Show Notes
This episode of Bitefully is a little different. It's a Spanglish episode, with the majority of the conversation en español, as Chef Claudia sits down with Chef Adria Marina to talk food memories, life on both sides of the border, and the experiences that shaped her. Prefer to follow along in English? The full video episode is available on YouTube with English captions.
Adria es la mujer y Chef detrás de Georgina, uno de los restaurantes más reconocidos de Tijuana. También la hemos visto como juez en Top Chef VIP, MasterChef Celebrity Colombia y otros proyectos de televisión. Más recientemente, abrió las puertas de su nuevo proyecto, Café Cometa.
Bilingüe y criada entre Tijuana y San Diego, Adria creció devorando tortillas recién salidas de la tortillería camino a casa, renegando de niña de la sopa de pollo y los sándwiches de atún de su mamá, que ahora pide para su cumpleaños, y comiendo un meatloaf que su madre hacía suyo con jalapeños y chipotle.
Adria abre su archivo de memorias culinarias y nos lleva a los viajes de su infancia al Convoy District de San Diego, mucho antes de que el pho y el Korean BBQ se pusieran de moda, a los árboles de higo de su abuela y a aquel restaurante al aire libre que ella y su prometido apodaron "Café Cometa" mucho antes de que se convirtiera en un lugar real.
Adria y Claudia hablan de por qué replicar una receta sin alma puede ser uno de los mayores pecados en la cocina, del viaje a Israel que dejó huella en el menú de Georgina y de lo que significa pasar ocho años viendo crecer un restaurante y, con él, a las personas que lo hacen posible.
Y luego la conversación se pone verdaderamente seria: Trader Joe's como "happy place", mantequilla de maní crunchy vs. creamy y, por supuesto, el orden definitivo de las diferentes formas de los chocolates Reese's.
Nuevos episodios cada miércoles.
[ENGLISH]
This episode of Bitefully is a little different. It's a Spanglish episode, with the majority of the conversation in Spanish, as Chef Claudia sits down with Chef Adria Marina to talk food memories, life on both sides of the border, and the experiences that shaped her. Prefer to follow along in English? The full video episode is available on YouTube with English captions.
Adria is the woman and Chef behind Georgina, one of Tijuana's most well-known restaurants. We've also seen her as a judge on Top Chef VIP, MasterChef Celebrity Colombia, and other television projects. More recently, she opened the doors to her new project, Café Cometa.
Bilingual and raised between Tijuana and San Diego, Adria grew up devouring tortillas fresh off the press on the way home, refusing as a kid to eat her mom's chicken soup and tuna sandwiches — which she now requests for her birthday — and eating a meatloaf that her mother made her own with jalapeños and chipotle.
Adria opens up her archive of culinary memories and takes us back to childhood trips to San Diego's Convoy District, long before pho and Korean BBQ became trendy, to her grandmother's fig trees, and to that outdoor restaurant that she and her fiancé nicknamed "Café Cometa" long before it became a real place.
Adria and Claudia talk about why replicating a recipe without soul can be one of the biggest sins in cooking, about the trip to Israel that left its mark on Georgina's menu, and about what it means to spend eight years watching a restaurant grow and, with it, the people who make it possible.
And then the conversation gets truly serious: Trader Joe's as a "happy place," crunchy vs. creamy peanut butter, and of course, the definitive ranking of the different shapes of Reese's chocolates.
New episodes every Wednesday.
You can find Chef Adria Montaño on Instagram @adriamarina.
Follow along on Instagram @bitefullypod and @chefclaudiasandoval
Host & Executive Producer: Claudia Sandoval | Producer: Shei Yu I Executive Producer: Saadia Khan I Sound Designer & Editor: Lou Raskin I Theme Music: Lou Raskin | Other Music: Epidemic Sound | Cove
More from Bitefully
Chef DuVal Warner grew up in Danville, Virginia, surrounded by strong women, Southern cooking, and a community rich with history. From his Aunt Margaret's legendary mac and cheese to his Aunt Shanita's smoked neck bones and collard greens, food was always home.
Before she was a Top Chef champion, Chef Zuliya “Zuzu” Khawaja spent 16 years in high finance. But her story starts much earlier, in a Central Asian kitchen, learning at the elbows of her grandmother and aunties, and with one pot of soup she made at seven in an act of care.
Chef Mawa McQueen was born in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, the oldest of 21 children. She was raised in Paris, trained at culinary school there, and now runs six restaurants in Aspen, Colorado, including Mawa's Kitchen, Mawita, and Crepe Therapy Café. Her strongest food memory, though, is something she wouldn't share with anyone: the once-a-year school lunch of canned sardines stuffed into a fresh baguette.
In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, we're re-releasing our very first episode.
Top Chef finalist and James Beard-nominated author Chris Scott has spent nearly 40 years in professional kitchens, tracing his family's story to the intersection of Black Southern cooking and Pennsylvania Dutch Amish foodways.