784: A 4.2 Out of 10 Won’t Cut It: Meet Rate My Chives

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1:04I had one the other day from a kid, and I mean kid, like I'm not going to say his age or his handle, but he was a kid, working in a kitchen somewhere in Europe, and he sent me his chives, and they weren't very good. That's all. But he was like, oh, I really want you to rate me. I was like, dude, I can't. Like, you're going to get fucking destroyed. This is Taste. I'm your host, Matt Rodbard. The anonymous British chef behind Rate My Chives has spent years judging the knife skills of home cooks and professional chefs alike, and has amassed over 100 ,000 followers doing it, including some of the biggest names in the business.

1:45In his first-ever podcast interview, we finally get the man on the record. We talk about how a forgotten Instagram handle became a cult institution, what a properly cut chive actually looks like, what it reveals about a chef's character, and why he's still not telling us who he is. And at the top of the show, it's the return of three things, where Eliza and I talk about what is exciting us in the world of restaurants, cookbooks, and the food world as a whole.

2:16Hey Clayton, what's up, man? How you doing, Matt? Well, you're not Eliza. I'm not. Eliza is not here. You're sitting in for three things. I kind of wanted to wrap with you. Listen, we just dropped that Whole Foods episode. Yes. Fun, right? Doing those trips is always great. I mean, you're a great travel partner. I mean, we really can get it done and have fun at the same time, which is great. Yeah, you too, buddy. Yeah. Yeah, it was great. So that's in the feed. I'll probably talk about that a little bit more. We just really loved going to the Basque region of Spain with Whole Foods and Ortiz. It's beautiful.

2:50Beautiful spa. And just like telling the story about what Whole Foods buyers do. I just really, really loved it. And we have another episode from that trip that we're working on now. We're going to release it late in June. And it was a fun group too. It's like when you go on those trips, I know you've been on more of them than I have. Yeah. You never know. It was like, what a fun group. It really, it did feel like camp in a way. I mean, it really did have a little summer camp vibe. We were traveling too. I once went on a press trip, like, maybe a decade ago when I was drinking alcohol, like, with a bunch of wine writers in Portugal.

3:24Truly the worst. It was, like, the worst thing. And I love my wine writer friends, and there's some good ones. But, man, when you get, like, the worst ones together, we were, like, in a region that is a very specific wine. I'm not going to even say it. That has, like, not a lot of, like, dexterity. It's, like, pretty, like, specific and narrow. and the questions these dudes were just to hear their voices. Anyways, we don't need to get into press trip, Mecca Nations, that's for another day. But you know what? I'm going to share some three things and you might have one yourself. You might have something to add to it.

3:55Yeah. Want to do that? Yeah, of course. What's your first thing? My first thing is I went to Saga, which is a restaurant that has been on my radar for a long time and I finally made it. The chef is Charlie Mitchell. I will be having Charlie in the studio, hopefully soon and hear all about his story. You know, Charlie Mitchell was the chef at Clover Hill in Brooklyn and won the James Beard Award three years ago. So like the highest award for a New York state chef. And this is just a ridiculous place. It's at 70 Pine, so down in the Financial District. It's on the 63rd floor. Okay, so how'd you get up there?

4:30Right, it's like a high-speed elevator. You check in in the lobby and you're up. The views are stunning. There are better views than the Empire State Building in some ways. Wow. because you can really see Brooklyn and see up the island. And, like, for real, like, having that kind of backdrop as a chef, I think, is hard because you've got people who are just, like, kind of there to, like, see the view and be up in the space, and it's a really cool Art Deco building. So the food sometimes takes a back seat, but sometimes it's taking the front seat, and there's maybe a little distraction. So you have to be really focused with your food, and he does a great job.

5:05I was really impressed with this meal. uh backing up a little bit um this is the restaurant group founded by the late james kent uh terrific chef who passed a couple years ago and and charlie mitchell kind of stepped in and rebooted saga in james's honor and and really he's he's following through with some very very cool ideas here i got to talk to charlie a little bit uh during the meal and uh the the the six courses prefix that we had there's a there's a more extended um tasting menu as well but the the six courses that we had really showed Japan in the coolest way. And not just Japan, but Charlie Mitchell's Japan for a chef who has never been to Japan.

5:49And, you know, in lesser hands, this could be a total catastrophe. But I think what he's doing here with just using this technique, mostly, it's not like reading, like there isn't a lot of like nori on the menu, and you're not getting like ramen or soba but he's using technique and he's thinking about like the spring ingredients of like lamb stinging nettles and ramps coming together you know there was a scallop and morels and white asparagus course as well that was terrific and I just I love the way that he's thinking about Japanese beverage service as well there's some terrific sakes available so like it's like japan with an asterisk it's like charlie mitchell's japan and again mostly technique and i um i loved this restaurant i i didn't know what to expect i know it's got a couple michelin stars and it's well regarded in that community it's on the new york times top 50 so it's gotten a lot of acclaim but uh you know it's one of those restaurants that you know you think about a tasting menu and like do i really want to have a tasting menu or a long meal and the answer is is yes at saga uh i felt like the six courses were a breeze i felt really good at the end of it they were very mindful of just this exhaustion of the tasting menu and the prefix menu um highly wreck saga great i mean that is the thing with those tasting menus is that it's a time commitment dude and so you have to make sure that it's something that you're going to enjoy yeah i mean it's totally agree and like you're it's money and time two things are very valuable in the city.

7:24Yeah. And yeah, the time commitment. Also just when you start leaning into too many animal products like butter, like proteins, it can be like way more calories and way more food than you want. And did not feel that. It was the exact opposite. Nice. What's your next one? My next one is a micro roaster from Vancouver, Washington, which is a great city outside of Portland. Cafique's Roasters. They sent me some great coffees and I'm just like blown away. they were Roast Magazine's 2026 Micro Roaster of the Year. So huge, huge acclaim. And I just thought that this was a brand I wanted to talk about.

8:02It's from Matthew and Sadie Salivano, a couple who have been in the coffee business for a while. You know, Matthew is a Q grader and Sadie plays seventh in the 2025 United States Barista Championship. So really kind of a power couple in the world of specialty coffee. I had a great Colombian coffee that was washed. And really, I just wanted to highlight this brand to check it out because they're not that big. I'm looking to the show notes. I get asked a lot about, you know, where should I be buying coffee. I have my list, but I like to bring new lists to the game. And Cafix is definitely on there.

8:36I'd like to give a shout out while we're talking about coffee. Let's go, man. Let's do it. I live in Astoria, and there's a lot of coffee shops. And I'm lucky in that way because most of them are all really, really good. Definitely. And, you know, I've talked before when I've had a chance to talk about Little Flower. Little Flower is my favorite, but it's a bit of a schlep for me. So the place that I go to now, which has been open for, I think, about only a year and some change, is Olive Coffee, which is right by the subway there on 30th. and I'll get coffee there before I come to work because it's very hard to find iced coffee in the city now.

9:20Really? It's all cold brew. Unless you go to - Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah, of course. Unless you go to like a deli, which there's nothing against going to a deli or a place like that, but I like to go to a nice coffee shop and get a nice coffee. And there's a few places that do it there, but most of the places I go and most of the places I go around here, where our office is, they have cold brew and it's too much caffeine that's my thing is like i have nothing against cold brew as a thing i think it could taste really good if it's done well i can't do the nitro i can't do the regular i like to just have an iced coffee and olive has a nice iced coffee that is enough caffeine to get me going but not gonna make me a crazy person i like that we're talking about concentration because i think cold brew comes in many ways and it really is up to the barista about the ratios of this blue concentrate and how it's being batched and served essentially.

10:14And yes, the cold brew effect can be a little bit, I don't know, mind spinning. Yep, and that's what happens to me. There's also Mighty Oak, which has been around for a while that's in Astoria, and that's great. They have an ice drip that's really good. So they have the option. You can get the ice drip and get the cold brew. Same thing with Olive. But Olive's a new sort of tucked away coffee shop, and the staff is really nice. It's a few. It's just only a few people. I go in there, and they always are really nice. It's a very chill atmosphere. They have a bring a book, take a book inside. Oh, I love those guys.

10:53I love that. And then they have a gratefulness journal that they have there. Nice. And, you know, we were raised in the age of irony. Yeah, exactly. Right? And then being cynical. Irony. Right. And so I try, but I've tried really hard to not be cynical and let irony and cynicism control me. So at first I was like, Grateful Journal, what is it? And then every time I go in there, I look through it and I'm touched by it. Because people are being so honest about their, and it's anonymous. So you can just be as anonymous as you want and say something really, truly intimate and get it out in the universe.

11:28And I was like, you know what? I might get a Grateful Journal. Have you written in the Grateful Dead? You know, I have. So your cynicism is still a little higher. I know. I really wish, you know, there's been moments where I've been like, I should write in this journal. Yeah. Because I'm just peeping at it. Should we have an anonymous Grateful Dead journal in the studio? For guests? Yeah, like, you know, just like leave it where we have a little seating area. Maybe they can like. What do you think? You're laughing. It's not. I'm not being. But it's not a bad idea. I'm being real, man. I'm not.

12:04They sell them at Olive, so maybe I buy one and we put it out and we see who writes something. Yeah, yeah. I think it's the thing is we'd have to turn our backs. That's why I don't write in the Grateful Journal because the baristas are right there. And I have – it's so stupid because they're not going to judge me for it. They have it there. It's part of the culture. But I'm like, oh, they can just like look at it and laugh. No, they would think it's very sweet. Yeah. Okay. Anyway, so what's your last one? My last thing is a book. So I'm hoping by the time I'm done with this, you'll have your book rec as well because you're such a great reader and you have great taste.

12:41I read Eddie Wong's novel, Come Undone. You know, Eddie, a longtime friend. I've written about his restaurants, hung out with him. You know, he's just a really interesting guy in many ways. I think we know Eddie Wong as the creator of Bauhaus, as a director and filmmaker. He also has written two memoirs. First one was Fresh Out the Boat, which inspired a network sitcom. And Eddie's sub stack is absolutely on fire. I love it. It's such a great read. I recommend paying for it. It's just great, great work. But he wrote this novel, which I think by the time this comes out, maybe there's been more press about the book.

13:26But it's a very, very, very closely resembling Eddie Wong character about a period of time that you would possibly think is maybe Eddie's life. Now, he's going to come in. We're booking another interview he was in a few months ago. And we had a great conversation about building Bauhaus. But we'll talk about the novel. First off, it's really well written and really compelling. There's no skips in terms of chapters. And I just love the way Eddie's turn of phrase. He's writing about a character named Hubie who works on a travel TV show that is sneaker-oriented but also very food-oriented. It talks about a lot of personal relationships in his life with his family, with partners and lovers.

14:12and the character lives an exciting life. Also a little bit of a sad life. And I think the resolution of this book is really interesting and maybe reveals Eddie's current life a little bit more. But again, like auto-fiction is hard to talk about because sometimes we don't know the levels of auto-fiction and he is doing a really, really good thing with this book, meaning it's highly entertaining and captures the voice of L.A. creator class in a very unique way. And this is like the modern creative class. This is the sixth place post-pandemic. Assuming, I assume this. So I think Come Undone is a book that I think any Eddie Wong fan should definitely buy and pick up and read.

15:00And it's out in mid-June. So that's my last thing, Clayton. Great. What do you think? Like, what about you, like in terms of what you're reading on the spot? Anything that comes to mind that you're really excited about? I just finished a great book that is, of course, if anybody has listened to our segments where we do our top tens or top fives for the year. We do that in December every year. They're our favorite books of the year. And this may show up there. And obviously it was published in 1963. You're always the mid-century, my man. So this is Cassandra at the Wedding by Dorothy Baker. It's a New York Review of Books release, which if anybody knows about those, I'm sure a lot of our listeners know about those.

15:46They re-release books that have been out of print. This one was really good. I ripped through it. It's about a woman who is going back to her family's house for her twin sister's wedding and all of the sort of feelings that that brings up. it feels a lot like a book you you could read at the beach or by a swimming pool because there is swimming pools involved and it it does take place during the summer and i just thought the writing was so sharp and so crisp and it's it feels very of the moment if somebody wrote this book now nobody would bat an eye and uh i recommend it highly i just think it's a really really good book i'm not giving away too much of it because it's not very plot heavy but i do think that it, you know, it would hit close to home for a lot of people with dealing with your family, dealing with siblings, dealing with somebody close to you who's getting married.

16:45It can be a big, a big deal. I feel like a wedding is a great opportunity to create a universe with a ticking clock. Yeah. I think that's always the great device there with a wedding. There's always going to be a moment of resolution. Clayton, thank you for sharing your thoughts on my three things. I would say you did like 2.5 things. I did. I almost reached three, maybe someday. Thanks, buddy. Appreciate it. Thank you.

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19:24And now available in Canada too. That's quince.com slash taste for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash taste. Rate my chives. Welcome to This Is Taste. How are you doing? I'm good, thank you. Nice to be here. Thank you for having me. Well, this is a special interview because rarely – I've done it probably once or twice. Rarely do we get the opportunity to interview somebody and chat with somebody who is anonymous. Yeah, that must be kind of weird, eh? No, it is not weird. This is journalism in a sense. Sometimes we have anonymous sources and now we have an anonymous source on vocal record.

20:09I love what you do first and foremost. Thank you. So thank you for joining us. thank you for saying that so I'm going to summarize Rate My Chives in my words and then I think and I have a bunch of questions but Rate My Chives is a phenomenal phenomenal Instagram social account you might be on TikTok you can tell me but I know you're from Instagram and essentially you're anonymous you're a chef I assume you work in the food industry you want to remain anonymous and we will certainly respect that um you're from the country of england i believe um you can fill that in but but really rate my chives is simple you rate people's chives but not just the growing of chives but the chopping of chives uh is that is that fair yeah i mean that's pretty much it the name sums it up so first off let me ask you um you are is this jamie oliver no no no jamie's got a southern accent okay okay definitely it's not it's not jamie it's not golden okay yeah i didn't get gordon from you but i was like is this is this jamie i'm on the phone no definitely not um so um i'm just going to treat this like a normal interview because i just kind of like i want to treat you with respect and and and it's amazing but i have to ask you rate my chives where have you been dining out in in your in your city and if you want to reveal where you live or the region that would be cool too.

21:36So these days, most of the time when we dine out, it's just, it's more casual food, it's Thai food, it's Nepalese food, it's things like that, which we're blessed in the area that I'm in to have quite a few like really decent, independent, family-run restaurants. Yeah. Well, let me ask you about the Reap My Chives kind of ethic. So I think it's obvious that the page, the Instagram page, the account is not just about chives, really. The account is specifically about chives, but chives in itself can mean so much more. Like if you can take some really nicely chopped chives that a restaurant does, and you can tell that the people cooking the food, they probably put a lot of effort into what they're doing.

22:27like and that can follow through to like how they make the sauces how they cook the protein how they cook the vegetables everything in the kitchen whereas if you see some shit chives coming out on your plate of food you probably know that it's not the pinnacle of cooking or even close to well it seems from my research that this epiphany that you need to create this account came from a restaurant meal that you were having with a friend tell me about the origins of rate my chives so yeah that's that's pretty much exactly how it happened so we were out for dinner starter came out i've forgotten what the what the actual starter was but it had really badly chopped chives on it and i said straight away this is going to be shit it's going to be a bang average meal at best and they asked why and i was like the chives are bad and then i tried to explain it to them they're not in the cooking industry.

23:20So it tried to take a little bit of explaining. So I thought I'd just refer to Instagram for visual pictures. So I just typed into Instagram, rate my chives, because people love to rate things. And like, there's been rate my things on the internet since the internet began, basically. So I felt relatively confident that there'd be a rate my chives. There wasn't. So I just instantly just registered it and then carried on with my evening. So you did it on the spot. So you did it on the spot. Yeah, pretty much. That's so cool. Yeah, yeah. So how do you start to actually get it out there that you, arbiter of chives, of knife cuts and chives, are the one, and you want people to start submitting their chives?

24:05So like anything, like it's a slow burn, isn't it? Like it's a really slow grow. And like, I'll be honest with you, like, and I've said it before, I never expected this account to be as big as what it is now. Like, it's humbling, it's weird that most respectable kitchens in the world have probably heard of this account. Like, we got invited to go to Noma in LA. Whoa! Literally on the back of this account, like, Pablo, the head chef there, nicest guy literally the nicest guy he submitted some chives to me a couple of years ago and i get a lot of submissions but he had a blue tick i didn't know i didn't know who he was at the time but he had a blue tick and i just dm'd him back and said oh where do you work um and then i clicked on his profile and saw noma i was like fuck so just just sent him a little like jokey message just saying like, oh, Noma, heard it's all right there.

25:10So I ended up rating his chives. And then obviously when everything kicked off earlier this year, I was speaking to a mutual friend, not Rene, not Pablo, but I won't say who, someone who was and is quite big in Noma. And he vouched for Pablo and said, Pablo, sounds. So I DMed Pablo and said, dude, how's everything going? and we had a little chat and then he just casually said like, if you're ever in LA, let me know and we'll sort out a table for you. Obviously, we're on the other side of the world. So I mentioned it to my partner. She just booked plane tickets and we flew there for dinner. Wait, you did it?

25:51You actually went? Yeah. But it's just, it's so weird. Yeah, we actually went. It was phenomenal. It was so great. Such a cool experience. Oh, that's so cool. Like, so cool. um but it's just humbling like to be sat in like the restaurant of what's been repeatedly the best restaurant in the world and to know and Pablo was telling me like all the chefs like every time they chop chives they reference your accounts and I'm just like man this is so weird like you guys are like idols like you what you guys have done over the course of the years has been like groundbreaking in food. So to think that they reference the account is just mad.

26:34I mean, let me ask you, Ray, my chives. Are you known in the industry as somebody, like a figure, and that this account is kind of in the background and obviously many people... No, no, no. No, I'm not anything like a household name or anything like that. I've got 20 years of really good cooking experience, some Michelin star, some multi-Michelin star, but I'm not a household name. Have you been mentioned on Vittles? I don't know what that is. Okay. Well, that says a lot. What's that? Vittles is a terrific UK-based food publication on Substack and kind of like the big dog in food media in the UK.

27:15Vittles with a V. V-I-T-T-L-E-S, yeah. But all good, man. All good. Okay, I'll look it up. I appreciate that. This is good. Like back to the rating of chives. now the the website and the the account grew i mean you're over a hundred thousand and maybe when we drop you'll be mental you'll be many more and like was there a moment when it when it started to really just like pick up and you were starting to get so many submissions and so many chives were entering your dms i mean now is that moment like it's been it's been on the rise like i remember when it first started like i posted a picture and a few people saw it liked it had a few followers and watching it grow from like 10 so i think i gained like i think 10 followers in a night or in a 24-hour period and i was like holy shit i've got 10 followers like this is really good and then it hit 50 then it hit 100 and then it hit 1000 um and i think ever since it hit let's say like 20-ish thousand, there was some momentum to the account.

28:24It started to gain credibility.

28:29So, yeah. Like, I get quite a few submissions each day. Well, yeah, let's talk about that. I mean, it's over 100K and it may be growing more. And honestly, these things, it's crazy. Like, they can become many. I mean, it's a TV show. Like, let's just call it what it is. I mean, rate my chives. Like, let's do TV. Now, when you're getting these submissions each day, and to be clear, when we were setting up the interview, you clearly work. So you have hours. I mean, you have a job. Oh, yeah, yeah. You're working in a kitchen, I imagine? You'd imagine. Okay, great. So when you're off your shift from the job, you open up your account.

29:08How do you get through the submissions? How many submissions are you getting a day? I mean, it varies day to day. some can be 20 some can be 30 some can be 50 some can be well over 100 like it honestly varies day to day like certain days seem to be more popular than other days um certain times of the month seem to be more popular you just kind of filter through it and yeah work out who's who's worth rating and who's not so then you you make that determination about who's worth it and what are you looking for when you're rating when you let's just before you get to the numbers we'll talk about what the numbers mean but like when you're just looking to profile something what are you looking for uh so it depends on the submission like some like some submissions are good clearly very good so that's obviously going to be a high rating some are clearly very bad some are clearly very bad intentionally which i believe is called rage baiting um and then some are from i had one the other day from a kid and i mean kid like i i'm not going to say his age or his handle but he was a kid working in a kitchen somewhere in europe i think austria switzerland or germany from his last name and he sent me his chives and they weren't very good at all but he was like oh i really want you to rate me i was like dude i can't like you're gonna get fucking destroyed like if I put these on the internet you're going to get bullied it's not cool, you're a kid, can't do it like I draw the line somewhere yeah no, you gave him some honest feedback and I mean you're like my guy like sharpen the knives this episode is brought to you by Wayfair I spend a lot of time in restaurants thinking about how the spaces work and sometimes don't work one of my favorite dining rooms in New York City is Michael's in Midtown It's so inviting.