Kristen Kish + Gail Simmons

If you’ve paid attention to the food world or turned on a television over the last dozen years, you likely know Kristen Kish and Gail Simmons. Simmons, a permanent judge on Bravo’s Emmy-winning series Top Chef since its debut in 2006, also starred on Iron Chef Canada and the daily talk show The Good Dish, and published a memoir, Talking With My Mouth Full: My Life as a Professional Eater. Kish has been a TV fixture since winning Top Chef season 10 in 2012. In the interim, the chef opened her own acclaimed restaurant in Austin, Texas, Arlo Grey; hosted Netflix’s reboot of Iron Chef (alongside Further’s Nilou Motamed); and authored a memoir of her own, Accidentally On Purpose, due out in April 2025.

This year the longtime friends became costars when Kish replaced Padma Lakshmi as host for Top Chef’s 21st season, which earned the show its 17th consecutive Emmy nomination — and Kish a nomination for Outstanding Host.

Food bona fides aside, the two are also inveterate travelers, as hungry for adventure as they are for new flavors. Kish’s wildly entertaining Nat Geo TV series Restaurants at the End of the World took her to Brazil, Panama, and the Arctic Circle to profile chefs working in improbable locales. Simmons’s globe-trotting cookbook, Bringing It Home, collects recipes inspired by journeys abroad, from South Africa to Mexico. (You’ll find more recipes and loads of travel tips on her newly launched Substack.)

Before relocating to Simmons’s native Canada to shoot the next season of Top Chef, the pair met up with Further at F&F Pizza in Brooklyn, N.Y., for a wide-ranging conversation fueled by Sicilian slices and an alarming amount of gummy candy. (Kish’s faves: Nerds Gummy Clusters, Sunkist Fruit Gems, and Albanese Gummi Bears.) The two then turned the tables and interviewed each other with a round of Further Questions. Pancakes or breakfast tacos? Ocean or lake swimming? Saturday night or Sunday morning? See if you guessed their answers in the video below — and watch on for a handy canoeing lesson from the resident Canadian.
—P.J.L.

PJL: Do you remember the first professional chef you were aware of as kids?

KK: Other than, like, Chef Boyardee?

GS: He was good!

KK: For me it was Morimoto, because I devoured the original Iron Chef. And Emeril from his Food Network show. It’s funny — as much as I’m “in” this industry, I don’t live and breathe it like other people do. I wasn’t the kid to research the big-name chefs or know what the big-deal restaurants were.

GS: Also, when we were young “celebrity chefs” weren’t a thing yet. But when I was a teenager there was a young chef everyone in Toronto talked about: Susur Lee. His first restaurant, Lotus, was this tiny hole-in-the-wall, but he was making this extraordinary, elevated, Chinese-inflected food. I went with my parents and remember being like, “Whoa.” Years later he was on Top Chef: Masters with me, and I was still kind of starstruck.

PJL: Kristen, you were born in Korea and adopted by parents in Michigan, who made a point of introducing you to your Korean heritage when you were a young girl — you read Shirley Climo’s The Korean Cinderella and played with danbi dolls; the family would try kimchi…. What was your first proper experience of Korean cuisine?

KK: The “Korean” restaurants I had access to in suburban Michigan weren’t specifically Korean. They were Asian fusion — sushi and spring rolls, with kimchi mixed in. So f*ck if I knew what Korean cuisine was! It wasn’t until I started working in Boston that I ate at a proper Korean restaurant. I knew I was going to love it, and I did…but then again, I also love to eat. So is it in my blood or do I just appreciate delicious food?

PJL: Last year you finally realized your dream of visiting South Korea, where you hadn’t been since you were four months old. How did it feel to return to a birthplace you don’t remember? Did it feel like a homecoming?

KK: It’s complicated — sort of like my mixed feelings about wanting to find my birth parents. Part of me always thought I was supposed to want that. Even though I never entirely felt that way, I sort of convinced myself that I did. A similar thing happened with this trip to Korea. Everyone was gearing me up — like, “Oh, when you fly over to the motherland, you’re gonna feel it.” And so I flew over.

PJL: And…?

KK: I think I was trying so hard to feel something profound that I don’t know how much I actually felt, versus what I just made up in my head.

GS: Like when you think you have a memory of when a photo was taken, or maybe you’ve just looked at the picture so many times…

KK: That you’ve created the memory and the feeling. Exactly. But there was something there. And it was an amazing trip. We had only five days, and we were mostly in Seoul, eating everything we could. There wasn’t a lot of opportunity for reflection. But it absolutely made me want to go back.

“At that point I just collapse onto the street and start bawling. It’s our last night in Hanoi, and we’re not going to have this dish we’ve been dreaming about for months”

PJL: Gail, you travel half the year for work. Tell us about a trip that went outrageously wrong.

GS: Oh God — my honeymoon. Just one part of it, but it did go hilariously, terribly wrong. My husband somehow agreed to stay married after. We went to Vietnam. The number-one restaurant on our list was called Chả Cá Lã Vọng, which was famous for its chả cá, fish fried with turmeric and dill and peanuts and shrimp paste. Everybody said, You have to try this dish. No reservations, you’ve gotta line up. Our first night we show up on this tiny alley in the Old Quarter, and as we arrive they pull the grate down in our faces. “Sold out!”

The next day we come back for lunch. Closed again — no explanation. Our final night we try a third time. We leave this silly marionette show a friend had suggested and run breakneck through the streets to Lã Vọng before it closes — and once again, they’ve just locked the doors.

At that point I just collapse onto the street, roosters and scooters whizzing by, and start bawling. It’s our first trip to Asia, our last night in Hanoi, and we’re hungry and we’re not going to have this dish we’ve been dreaming about for months. I’ve never cried as hard and ugly as I did that night.

KK: Blame jet lag!

GS: [laughs] I’d like to say it was the jet lag. I sobbed for eight hours. My poor husband didn’t know what to do. He scraped me off of the street, and we wound up at some terrible buffet because everything else was closed. It was not sexy-time-honeymoon that night.

PJL: Well, on the plus side, Lã Vọng is overrated. For chả cá you wanna go to Thăng Long.

GS: See? All for a reason! Just to be clear, the next two weeks were incredible. We adored Vietnam and had an amazing time.

KK: Just no chả cá.

GS: But I did learn to make it when I got home! I have a recipe in my cookbook. Now I cook it all the time.

PJL: As people who travel for food, do you only eat the cuisine of the place you’re visiting? If you’re in France or India or Mexico — are you sticking to French or Indian or Mexican food?

KK: Ooh, this is such a good question. I can see why that would be a rule for people. But I’m also a person who needs variety in my food. When I have a craving, I need to satisfy that craving. My happiness is the priority. If I want French fries in Brazil, I’m not going to feel bad ordering French fries.

GS: French fries are never a bad idea.

KK: But when I’m in Australia, I’ll make a point of eating Asian food, because Asian food in Australia is incredible, everywhere you go. It really depends how long you’re in a place. Could I eat only Italian food for three months? I hate to say it, but I think I’d get bored.

GS: We’re also spoiled for choice in America. You can try any cuisine any night of the week here. You rarely have the same style of cooking even two meals in a row.

My family spends two weeks in Jamaica each winter, and I never think of eating anything but Jamaican food, because it’s what I crave the rest of the year — the flavors are so evocative and so hard to find at home. I’m drooling thinking about it now! Eating that food makes being there even better. Curry goat, fish escovitch, braised oxtail, ackee and saltfish…oh my goodness. And callaloo — everything with callaloo.

PJL: For me the exception to the “only eat local cuisine” rule might be Japan.

KK: Japan does everything better.

GS: Even foods that aren’t Japanese. The pizza alone! I’d be happy eating nothing but tempura on a trip to Japan, but I’m also happy to diverge from my Japanese food obsession, because of their obsessiveness when it comes to other cuisines. I’ve had better pasta in Tokyo than I typically find in Rome.

PJL: Kristen, besides the places you’ve worked, is there one restaurant you’ve spent more nights in than any other?

KK: During culinary school in Chicago I worked nights as a hostess, and there was a place around the corner called Bijans Bistro — it wasn’t on any best-of lists or anything, but it was open late, and my dollar would stretch, and the bartenders would give us free shots and extra plates. I’d always order the portobello mushroom burger with fries. That’s why I can no longer eat portobello mushrooms, because I just overdid it, and now they sort of gross me out. Maybe I shouldn’t admit that I was getting free drinks at 19! By the way, I do love going to nice restaurants, and now I try as many great places as I can. But when you’re young you go to the ones you love and can afford. What about you, Gail? 

GS: I think we’re sitting in it right now — F&F Pizza and Frankies 457 Spuntino, these two adjoining restaurants in our neighborhood owned by our friends Frank Falcinelli and Frank Castronovo. My daughter is crazy for Frankies’ Caesar salad, and we all love the cavatelli and F&F’s pizza. During the pandemic, we’d come for a nice cozy meal under the heat lamps in their outdoor shed — we were here every Sunday, in rain, sleet, or snow. That’s when it really became ours.

PJL: I remember a night here with you guys on a subzero night in February during Covid, all of us in our parkas, eating eggplant parm with fingerless gloves.

GS: It’s odd to feel nostalgia for those times, but we were all so hungry for good food and good conversation after days locked up at home.

PJL: Gail, for 18 years you’ve spent months at a time living in hotels while shooting Top Chef, which I imagine isn’t as glamorous as people think. That said, is there a hotel that you’d gladly move into?

GS: Probably the Hotel Saint Cecilia in Austin. It’s such a lovely, jasmine-filled, secret oasis, just a block off the main drag of South Congress — yet somehow you don’t feel you’re in the city at all. From the drinks to the music to the design to the gardens, they just do everything perfectly.

PJL: What’s the lock screen image on your phone right now?

KK: A shot I took of my wife when we were at the Standard Maldives, staying in one of those over-water villas. I was lying in bed, the sliding doors were open just a bit, and I took a picture through the opening of Bianca in her bathing suit. It’s a little blurry and more of a silhouette, and I turned it black-and-white. It’s been my screensaver forever. 

GS: My lock screen is a picture of me and Jeremy and the kids, the whole family floating on a single paddleboard at Rockhouse in Jamaica. Actually, Peter, I think your wife Nilou took the photo! We’re all laughing and look like we’re about to fall off. My home screen is a shot of Dahlia and Kole taken on Governors Island in NYC last summer — we spent the night there in a glamping cabin run by Collective Retreats. The kids had just woken up, and they’re holding hands and gazing out at the Statue of Liberty at sunrise. That was a fun little urban adventure.

PJL: Okay, Quickfire Challenge for our Judges Table! Sunrise or sunset?

GS: I’m definitely not a morning person, so I’ll go with sunset.

KK: See, during my drug years, I saw far too many sunrises. I’ve been trying to course-correct that ever since, such that I can enjoy a sunrise again. So I’ll say sunrise.

PJL: Vice you refuse to give up?

GS: Do chicken wings count?

KK: Gummy candy. Albanese Gummi Bears! I try not to eat as many as I used to, but I’ll definitely never give them up. Years ago I replaced cigarettes with gummy candy. I’d say it was an upgrade.

PJL: Indispensable kitchen tool?

KK: Besides a knife and a cutting board and a whisk and a microplane? A Y-peeler.

GS: Great answer! Love a Y-peeler.

PJL: A dish you’d only order in a restaurant and never cook at home?

KK: Beef tartare. Or fish crudo. I don’t do a lot of raw things at home.

GS: Maybe sole meunière? Not because it’s complicated to make, but finding high-quality sole is hard as a civilian, and exorbitantly expensive. Having someone else source that fish and make it for a special occasion, that’s a worthwhile luxury.

PJL: How about a food you’d only cook at home, and never order out?

KK: Well, I do love food out of a box. Obviously I need to do that at home, in private [laughs]. Rice-A-Roni? So good! Have you had Rice-A-Roni before, Gail?

GS: [nervously] Umm…I know of it?

KK: Okay. Gail! Here’s what’s gonna happen. You’re gonna come over, and I’m gonna serve you eight courses of boxed foods.

GS: Wow.

KK: I doctor them up just a little. Twice as much butter, or a little less liquid.

GS: To perfect them.

KK: Correct. Eight courses!

GS: I’m ready.

KK: Next Tuesday.

GS: Done! I’m there.

Peter Jon Lindberg is Further’s cofounder and Editor-in-Chief.