All Episodes

Arnaud Daguin prepares Basque Country produce, revealing a whole region’s way of life. Arnaud Daguin has set up his guesthouse “Hegia” in the Basque Country, in a superb 18th century bastide. One might think he would be happy just to welcome guests from all over the world, but he also throws himself heart and soul into promoting organic farming and sustainable agriculture. He works with a network of organic and traditional producers, and also supports the Garroa project, a municipal initiative organised around a 12th century chateau whose land is used for organic farming.

In the province of Zhejiang, in Hangzhou, Dai Jianjun is passionate about preserving the ancient dietary doctrines of Chinese food knowledge - an art form he is seeking to salvage. Dai’s project involves protecting endangered farming produce, by setting up restaurants that serve traditional cooking. It also involves the creation of a large experimental lakeside farm, set in the mountains of Suichang – Gong Geng Shu Yuan – Dai Jianjun’s earthly paradise and the rural sister-establishment of his famous restaurant in Hangzhou, Long Jing Manor.

Head of the restaurant at Manresa in Los Gatos, California, pioneer of earth-friendly haute cuisine David Kinch learnt cooking in France, Spain, Germany and Japan. His restaurant is located close to the electronic chips of Silicon Valley, but also to the girolles that line the forest paths of the Santa Cruz hills. Here, their wine is produced biodynamically among the oak forests, abalone are raised under the pontoons of Monterey in the purest marina waters in the world, and Gene Lester’s garden-orchard provides the fabulous citrus fruit.

Symphonic and inspired sustenance – a concentration of the island’s flavours. Luke Burgess’ endeavours to reconnect cooking with the soil. In the space of a few years, this young chef has managed to create, for his restaurant “Garagistes” in Hobart, a network of producers that provide him with exceptional ingredients, from the smooth-shelled oysters of Bruny Island to the Wagyu beef reared organically in the North West of the island, to the outstanding natural wines produced on a sandy seaside knoll - without forgetting authentic black truffles.

The charismatic Father Nzamujo demonstrates his work, and various aspects of Beninese agriculture and cooking. Father Godfrey Nzamujo has set up the Songhaï Centre in Porto-Novo, the capital of Benin. The centre plays several roles. It features a system of organic agriculture based on preserving biodiversity and recycling, it provides accommodation and houses a restaurant, serving products grown on-site, and food production is carried out there, with a sales outlet. But Songhaï is above all a quality assurance scheme - the first of its kind in Africa.

Located just a few kilometres from the French border, Kobe Desmaraults is a Flemish cook with flair and is already a culinary reference throughout Belgium. Kobe remains humble and focused as he goes about his work, in an old farm that was once surrounded by wolves (In de Wulf), which he has spruced up and turned into his restaurant. Streamlined, instinctive, in tune with the seasons and nature around him, and with the support of a cosmopolitan and inspired crew, he serves up sensitivity in various shades of monochrome, experimenting endlessly.

Born among the pots and pans of the La Grenouillère restaurant, Gauthier junior has taken over the family auberge. And has swept into action! His cooking reflects his offbeat, radical and rugged, yet wildly generous personality. He serves dishes such as lobster grilled over juniper bushes, to be eaten as finger-food, pigeon in green wheat, “land-sea” tofu, and “bubble” of herb-flavoured ice cream that breaks on the plate. Unconventional and eccentric, he defies all culinary classification, all currents. Gauthier the free agent has tremendous talent, out there in the sticks.

James Lowe discovered cooking in London’s Asian restaurants but also in the kitchens of the most captivating contemporary chefs: Heston Blumenthal of The Fat Duck and Fergus Henderson of the St John. As a young chef, James teamed up with other free spirits, to create a cooking collective The Young Turks, and a series of pop-up restaurants – in the spirit of the times. Their idea was to establish a collaborative, generous, helpful and adventurous cuisine. Having changed the world’s perception of English gastronomy by cooking with others, for others, and on other people’s premises, James Lowe finally opened a restaurant in his own image: free, relaxed, creative and cheerful.

Denmark is clearly spearheading a new style of cooking that is local and inventive and is having an influence on the rest of the world. In Aarhus, in the region north of Jutland, Thorsten Schmidt is one of the pioneers of this Nordic revolution. He is a creative and prolific chef, in tune with the incredible nature that surrounds him. Whether Thorsten finds himself in nature reserves, magical forests or his specially cultivated organic gardens overlooking the sparkling bay, he is as passionate as he is meticulous about creating extraordinary, ephemeral dishes.

When she met Walter, Ana Ros left the path she was treading towards a diplomatic career and took a headlong plunge into cooking. Refusing to see the auberge Hisa Franko created by Walter’s parents disappear, Ana offered to step into its kitchen. 10 years and 2 children later, this bubbly and tireless, self-taught cook has explored the flavours of the region of Kobarid, bringing back ideas from her various trips. Trout caught in the turquoise waters of the Soca River, cep mushroom ice-cream and Alpine cheese ravioli.

In a Poland freed from the shackles of communism, Modest Amaro promised himself he would revive a culinary tradition that had been sorely tested, sacrificed even. Passionate about his country, he decided to take Polish cuisine beyond the borders of Poland. Before throwing himself into the venture and opening his restaurant, he travelled to remote rural areas, to ask farmers, livestock breeders and, above all, his elders about Polish culinary heritage. On the menu: boletus mushrooms gathered by the chef half an hour outside the city, and a pear dessert inspired by a unlikely supplier called Zbig, all washed down with grand cru vodkas, a first in Europe.

Istanbulite gastronomy giant Mehmet Gurs embodies a new type of melting pot: a blend of north and south, but also ancient and modern. With a Scandinavian mother and a Turkish father, and having been born and brought up in Sweden, Mehmet’s cooking originally had a strong Nordic influence. Then, after exploring all four corners of Anatolia and its wealth of forgotten riches, he started promoting a “new Anatolian cuisine”, based on produce and techniques descended from ancestral traditions, which he approaches and prepares in a new way.

31 year-old chef Daniel Berlin teamed up with his parents to open up the restaurant of his dreams in Scania, known as “the Tuscany of Sweden”, in the south of the country. Daniel’s mother Irene grows vegetables in the garden for use in his cooking. His father Per Anders is a keen handyman but still finds the time to select the wines. The risky business of a son / parents partnership has worked out for the best, and the experience is totally singular one. Venison hunted by the chef himself, celery dug up by Irene, traditional black broth made from pig’s blood - Daniel Berlin’s world succeeds in combining excellence with irresistible human warmth.

At the age of 35, this handsome Italian is nicknamed: “The King of Herbs”, on account of his vast knowledge of aromatic herbs. When he strolls through the countryside, he lets his olfactive memory be his guide, and often takes inspiration from it to create his dishes. He also likes to converse with his elders and draws on their knowledge too. At the Povero Diavolo auberge, located on shady rolling hillside, he has replanted numerous varieties of herbs, which he gleaned all over the place, and so always has some form of green garnish to grace his dishes.

Oriol Rovira is a tornado! A forty-something man with a strong personality, both energetic and extremely kind, who identifies first and foremost as a member of the Rovira family... ... because the Roviras are an exceptional and very close-knit family – four inseparable brothers and friends who work the family farm together and eat breakfast with their mother every morning. The products that Oriol uses at his restaurant, Els Casals, are the pigs, fowl and the vegetables that his brothers raise and grow less than a kilometer away. They call it the closed circle. The chef claims to get inspiration from the window of the kitchen where he creates his dishes while gazing onto the land where he was born and has chosen to remain. His native land, Catalonia, is the source of all things – of his desires, his ideas and his joys. Here, we are far from the molecular cuisine still captivating Spain. Oriol Rivero’s cooking could be considered traditional. It is, in fact, a philosophy he has pushed to the extreme through natural experimentation, long before it became trendy.

Virgilio is the new star of Peruvian cuisine. His restaurant, “Central”, is located in the heart of Lima. This distinguished chef, in his thirties, draws on the history of his country’s ecosystems in all their incredible diversity. Members of Mater Initiativa, an interdisciplinary research group founded by Virgilio and his sister, travel the country from the Pacific coast to the Andean peaks, discovering little-known produce that Virgilio can include on his menu. He lets us sample his favourite mountain salt, a native sweet potato, ceviche made by local fishermen and a whole host of other surprising and amazing flavours. For the loquacious, generous, insatiably curious Virgilio, cooking is a perpetual exploration.

It’s not easy to be a “woman chef” in Mexico, and yet Pilar Cabrera runs “La Olla”, a restaurant that has earned itself a fine reputation well beyond its borders. After spending a while in exile in Mexico, Pilar decided to return to her birth town of Oaxaca, to concoct highly colourful dishes. Some of the ingredients she uses were already grown 7,000 years ago by the Zapotecs.

Rob Kineen lives in one of the most hostile regions in the world - Alaska, a US State that imports over 85% of its food. Rob, a keen activist, is convinced he can move things forward. He has just opened a restaurant in which no produce used comes from outside the State. He forges ties with local producers, encouraging them and embracing the culinary traditions of his ancestors, the Tinglit Indians. A real revolution!

Reputed Brooklyn chef Eric Werner settled in Tulum, in the Yucatan Peninsula, six years ago. Werner, who is fascinated by Mayan culture, opened Hartwood, an open-air restaurant in perfect harmony with its environment and the local community. There is no electricity at Hartwood. All produce is local, and is skilfully prepared in a wood-burning oven with which Eric Werner has a special, almost intimate relationship.

We meet Thiago Castanho in an equatorial city at the mouth of the Amazon. At his “Remanso do Bosque” restaurant in Bélem, the young chef, who was trained by his father and is helped by his brother, embodies vibrant and authentic Brazilian gastronomy. Thiago is passionate about his local region, and works closely with the surrounding communities of fishermen, farmers and craftspeople. We meet oyster farmers in the middle of a mangrove, discover a cassava farm in the jungle, and visit an incredible market. We taste sand crab, tacaca soup, an “electric plant”, and other regional specialities. Preferring to explore the origins of cooking rather than overly modern techniques, Thiago invites us into a world that is teaming with traditional recipes, brilliantly revisited with lashings of love.

Enfant terrible of the Quebecois gastronomic scene, Charles-Antoine Crête plays irreverently with trends. He is on a mission to make good food for those who are inquisitive enough to come and taste his quirky cuisine, in a venue he and his loved ones created that is a veritable extension of the world of his childhood.

In the U.S., Alice Waters is a superstar. Founded in 1971 in Berkeley, California, her restaurant Chez Panisse has become a legend. It is a meeting place, a place of “pilgrimage”, and the epicentre of the good food freedom movement in the kingdom of junk food. A mentor of many young chefs, and the author of ten best sellers, Alice Waters, who has been awarded by President Obama, is also Vice President of the Slow Food International organisation, which defends “good, clean and fair food”. Right from the start, Waters has always fought for local, healthy, in-season produce; good, simple dishes; small-scale, organic farming; and “taste education”. She takes us to visit her farmers’ market, as well as her own garden. She also takes us to meet her favourite producer, the guru of “wild” crops in Sonoma, and introduces us to her “Edible Schoolyard”, a vast vegetable patch and kitchen for children.

Rodolfo Guzman, a new star of international cuisine, wants to use his dishes to spread awareness of the deepest essence of Chile – a country with 4,500 kilometres of coastline and vast resources. Determined to showcase the heritage of the Mapuche Indians, which up until now has been neglected in favour of a “Europeanised” cuisine, he roams every nook and cranny of the country in order to supply carefully prepared domestic produce, which he literally saves from oblivion.

A small and discreet country lodged between Argentina and Brazil, Uruguay does not yet feature on the world gastronomic map. But in Montevideo, one restaurant in particular is attracting a great deal of attention – Jacinto. There, a young woman chef is causing a stir with her budding cuisine, shot though with local influences. Lucia Soria, who is originally from Cordoba, chose Uruguay out of her passion for the country. In true pioneering style, she poured all her energy into supporting the first organic farmers, small-scale fishermen, and producers of sea salt and olive oil. Her restaurant, which even makes its own bread, moves to the rhythm of the seasons and her own inspiration. In summer, fans follow Lucia to Lucifer, her second restaurant, located in the middle of the Pampa, in the incredible and ghostlike town of Garzon, where she lays on open-air feasts that glorify local flavours and traditions.

In the last decade, Colombia has entered a new era. For a long time stifled by conflict, the country is finally picking itself up, and gradually reconnecting with its roots and traditions. Leonor Espinoza and her restaurant Leo Cocina y Cava is part of this impetus. The brilliant, tenacious woman chef, who is originally from Cartagena, has decided to reintroduce her country’s gastronomic riches to Columbians and their visitors. Leo travels around Colombia, from the Caribbean coast to the plateaux of the Andes, exploring, cooking and circulating produce from one region to another. She presents us with incredible fruits picked in the heart of the jungle, and ancestral recipes and techniques shared with the local communities, as well as creative dishes combining all the flavours and colours of this vibrant country.