Andrea Gonzmart Williams: Columbia Restaurant & 1905 Family of Restaurants (Tampa, FL)
Release Date: 09/01/2023
William Dissen: The Market Place (Asheville, NC)
The Southern Fork
Passion for your work can give you energy to do more than you ever dreamed you’d have time for. That’s the case for William Dissen, chef of in Asheville, NC, which this year, its 45th in operation, was named a semifinalist for Outstanding Restaurant by the James Beard Foundation. William began honing his skills through study at the Culinary Institute of America and in various kitchens, including the Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia, and the beloved but now closed Cypress in Charleston, SC. In addition to another restaurant venture, , he has a big life outside the kitchen as well. He’s...
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Jael Skeffington: French Broad Chocolates (Asheville, NC)
The Southern Fork
Jael Skeffington is the co-founder and CEO of in Asheville, NC. What started in 2006 as a chocolate passion and a cafe in Costa Rica with her partner Dan, has grown to 85 employees, a Chocolate Lounge & Boutique in downtown Asheville, and an experiential Chocolate Factory & Cafe. French Broad sources the finest cacao from farmers and producers in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Perú and transforms it into 50 tons of chocolate a year. They sell not only their bean-to-bar and craft chocolates online but also to wholesale partners, and they directly wholesale chocolate to other...
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Philippe Feret: Hilton Head Social Bakery (Hilton Head Island, SC)
The Southern Fork
Do you ever consider going to Hilton Head Island, SC for a fresh-out-of-the-oven French baguette or a raspberry tart that’s perhaps gilded with gold flakes and filled with lemon curd? Maybe not, but you might want to reconsider because , with two locations on the island, has been baking that and much more since Chef Philippe Feret and his wife Marissa opened the bakery in 2016. Phillipe was an apprentice in his father's Paris bakery from the age of five, and he soon made restaurants his life, from the famous Parisian restaurant Taillevent, to New York City where he was enlisted to reopen...
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Southern Fork Sustenance: Talking "Why Wine?" with Author and Editor Ray Isle
The Southern Fork
Despite the bio I’m about to share, I think Ray Isle is one of the least pretentious people in the wine world today. He grew up in Houston, and he learned to see wine as an adventure, an adventure that’s taken him all around the world. Ray is the longtime executive wine editor for Food & Wine as well as the wine and spirits editor for Travel + Leisure. He writes Food & Wine’s monthly “What to Drink Next” column as well as regular feature articles for both magazines. His writing has also appeared in Departures, Wine & Spirits, Time, The Washington Post, and many other...
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Robbie Robinson: City Limits BBQ (West Columbia, SC)
The Southern Fork
Augusta Road in West Columbia, SC, isn’t a storybook setting. Strip malls are lined up down the road, flanking a Wal-Mart and a sprawling old school U Haul campus. But just keep going and turn off the road at the Aldi and there’s a summer camp style building tucked in some trees and a modest BBQ sign. That’s when you know you’ve reached the city limits, to be exact. Owner and pitmaster Robbie Robinson grew up in nearby Red Bank, SC eating his fill of SC Midlands BBQ. While living in Houston in the early 2000s, he acquired his first Texas-style offset wood smoker and began his...
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Dayna Lee: Comal 864 (Greenville, SC)
The Southern Fork
According to Saveur magazine, Border Food is defined as Mexican food with a distinct identity —influenced by the cooking of Chihuahua and Texas, but with a number of little twists. Because Texas is so large and diverse, it’s a more nuanced label than the overarching Tex-Mex, and one surprising spot that it is celebrating with abandon is in Greenville, SC. Dayna Lee is the chef and operator of , a petite spot with a big heart and a smoking hot flattop. With her clear vision of the food of her childhood and a combination of grit and introspection on her own life path, she’s gained some...
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Nikko Cagalanan: Kultura (Charleston, SC)
The Southern Fork
Chef Nikko Cagalanan was born and raised in the Philippines. After immigrating to the states in 2011 and working as a nurse, he found himself inspired to pursue cooking with the desire to share his passion for Filipino food. He moved to Charleston, SC in 2018 and began Mansueta’s, a series of pop-ups in the city and the region that helped him hone his craft, his culinary point of view, and build his community, and he’s never looked back. His restaurant opened in 2022 and was promptly named best Filipino Restaurant in SC by Food & Wine magazine. Then he won on Food Network’s Chopped....
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A Special Episode from The One Recipe: Toni Tipton-Martin’s Recipe for Blackberry-Ginger Bourbon Smash
The Southern Fork
Hi y’all, It’s Stephanie, I’m excited to share with you another podcast you should check out through this episode of from APM Studios. On The Southern Fork I've talked to a lot of people about their food and their recipes. Pretty much everyone who cooks aspires to have a clutch of recipes they can make their own. The ones that we send to friends because we know it’s going to work every single time. The One Recipe is about building that library, one recipe at a time. Host Jesse Sparks, Senior Editor at Eater, talks to chefs and gifted cooks from all over the world about their One...
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A Special Episode from The Broadside: How Y'all Conquered the World
The Southern Fork
Hi! Stephanie here. It’s been a while since you’ve heard from me, but as we get close to Thanksgiving, I want you to know that I’m thinking of y’all, and I’m thankful for every one of you who listen to The Southern Fork. I’m working hard over here in the background making podcast plans and interview itineraries for 2024, but in the meantime, I wanted to share with you a little audio treat -- an episode of from WUNC. Since you’re subscribed to The Southern Fork, you might like to check it out too, and this particular episode covers one of my favorite words: y’all and how it’s...
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Season 8 Finale: Your Favorites & Steph's Best Bites
The Southern Fork
Host Stephanie Burt recaps Season 8 of the show, sharing the most listened to podcasts, her favorite bites of the season, and other details to keep the conversation going. Let’s Dig In.
info_outlineIn 1905, Saloon Columbia in Tampa, FL officially became Columbia Restaurant, a place helmed by Casimiro Hernandez Sr. where cigar workers in Ybor City could rest and enjoy Spanish and Cuban food, or snag a sandwich to eat on the job. Through the years, the restaurant grew to envelop the entire city block, and today, the family-owned landmark is Florida’s oldest restaurant and the largest Spanish restaurant in the world with 15 dining rooms and 1,700 seats. Andrea Gonzmart Williams is the great-great-granddaughter of Casimiro Hernandez Sr., and she began working at Columbia at the age of 10 by doing filing in the corporate office. She continued working in various positions through high school and then after graduating from the University of South Florida, joined the family business full-time as the fifth generation of the 1905 Family of Restaurants. She is actively involved in the day-to-day operations of not only the flagship Ybor City location but also the other Columbia Restaurant locations in Florida, the Columbia Cafes at Tampa Bay History Center and Tampa International Airport, and other restaurant concepts within the company. But the Columbia isn’t just a family tradition for those who work there and grow up in the business; it’s also a traditional place of celebration for countless Florida families throughout the last 117 years.