a little bit of everything for everyone and they could mix and match pending their diets. So that's always a good starting point. Honestly, the tip of putting paki on the charcuterie board to me is fantastic. I feel like you could wrap up a salami around one of the like if you're feeling adventurous.

24:10Is that crazy to say? No, that was the vision was to take a little bit of prosciutto and wrap it around the chocolate pocky stick. And like you have a little bit of salty sweet action going on. It's like a little rose almost. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I love that. Well, I'm curious if there's anything coming up over the next couple months for you that you're excited to be working on that you could share with us. Yeah. So I'm a Chase Sapphire partner and I will be, you'll catch me at Sundance. So I'll be passing out some food in the Chase Sapphire lounge over there and curating a couple special bites. Are you going to get to sneak away and watch some movies also?

24:46I hope so. Yeah, that's always the plus. Yeah. Sundance. And yeah, we'll have a few more activations throughout the year. I know for Pride, we're planning something pretty fun. Can't fully talk about it just yet, but keep an eye out. Okay, we'll wait until June to find out. Exactly. That's so great. And to close today, I want to play a little like rapid fire taste check with you. So I'll give you some categories and you can just tell me the first answer that pops into your head. Okay, this is always stressful. No, it's going to be fine. We can take a deep breath together. Okay, go to a bodega convenience store snack.

25:24Fresh juice, to be honest. Go to like Asian grocery store snack. Asian grocery snack. Oh, kimbap. If I'm at like HBART. Favorite cookbook. I really love April Bloomfield's Girl and the Pig. Girl and her pig. Definitely. It's a solid one. Okay, favorite food TV show? That's not Top Chef. I was about to say Top Chef. Sorry. No, I can't watch The Bear. It stresses me out. I was going to ask about that, actually, but I think that most of my food industry friends can't watch it. I can't watch it. It truly triggers me. It brings back a lot of trauma and PTSD. I don't know how anybody watches it, but I'm sure it's a wonderful show.

26:14I mean, it's a test of quality that it's so stressful that you can't watch it. Exactly. It's so realistic, you know, that they've really done such a great job with like every detail from like the way he wears his apron and the brand of knives and his knife roll. It's so, so accurate. OK, so you've seen enough to know that it's too accurate for you. Yes. OK, fair. Yeah. Okay. Is there a different food TV show that you want to shout out? I honestly don't watch too much food TV. It's okay. We can say Top Chef. Yeah, I'm going to say Top Chef. I'll be nice. Yeah. Okay. Favorite Bay Area restaurant?