ArtsFoodBusinessEntrepreneurship

The Perfect Bite

Sarah Perkins

Your fusion of food and entrepreneurship, The Perfect Bite brings you inspiring conversations with chefs, restaurateurs, CPG brand founders, food tech founders, and more in the food and beverage industry, highlighting their experiences and how they've cooked up something new. From emerging brands to established business owners, you'll learn from the best entrepreneurs in food, beverage, hospitality, and agriculture about how they started their businesses, what problems they're solving, the tough times they've overcome, and their best advice for entering these industries or starting your own business. We end each episode with the world's best and hardest question: What is your perfect bite?

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20 episodes
weekly
Avg 59 min
English

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#85
Thursday · 55 min
How Dana Cree Turned the Science of Ice Cream Into One of Chicago's Most Creative Food Brands
Dana Cree has spent her career asking questions most pastry chefs never think to ask. Why does brown sugar make ice cream icier? What is bubblegum actually made of? Can a green bean casserole taste incredible as a frozen pop? The answers led her fr...
#84
October 29 · 1 hr 4 min
How Rye Bunny's Jon Sybert and Jill Tyler Walked Away From a Decade of Success to Build Something Better
After a decade running Tail Up Goat, one of DC's most celebrated tasting menu restaurants, Jon Sybert and Jill Tyler did something most restaurateurs would never consider: They closed it on their own terms, gave their team almost a full year to cel...
#83
October 22 · 1 hr 2 min
How Donnie Madia Changed the Way Chicago Eats
This episode is sponsored by Vermont Nut Free Chocolates. Get 20% off your order through December 31st with code PERFECTBITE at vermontnutfree.com.This episode is also sponsored by BLiS Gourmet, Michigan's small-batch producer of barrel-aged condim...
#82
October 15 · 1 hr 2 min
Hill Top Hospitality Rewrites the Rules of Utah's Food Scene
This episode is sponsored by Vermont Nut Free Chocolates, your new favorite 100% tree nut and peanut nut quality chocolates. Get 20% off your order through December 31st with code PERFECTBITE at vermontnutfree.com.This episode is also sponsored by ...
#81
October 8 · 1 hr 6 min
How Dominique Leach Brought Fine Dining to Chicago BBQ
Chef Dominique Leach is a pit master, fine dining veteran, food entrepreneur, community builder, and the woman behind one of Chicago's most celebrated barbecue restaurants: Lexington Betty Smokehouse. And if you think you know what a pit master loo...
#80
October 1 · 55 min
Black Lagoon's Erin Hayes and Kelsey Ramage on Spooky Cocktails
They rented a cursed venue in Toronto with a leak and a fire alarm. They put everything they had into it. And by the end of the first week, there was a line around the block.Erin Hayes and Kelsey Ramage are the co-founders of Black Lagoon, now in i...
#79
September 24 · 58 min
In the Mood to Bake with Alex George of Lily P Crumbs
She named her brand after her geriatric dog. She started her Instagram account while in chemotherapy and called it Cooking with Cancer. She photographed her own cookbook in her parents' basement with the help of her mom's mahjong friend Karen, a ho...
#78
September 17 · 1 hr 3 min
Chef Kevin O'Donnell on Freestyle Italian Cuisine in Newport
He was sixteen years old, court-ordered to an alternative school in Rhode Island, looking for a way to pass the time. A retired Johnson & Wales chef named Andy ran a vocational culinary program there. Kevin signed up. Chef Andy saw something in him...
#77
September 10 · 1 hr 1 min
Ashok Selvam on Ravenous and the Food Media Renaissance
About six weeks after winning the James Beard Jonathan Gold Local Voice Award, Ashok Selvam was laid off from Eater Chicago. He had been there for over a decade. He was the only full-time staff member. His fingerprints were on every single story, e...
#76
September 3 · 58 min
Jaju Pierogi: 10 Years of Polish American Pride and Dumplings
Their grandfather worked at his Polish deli until he was 87. Their uncle is 75 and still running it. Nobody in the family told them the business was a good idea. And that didn’t stop Vanessa and Casey White from building one of the most beloved Pol...
#75
August 27 · 54 min
Avishar Barua on Agni, Joya's and Honoring Columbus
Just because a dish is well executed does not mean it has to feel stuffy. And just because you have culinary school training and a Michelin-starred kitchen on your resume does not mean you cannot dedicate your career to making dining the most fun p...
#74
August 20 · 51 min
Mira's Manny and Gina Ocasio Are Putting Buffalo on the Culinary Map
Some things feel like fate. Manny Ocasio was working at Zahav during a rare lunch service when Gina walked in looking for her friend. They barely spoke. Months later Gina walked into a bar and Manny was sitting there. Everything unfolded from that ...
#73
August 13 · 1 hr
Takeaways: The Savory Protein Bar the World Needed | Ash Baxter
She spent six years evaluating CPG founders from the other side of the table, sitting in boardrooms at TRUFF and Erewhon-backing growth firms while secretly thinking she would never be the one to jump. And then she ate one too many chocolate flavor...
#72
August 6 · 48 min
Yama Seafood: 50 Years of World Class Seafood | Nobu Yamanashi
Kingo Yamanashi bought his first bluefin tuna for a dollar from a recreational fisherman. He did not have a refrigerated van. He did not speak English. He did not know how to break down a tuna or even have a scale to weigh it. He just put it in a v...
#71
July 30 · 54 min
James Beard Winner Chef Sarah Thompson Brings Coastal Mexico to Vegas
She didn't want to move to Las Vegas. She moved anyway for a restaurant that was supposed to open March 16th, 2020. And then she stayed, kept pushing through two years of pandemic uncertainty, and built something so extraordinary that just the othe...
#70
July 23 · 45 min
Zingerman's Bob Bennett on Culture and 22 Years of Leadership
Some people spend their careers looking for the right place. Bob Bennett found his 22 years ago and never looked back.Bob Bennett is the head chef of Zingerman's Roadhouse in Ann Arbor, Michigan, one of the most beloved and respected restaurant ins...
#69
July 16 · 55 min
BLiS Gourmet on Great Lakes Caviar, Wild Flavors, and Giving Back
Because life is short. That is what BLiS stands for. And after 23 years of bourbon barrel aged maple syrup, wild Great Lakes caviar, smoked soy sauce, fish sauce, vinegars, and tamari built from a single forager's obsession with wild flavor and zer...
#68
July 9 · 39 min
Rita Sodi and Jody Williams: Iconic Food, Life and an Empire of Community
Some restaurants feel like places. Via Carota feels like a person. Warm, unhurried, deeply intelligent, and completely unconcerned with trends. That’s not an accident. It is the direct result of two women who have spent decades building exactly the...
#67
July 2 · 1 hr 3 min
Norman Fenton's Cariño is a Love Letter to Mexico, Family, and Purpose
You can taste the love someone puts into their cooking. And the opposite is true too.Norman Fenton is the Michelin starred, James Beard nominated chef and co-owner of Cariño, a modern Mexican restaurant in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood that is, in ...
#66
June 29 · 1 hr 40 min
BONUS EPISODE: LIVE! From the 2026 James Beard Awards Red Carpet
On June 15th, 2026, The Perfect Bite went live from the red carpet of the James Beard Restaurant and Chef Awards at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. As an official press credential holder, host Sarah Perkins spent two hours on the carpet meeting, interv...

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