655: Top Chef Melissa King Doesn’t Need a Restaurant

0:00This episode is brought to you by Resi and American Express. Resi is a digital platform that connects restaurants to restaurant lovers by elevating dining experiences, providing original industry content, and helping to fill some of the country's most exciting dining rooms. Because restaurants have always been more than just places to eat. The amazing world of restaurants is just a few taps away in the Resi app and at resi.com.

0:31And that's kind of what happened. And then when I served it on Top Chef, it kind of became known as the dessert that made a famous butcher cry. And it was Dario Cittini. Oh, he's a very famous butcher. And he just completely cried. And then I cried. And everybody was crying. It became that dish. This is Taste. I'm your host, Matt Rodberto.

0:58art. Melissa King is a chef, television personality, activist, model, and author of the incredible new cookbook, Cook Like a King. She is the winner of Bravo's Top Chef All-Stars LA and holds more challenge wins than any other competitor in the history of Top Chef. Now, as mentioned previously on the show, I absolutely love Cook Like a King. It really speaks to me, and Melissa shares about what inspired the recipes as well as why she's 100 % okay with not working in restaurants. Also on the show, Eliza and I talk about some of the season's new chef and restaurant cookbooks. I really hope you enjoy this episode.

1:42Melissa King, welcome Welcome back to This Is Taste. How are you? Hey, I'm great. I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to have you here. I know you had a great conversation with Eliza a couple years ago. I'm going to link to that in the show notes. We're going to go in a different direction because we're talking all about your cookbook. I love it. I have many thoughts. It's truly one of my favorite of the year. It's so editorial. It's so smart with the recipe development. And it really has a strong sense of you as a cook and your background. but first I just have to know New York City restaurant scene.

2:16Maybe it's a political question. Who knows? Because you've got friends in the industry but where are you going right now? Oh man, New York's incredible. There's just so many endless restaurants to choose from but I feel like I'm always at Theodora. I feel like I'm always at Penny. I just had a really amazing dinner at Teresi not too long ago with J.J. Good who I co-wrote the book with. Have you been to any of these? I have. I've been to Teresi and Penny and also JJ Good, friend of the show. Oh, great. What a great guy. He's the best. Best in the biz. Yeah. I haven't been to Teresi since maybe two years.

2:52It's such a show. Is it still a show? It's still a show. But it was my first experience or first time going there. But it was such a – I think that's why I loved it. It was just such a vibe. Yeah, good choices. Let's go back to growing up. What was food like in your household growing up in East LA? Let's see. It was, I grew up with a lot of 80s convenience foods, frozen dinners, all of that. But then I also grew up with Cantonese homestyle cooking, you know, from mom. Mom was working all the time. Both my parents were engineers and someone had to put food on the table. So eventually that became me.

3:35I was kind of helping my mom in the kitchen, stir frying vegetables in a wok, using a Chinese meat cleaver at the age of like eight. Yeah. And I think by like age 11 or so, I was putting dinner on the table and doing like whole steamed fish. Oh, beautiful. Like tilapia, a little bit of ginger, soy, just classic Cantonese homestyle cooking. Did you enjoy it as a youngster? Oh my gosh, I loved it. The kitchen was like the one place I felt I could just be myself and in a way just hide and just dive into it all. So I was always playing around in the kitchen at home and experimenting with different flavors.

4:19Yeah. Was there like a recipe that you came across that kind of unlocked something for you deep down as you kind of are moving towards this career in food? Yeah, I think like one of the first, I mean, a lot of them you see in the book actually in Cook Like a King, bone broth was a big one, Cantonese bone broth. there's a recipe for a black chicken with ginseng goji berry soup. And that is something that is one of the first things I learned how to make as a kid. And so I just like felt really strongly that that had to be in the book. Of course, you can adapt it to a regular chicken, but we want that collagen.

4:56We want all that like, you know, goodness and sort of the, I don't know, bone broth is so, it's so like nurturing. Absolutely. It's also as a flavor too, when you nail it. Like when you understand the reduction and what's needed to make it, like it's not what's in the boxes. Yeah. And that became one of my favorite things to make even throughout my career was like soups and sauces, sauce work. And so you see a lot of that through the book as well. And also my mom's like egg custard with clams. She used to make that in a microwave at home when we were kids. And I was always like amazed how she could pull that off.

5:33But in the book, you know, you're using a steamer or like a wok. I love the book because there's big ideas and there's chef ideas. And you can maybe think it's a chef book. You are a chef. But it's not. You can make these recipes at home. Very few sub recipes. And it unlocks something inside of me. Somebody looks at a lot of cookbooks. They're like, I get it. It's very cool. It was quite intentional. You know, I wanted the book to be approachable and to be something just to showcase things that I grew up cooking as a kid and also dishes that I make for my friends and family when I'm just hanging out at home.

6:11And so you'll see a lot of those dishes from things you can make for two people to things you can make, you know, if you're hosting a dinner party with friends. So there's kind of a big range of ideas happening in there. Okay, so you win Top Chef All-Stars, and you're clearly a restaurant chef, and you have a really deep bench of places that you've worked at, but you're currently a chef without a restaurant. And just in prepping for this, I was kind of getting hints, like, were you doing pop-ups, were there any rumors that you're looking at spaces? There was none of it. So it feels really like a conscious decision to not have a restaurant.

6:47Yeah, it is. It's been for a while, I think. I mean, first of all, my experience with Top Chef was life-changing twice now, and it really got me to see beyond a restaurant and beyond. I think since I was a kid, I kept thinking, I need a restaurant, I need a Michelin star, then I'll be happy. And then life kind of opened up, and I think it's taken me in such a beautiful direction, and I'm really happy with being able to create in other ways and still have sort of some freedom and flexibility. Um, I'm also a total like Libra Sagittarius and I'm like, I like spontaneity. I like just having a lot of flexibility in my career.

7:30Well, for you to recognize that is special because I think most chefs are in that mindset of Michelin stars and restaurants. It sounds as from your response that you're maybe not going to have a restaurant like this lifestyle and this ability to do a lot of things and not being tied down by a space is fulfilling. Yeah, I certainly love creating. I love sort of being the visionary behind things. And, you know, the book, you see a lot of, it's really my restaurant in book form. I think there's a lot of just that passion and creativity that I put in and thought behind each dish. I would someday love to turn the book into a restaurant.

8:12But I think at the current moment, it's been a conscious decision to just, I mean, I'm also working on a memoir. So there's a lot going on. No way. You weren't like one and done here. You're like, let's go. That's amazing. Yeah, I was writing, you know, I've been writing both books over the past three years. And it's just kind of taken my brain. It's split my brain in half into it's just it's been a journey. I love that you're doing a memoir. Oh, that's so cool. Yeah, that's coming out next year. Oh my goodness, that's amazing. I'm pretty excited. You'll be back. Well, I can't wait to read it.

8:44I still need to finish that one up. Well, speaking of writing, you write in the intro of this book, Cook Like a King, that while you were competing on season 12 of Top Chef, you were in your own head. You were mimicking this Michelin starred food, but you were being pulled towards the Cantonese food that you just spoke about. And there was like possibly some confusion happening. What was that like? You know, like, for instance, growing up being Chinese American, I always I was never American enough. I was never Chinese enough. And so I kind of like felt split in half. And I would keep all these home style dishes that I cooked with my mom and my parents just sort of separate.

9:24And the things that I grew up with, like Chinese barbecue, you know, even in the book, there's the Shanghainese meatballs, Shanghainese lion head meatballs. And that was my stinky lunchbox as a kid, you know, with the braised cabbage. And I would get made fun of during that time. And I think as I moved through my career, there was a point where I kept thinking I needed to create French fine dining. My whole career was built in French food and Italian cuisine. And so there was a different lens to what food could be at that period of time. And then you see me kind of break through that when I go through my journey on both top chefs.

10:05And by the time I get to All Stars, I was quite like unapologetic about presenting Chinese food. And I was like, you know what? This is who I am. This is where I come from. And this is the food I'm going to lean into. And you either like it or you don't. Fortuitous timing. Yeah. It makes great TV. It looks really good on camera. And I'm sure the judges are like, we don't want to have that French food. Yeah. We want to have tiramisu. I think there was just a huge shift in food culture at that time period. And even today, you see just so much more of just fusion and different types of cuisines being really celebrated.

10:40And I think that was really my goal with the book as well, especially writing, you know, starting this book three years ago and continuing the journey today is wanting to just really present my identity through these dishes. Yeah. What about like family meal working at the restaurants? Were you cooking family meal in the style of Cantonese, in this home cooking that you knew while like off the clock, essentially, before the camera started rolling? Oh, my God. Family meal was my favorite thing to do in kitchens because, you know, no one has time. You're running around trying to, you know, prepare food for other people.

11:14And family meal became that moment where I could nurture my team and my kitchen family. And so I was nicknamed Mama Mel. And so there's even a recipe in the book called Mama Mel's meatballs. But a lot of the dishes in the book are actually staff meal, things that I would create during staff meal when I was a butcher at a restaurant for a couple years and would save up all the fish trim and make a lemongrass cioppino. So being a San Franciscan, but throwing in those Asian flavors, as you were speaking about, in sort of a like a homestyle way. From February 20th to March 7th, dive into Canada's biggest culinary festival, Montreal en Lumière, an exclusive partnership with the McCord Stewart Museum and its exhibition On the Menu Montreal, a restaurant story.

12:07the 2026 festival invites food lovers on a flavorful journey through time. Montreal's top restaurateurs will reimagine 65 years of the city's iconic astronomy, crafting inventive, nostalgia-inspired dishes with a modern twist. Prepare your palate. World-renowned chefs, including several Michelin-starred talents, will team up with over 80 of Montreal's finest local chefs to create unforgettable, one-of-a-kind menus. The full program is available at montrealonlumiere.com, presented by Lotto Quebec in collaboration with National Bank. This episode is brought to you by Aura Frames. If you're one of those last-minute shoppers, you might know the feeling.

12:49Ideas are running low and the clock is ticking. Here's a fun idea, Aura Frames. Aura Frames is the solution with a gift that feels personal, a little curated, and sent with love, and a gift that can be purchased in no time with a few clicks of the mouse. Aura frames are great. They sent me one to check out and it was really cool and dumb simple to set up. I loaded photos using the app and it was displaying them instantly. There are no limits to the amount of photos you can load and you can customize messages with each photo. And here's the deal. You can preload an Aura frame with photos and have it directly sent to that special person in your life, gift wrapped and all.

13:29There will be no price tag and you can include a personalized message. Think about it. All those photos from this past summer's family reunion delivered in a digital frame. That is pretty cool. For a limited time, save on the perfect gift by visiting AuraFrames.com to get$35 off Aura's best-selling Carver Matte Frames, named number one by Wirecutter by using promo code TASTE at checkout. That's A-U-R-A frames dot com promo code TASTE. The deal is exclusive to listeners and frames sell out fast, so order yours now to get in time for the holidays. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply.

14:10So my first thought when looking at the chapters in the recipe list is, you know, this book is a book that speaks about modern cooking. And looking at some of the recipes like chili chrysalabna, chili, lime, melon, and prosciutto, and Sichuan steak tartare, I mean, it goes on and on. And I feel like and with all respect, if I'm opening a restaurant in a midsize city or even a large city, I'm pulling this book and I'm just putting versions of these recipes on my menu because these would crush. Don't steal it, though. There's no stealing. Inspired by. But I'm just saying and I hope it comes up as a compliment because it's.

14:47No, thank you. I appreciate that because that that was really my vision, I think, because I don't have a restaurant that this cookbook became my restaurant. You know, it really, I put my heart and soul into every detail of this book from the recipes to the, we recipe tested it over and over to make sure that it would actually execute at home. If I pass it, you know, to an everyday person that they could do it and cook like a king. And that was the goal. But every detail from even the flecks of salt on the plate, it's like, OK, this needs to like move a little to the left or there's like too much too many chives here in this picture.

15:25So all my hands were in this book. Yeah. Every detail of it. I feel like I visited that restaurant, that unnamed restaurant that may never open. Let's talk about recipes specifically. Let's talk about fucking crispy potatoes. That is the title of it. I think it's the goal of many home cooks. You have that crispy potato in a restaurant. You're like, how the hell are these so good? Right. And you are addressing this concern by many home cooks who try to replicate these crispy potatoes and don't get there. We don't have basket fryers. We don't have special equipment. But none of this is needed. How do we get to these potatoes?

16:01Yeah, I think a lot of the book has these foundational techniques that I want to pass on to home cooks. I want you to know how to make fucking crispy potatoes in your oven and how to make a perfectly seared steak for two to mid-rare. So there are these foundational techniques built through the book. And then from there, you can level up and there's other, or you could bring it down and simplify it for yourself. So like, for instance, with the crispy potatoes, it starts with just making sure they're, first of all, flavored well. And so I boil them in heavily, heavily salted water, very similar to like a Syracuse potato.

16:38Oh yeah, like almost a half box. Like where you're using like seawater to cook these potatoes and really infuse that flavor into it. And so you can eat the potatoes boiled like that. I keep them in my fridge all the time. I throw them in salads, but then you can level up and smash the potato, crisp it up in the oven, good amount of oil, olive oil, high heat. But the trick, I like to add a little bit of beef pitalo. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think that's what's really going to add that crispiness. It's kind of like a duck duck fat potato situation. Yeah, because you're getting the texture from that smash and that high heat roasting, but you're also getting this like depth and tallow that's like kind of like to the diner.

17:20It's like, what is that? And it's the tallow. Tallow you can buy everywhere. It's like super big now. Exactly. But also the book gives you the flexibility to omit that if you want to keep it vegetarian and plant-based. So there are a lot of variations through the book. I let people give, I give them the autonomy to flex and bend to their preferences. What's the potato of choice though for this to really execute it well? I like those small little, what are they, baby gold potatoes. I think those are, you know, they stay fluffy. They smash nicely, but then it gives you that crispiness that you want to achieve.

18:03That smash technique is amazing. Let's talk a bit about turmeric lemongrass pork belly roast. I looked at it. It looks like a porchetta. It looks beautiful in the book, but there's a cool story behind it. And those flavors are quite unique. Yeah, it was. I mean, I love porchetta. It's one of my favorite things. If I see it, I'm always going to order it. Totally two of us. And I was thinking about like, I was thinking about lachon one day and just like Asian porchetta. Every culture has some sort of pork belly that's crispy and puffed and has that sort of chicharron skin. But I was also thinking back to when I traveled.

18:45I backpacked Southeast Asia for my 27th birthday, I think, by myself when I was younger. And I disappeared to Bali. And I was driving around and I had this amazing – I was like on a scooter. saw this amazing roast pig on the side of the road. And it was covered in, it was a roast pig that was stuffed with lemongrass, turmeric, lime leaves, chilies, garlic. And it was basted, the skin was basted with coconut water, I think. And so it was one of the best things I've ever eaten. And I was just thinking, how can I combine all of these flavors in one and make like an Asian porchetta. And so that's kind of the birth of this dish.

19:34But it does take a lot of inspiration from, you know, Filipino lechon. Lechon too, yeah. With like the calamansi like soy sauce on the side. And the dipping sauce really brings it all together. I love that about your cooking. It's informed. It's just the flavors we want to cook at home. That's what I was thinking. It's the flavors I want to eat at home. Yeah, definitely. It's easy to do, actually. What's that? It's easy to do. I think a lot of people get quite intimidated when they see a big pork roast or any type of roast. But it's pretty easy. I mean, I like that you have the process shot in there too, the photo of showing how to roll it.

20:11And, you know, it's the kind of thing like you do it once and you've done it. And now you have. And now you know how to do it. You know how to do it. And then it becomes the thing that you become famous for at home amongst your friends and your family. Can you imagine a dinner party if you have speed eaters? It's impressive. Yeah. How do you get this crispy skin? that's probably you gotta turn the broiler on yeah I mean at home that's the trick in restaurants I'll literally like baste it with hot oil above the fryer or even like kind of put it in the fryer and it'll just naturally puff but those are like restaurants those are restaurants because that's why we love our restaurant chefs you can't have everything look great but I think you you can achieve it at home on a broiler you shot these in a normal kitchen totally that's the way it works all of it was styled in a standard home kitchen.

20:59Yeah. And we made it happen. I love that. Well, we got to talk about the Hong Kong milk tea tiramisu. It's definitely one of your classics. Some have reported this is what won you a top ship of All-Stars. I'm sure there was many more things that was that, but that was like the closing dish. We talk about Tierra a lot on here because it's just such an iconic dessert. For those unfamiliar with this award-winning or show-winning dish, talk us through why you went there. So it was my all-star season of Top Chef, season 17, and it was the finale episode. And we needed to make a four-course meal. You had the choice to make a dessert or not.

21:40I was like, you can't have a whole meal without dessert, so let's do it. But we were also in the middle of Italy. We were in Tuscany. and I was just thinking a lot about how do I bring in Chinese you know how do I bring in my culture into where we are into the surroundings because I that's the Californian in me it's kind of like cooking with what's available and I wanted to kind of lean into the Chinese Italian I guess like side of things and I came up with the Hong Kong milk tea tiramisu which I was thinking about caffeine and, you know, like, what do I, my parents drink Hong Kong milk tea every morning.

22:22That's what they drink instead of coffee. But why not just switch that in a tiramisu, that caffeine element? And that's kind of what happened. And then when I served it on Top Chef, it kind of became known as the dish, the dessert that made a famous butcher cry. And it was Dario Chitini. Oh, he's a very famous butcher. And he just completely cried. And then I cried and everybody was crying. became that dish. And so it was important to me to really share that recipe in Cook Like a King and give everyone else the experience. I love that. Take us through a little bit how you bring this tea flavor in and you're swapping out the traditional flavors.

23:04Yeah, so traditional Hong Kong milk tea is made of black tea, condensed milk, a little bit of evaporated milk. And so I'm really swapping out the espresso from a traditional tiramisu and incorporating a Hong Kong milk tea powder, instant powder, and infusing the lady fingers in Hong Kong milk tea. And that's kind of the only swap, really. And the rest of the recipes like making a traditional tiramisu, the difference with mine is we did lighten it up a little bit with a little layer of whipped cream because it's so delicate. The tea flavor is so delicate. And instead of dusting it with, you know, like a cocoa powder, I dust it with milk chocolate.

23:51Oh, milk chocolate. Yeah, you just grate milk chocolate right on top. That's my choice. Yeah. I think milk chocolate over cocoa powder on my tiaras. That's my choice. So it's kind of become its own dessert in a way. It's amazing. I love that story. Yeah. After you won the show, what was that like going through your head? The moment. Oh, gosh. The moment? Yeah. I was actually just writing this part in my memoir yesterday. I was in shock. I think just so many feelings. It was very overwhelming when Padma's like, you're a top chef. And I was like, wait, what? Not just any top chef. You're an all-star.

24:27It's like the best of the best. So it's like, you know. You know, the competition, everyone's an amazing chef there. And the competition, I think, really becomes a test of your mental endurance. It's a very emotional journey, and I think that's why at some point everybody cries. But for me, I was so burnt by that episode, and I was like, I don't know if I have it in me to even do one more challenge. So, yeah, we were all running on fumes at that point. Did you take a vacation afterwards after that competition? I did. I went around Rome, and then I took my mom to Portugal. We went to Lisbon. Then I met up with my sister.

25:10in London. So we had a little European getaway. Good. You deserve it. I was hoping that it was right back to the grind. No. God, no. Well, we didn't know about it because it's filmed well in advance. So you had to keep in the DL. You got to keep the secret, too, for a very long time. That's crazy. Yeah, months. Months and months. Which is crazy. Yeah. But I love that season and I love Cook Like a King. It's truly, I say it again, one of my favorite books of the season. Oh, thank you so much. Melissa, on This is Taste, we ask guests about their discerning tastes that are closest to interview here's a little rapid fire fast and furious taste check are you ready let's do it the best fruit mango the worst vegetable fava beans please please tell us is it because the shelling is so annoying me yeah it's like you gotta shell them then you gotta shell them again and then it's like you do all this work for this little tiny bean and i'm like Like, you know, yeah, like it's just I'm not a bean person.

26:09Maybe. Oh, really? Maybe that's what it is. You're not a bean person. Are you cooking with that? There's like literally no beans in this book. Really, really? I don't think so. That is a first time I've heard that from a chef. And this is amazing. I like eating beans, but I think I just didn't grow up with it. You know, it was something that kind of came into my diet later in life, like in my 20s. But I can live without beans. but specifically fava beans. The best dessert. The best dessert. I love a classic creme brulee. Yeah, something about it. I love classic desserts, whether it's a creme brulee or a souffle.