Ep 292: Dermot O'Leary

Summary

Podcast Summary: Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster – Episode 292: Dermot O'Leary

Release Date: May 7, 2025
Guest: Dermot O'Leary
Hosts: Ed Gamble and James Acaster
Platform: Acast

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1. Welcome and Introduction

The episode kicks off at [01:26] with Ed Gamble humorously describing the podcast’s unique format, comparing it to crafting the perfect bagel with layers of conversation and friendship. James Acaster introduces Dermot O'Leary, a beloved figure in British television known for hosting iconic shows like The X Factor and You and Dave Weekly. Ed shares a personal connection, mentioning having met Dermot a couple of times and praising his positive energy ([02:31]).

Notable Quote:

• Ed Gamble [02:31]: "Such a great energy. Such a nice man."

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2. The Secret Ingredient Challenge

As with every episode, Ed and James set a playful challenge for Dermot: choosing a dream meal consisting of a starter, main course, side dish, dessert, and drink. However, they introduce a twist by declaring that any secret ingredient outside of their pre-established menu would result in Dermot being "booted off the pod" ([02:52]).

Notable Quote:

• James Acaster [03:01]: "Yes. Sorry, Dermott. And this week, the secret ingredient is Cheerios."

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3. Discussing Presenting vs. Comedy

Dermot delves into the nuances of being a presenter compared to being a comedian. He shares insights into the pressures of live television, including the physical stress and the unpredictability of live audiences. The conversation highlights the fragile nature of both comedy and presenting, emphasizing the emotional investment required in each role ([05:38]).

Notable Quote:

• Dermot O'Leary [06:00]: "The idea of live television... there's a lot that could go wrong."

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4. Favorite Dishes: Starter to Dessert

The heart of the episode revolves around selecting Dermot’s dream meal:

• Starter:
  Dermot opts for a pint of Norwegian prawns from the fjord, served with white bread, mayonnaise, a squeeze of lemon, and a side salad. He praises the freshness and quality of these prawns, emphasizing their ideal pairing with a pint of Guinness ([28:42]).

  Notable Quote:

  • Dermot O'Leary [28:45]: "Just a pint of prawns attracts me quicker on a menu than a pint of anything else."

• Main Course:
  He chooses barbecued mackerel seasoned with smoked paprika and butter, accompanied by Roger’s potato salad and a crispy green salad. Dermot shares his passion for cooking, discussing his challenges with maintaining the perfect barbecue temperature and his love for sustainable seafood ([37:33]).

  Notable Quote:

  • Dermot O'Leary [42:10]: "Aubergine parmesan is incredible. It's probably one of my favorite adult fish dishes."

• Side Dish:
  Dermot talks about his love for turkey wings, especially during Christmas, and his attempts to perfect the crispy skin. He humorously describes the joy of having a turkey wing over waiting for the whole bird ([47:00]).

• Dessert:
  He reminisces about classic desserts like Knickerbocker Glory and praises establishments like Oslo Court for their exceptional offerings. Dermot emphasizes the nostalgia and joy these desserts bring ([54:18]).

• Drink:
  Dermot selects a pint of Norwegian beer, specifically praising a local brand from Puglia called Dreaher. He balances his meal with a preference for white wine, particularly those with a coastal salinity, and enjoys a sip of whiskey as a digestive ([50:57]).

Notable Quote:

• Dermot O'Leary [50:17]: "Pint of Guinness with prawns is a marriage made in heaven."

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5. Culinary Anecdotes and Experiences

Throughout the meal discussion, Dermot shares captivating stories from his culinary and presenting career:

• Rotisserie Chicken Memories:
  Dermot nostalgically recalls the rotisserie chickens in France and Italy, highlighting the sensory experiences tied to these dishes and his aspiration to perfect his own barbecue techniques ([37:36]).

• Restaurant Ventures:
  He talks about owning a fish restaurant in Brighton for seven years, detailing the highs of winning awards and the lows of facing harsh winters that led to its closure ([44:28]).

• Supper Club Adventures:
  Dermot describes his participation in the "Posh Boys Supper Club," an ironic group where members dress formally to dine at various restaurants. He shares memorable dining experiences, including festive Christmas dinners and encounters with discerning staff ([30:26]-[31:19]).

Notable Quote:

• Dermot O'Leary [44:28]: "The most stressful seven years of my life, but we won awards for being sustainable."

---

6. Personal Reflections and Future Plans

Dermot opens up about his journey in the media industry, from aspiring chef to successful presenter. He discusses his love for food, the challenges of transitioning careers, and his ongoing passion for cooking and fishing. Additionally, he mentions taking a wine course to further his knowledge, reflecting his commitment to continual learning and personal growth ([35:33]-[35:48]).

Notable Quote:

• Dermot O'Leary [35:33]: "Working in a restaurant is basically the same as live television... making sure people have a great night."

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7. Closing Remarks and Future Ventures

As the episode wraps up, Dermot and the hosts share light-hearted banter about potential future collaborations, such as opening a food court featuring their favorite eateries. They also touch upon personal anecdotes related to family and memorable moments, reinforcing the camaraderie between the hosts and Dermot ([46:00]-[67:21]).

Notable Quote:

• James Acaster [46:19]: "We're saying the potato salad and the green salad are part of the main. So, yeah, you've got an extra side here to play with."

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Conclusion

Episode 292 of Off Menu offers a delightful blend of culinary discussion, personal anecdotes, and humorous interactions with Dermot O'Leary. The episode not only explores Dermot's favorite foods and drinks but also provides deeper insights into his career and personal passions. Listeners are treated to a rich, engaging conversation that highlights the intersection of food, humor, and friendship.

Final Notable Quote:

• James Acaster [69:38]: "You didn't choose Cheerios so we didn't have to kick old Cheerio Leary out of the dream restaurant. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Boom."

---

Takeaways:

• Dermot O'Leary shares his passion for seafood, particularly Norwegian prawns and barbecued mackerel.
• Insightful anecdotes about the challenges of live presenting and running a restaurant.
• Engaging stories about supper clubs and memorable dining experiences.
• Light-hearted discussions on potential future culinary ventures with the hosts.

For those who haven't listened, this episode promises a flavorful mix of humor, heartfelt stories, and gastronomic delights, making it a must-listen for fans of comedy and food alike.

Transcript

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[Ed Gamble]

Welcome to the off menu podcast. Taking the bagel of conversation, popping it in the toaster of humor, spreading on the cream cheese of conversation, and adding the smoked salmon of friendship. James, that is a gamble.

[James Acaster]

My name is James a Caster. Together, we own a dream restaurant. And every single week, we invite the guests and ask in their favor. Ever start a main course, dessert, side dish and drink? Not in that order. And this week, the guest is Dermot O'Leary. Why are you laughing so much, Bonito? Bonito says he's laughing because he can hear Ed breathing directly into the mic through his nose. That's funny to him now. Yeah, that's. That's what it's come to on this podcast is that that's the only thing that will make Benito laugh is Ed breathing through his nose into the mic.

[Ed Gamble]

It is making him laugh every time I do it.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, you're doing it now. I haven't got headphones on, so I, I can't appreciate it until this goes out. I'll have to listen to it. No, that one was too much. He didn't like that one. Yeah, Dermot O'Leary, legend in the game. Trej hosted so many shows, so many iconic shows. Always like, he's everyone's favorite Dermot, everyone says, give him a big old cuddle, don't they?

[Ed Gamble]

Yes. I mean, look, I've met Dermot a Couple of times. Such a great energy. Such a nice man.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

I believe he's a listener to the podcast. I think he's excited to come on. So, look, it's going to be great.

[James Acaster]

And he's got a new series, Silence is Golden on you and Dave Weekly on Mondays that's coming out. We'll ask him about that. All episodes are now available to stream free on YouTube.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes, absolutely. But even though Dermot is a lovely man and excited to come on the podcast, if he puts a secret ingredient on his menu that we have pre established, he will be booted off the pod.

[James Acaster]

Yes. Sorry, Dermott. And this week, the secret ingredient is Cheerios.

[Ed Gamble]

Do you want to talk us through your thought process with that one, James?

[James Acaster]

Cheerios O'Leary. Cheerio Leary.

[Ed Gamble]

Cheerio Learys.

[James Acaster]

Especially if he calls them Cheerio Leary. Yeah, he's out.

[Ed Gamble]

Which is a shame because I'd love it if he did that.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, I would love it if he did that. And I like Cheerios.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

So, you know, but there you go.

[Ed Gamble]

Fingers crossed that he won't do that.

[James Acaster]

Anyway, I will try and get the own brand Cheerios from shops rather than give money to Nestle.

[Ed Gamble]

Right, okay. Are they Nestle? Are they?

[James Acaster]

Yeah, just so people know.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Acaster]

But then sometimes.

[Ed Gamble]

Do they taste the same?

[James Acaster]

Sometimes they do taste the same, actually. But sometimes. I'll admit, I've just got such a hanger in for. For. For the Cheerios and I go there and there's no own brand stuff and I just. I buckle.

[Ed Gamble]

Hey, no one's perfect.

[James Acaster]

I'm not gonna make out like I'm a saint here.

[Ed Gamble]

This is the off menu menu of Dermato Leary. Oh, Cheery Leary.

[James Acaster]

Cheerio Leary.

[Ed Gamble]

Welcome, Dermot, to the Dream Restaurant.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Oh, hi, lads.

[James Acaster]

Welcome, Dermot lady to the Dream Restaurant. Mixed medieval.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Sometime you're a lot quieter outside.

[James Acaster]

I got to build you up to it, you know.

[Dermot O'Leary]

You really don't. It's nice to be here.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, well, he went. He did go very big there.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Here's the thing, though. Now I'm. I'm slightly self conscious because I know there's been a preamble, because you do you two do a preamble before? Have you done the preamble yet?

[James Acaster]

Yes.

[Dermot O'Leary]

When did you do the preamble?

[Ed Gamble]

We've been here all day.

[Dermot O'Leary]

D well, and we get. Can I hear the preamble?

[Ed Gamble]

No, absolutely not.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Oh, man.

[James Acaster]

It's got the secret ingredient in it.

[Dermot O'Leary]

So. So the preamble is the secret sauce.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. That's included in there.

[Ed Gamble]

What are you worried about with the preamble? Is it the secret ingredient? You're curious about the preamble?

[James Acaster]

You think we've been slagging you off present.

[Dermot O'Leary]

A comedian dynamic is always quite strange. Yeah, yeah. Cause you think we're like the hospital porters and you're like the heart surgeons. You get this whole kind of like, oh, God, all I do is walk and talk and say things and we're like, yeah, you just come up with some funny things to say and you say it again and again and again on tour and then you go home and none of you are really happy. And then you're like, come and try and do two and a half hours of live telly. And you.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Well, you must be terrified of Joel Dommet, though.

[Dermot O'Leary]

He's coming for you with a double threat.

[James Acaster]

He's coming for you.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah, yeah, he's come. I think he's come.

[Ed Gamble]

We've had a lot of presenters on, on this show. We respect the art.

[Dermot O'Leary]

I'm not, I'm not. I'm not scared of the preamble. I'm just curious.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

I've tried some presenting in the past. It's very.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Enjoy it.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. But it's difficult.

[James Acaster]

It is difficult.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Depends what you do, I think.

[Ed Gamble]

Having an ear. Having an earpiece.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Having an earpiece. But it's interesting, Jimmy Carr told me the other day that you get. Your body goes through the same process every time you get stressed about something. So even though you think you've conquered that stress, your body's still going through the same process. And I remember when I first started T4, I used to literally, I'd be in the toilet throwing up before the show started because. Because the idea of live television.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Without an autocue, without like, you know, really without sort of. You sort of learn a script, you ad libbing on script. So there's a lot that could go wrong. And it was on for hours. Like, you know, you link. Some of the links were easy. They were like, here's Holly Oaks and stuff. But some of them were like, right now you've got to interview the Rock for like three minutes and then cross from that to some sort of, like, game. But it's nuts, right, in terms of what your body is. That is true. What your body gets used to and what you. What your mind, you know, how you play tricks. Anyway, I think your, your job is interesting because obviously people are going to see you when they go and see you, but at the same time, you're always playing the Away game. So wherever you go. Yeah, you're you. There's a new crowd, a new set of people who want to, want to see you. But you've still got to.

[Ed Gamble]

But you've still got. Yeah, yeah. They're like, you've come, you've come into our place. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[James Acaster]

And no matter how much they like the comedian, they're still worried that the comedian is going to be rubbish. Whereas I think with presenters, I always feel like I'm in good hands. This presenter is going to be rubbish.

[Dermot O'Leary]

It's really interesting because you come out and, and, and you sort of like, you know, I do a bit of writing and I write. We've got a writer and we work together and you know, not comedian but you want to make it funny and you want to make it a laugh and you want to. And sometimes you can come out and go, it would be a half decent script. And you come out if the audience aren't up for it. The audience aren't up for it. It's the same in comedy. Like, presumably when people are coming to watch comedy, they're up for it.

[Ed Gamble]

You'd hope so.

[James Acaster]

You know, sometimes, not always. They might walk into the venue and be like, it's, there's something about the venue that makes you feel a bit.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Subdued. And they sit down, they might be enjoying it but not really laughing much because they feel like quite tired in the, yeah. In their big comfy seats or the very dull venue and they're just like sitting there.

[Ed Gamble]

It's a very fragile art form. There's a change that's wrong. It could skew the whole gig.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Does it change at all on what day it is? So if you know you're hitting a Thursday and you know you're a.

[James Acaster]

We always say it does. But you could, you could have a bad gig on any day of the week and there'll be someone on the venue. Staff will say to you, Friday in it, it's Tuesday. That's, that's what it is like there's always. No matter what day it is, that's why the gig went bad.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Well, and are there. I, I, I'm the round, I'm cursed at the Roundhouse, which is. Yeah, I've never had a good, a good a night go well at the Roundhouse when I've presented there. It's just every time I've been on the Roundhouse, I've died in my ass. Now admittedly I've been, I've done some quite like the London Football Awards, which, which Lovely Bob Wilson, who's, you know, a. Is a hero of mine at Arsenal and also just the loveliest man in the world and he's got these gorgeous puppy dog eyes and he asked me to host London Football Awards for you. Of course I will. And as soon as I walked down, I was like, oh, man, this is a big mistake.

[Ed Gamble]

Was it a rowdy gig?

[Dermot O'Leary]

Just rowdy, but also disinterested, which is kind of the worst combination, you know. And I've also done disinterested and quiet at the Roundhouse. It's hard to know which two, which one are the worst out of those two.

[Ed Gamble]

I think you can get it in your head sometimes.

[Dermot O'Leary]

You've got to exercise around.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Have you got a venue that you've. That, you know, I've.

[James Acaster]

I've never had a stormer at the Roundhouse and, you know, the times I've played there has been promoted by the man on my left. So, like, you know, maybe it's his fault.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Sometimes you just. That you. You feel it, though, you know, sometimes it's gone pretty well, but then that's.

[Ed Gamble]

In your head a lot.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Great night. Was it? Yeah. Great time tonight. But is there, like, when you look down at your tour date, sometimes you're like, oh, God, not Yarmouth again. Oh, man, I died in Yarmouth.

[Ed Gamble]

I'll be. I'll be honest, a lot of the time, if I have a really bad gig somewhere on tour, I'll immediately text the person who's in charge of booking the tour and saying, remind me when we're booking the next tour. I'm not coming back.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Not going back.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Acaster]

Quiet audiences can be tricky. And Silence Is golden is coming to you. And Dave's.

[Dermot O'Leary]

I mean, just pick it. Pick that one out. How's your left foot? That was lovely.

[Ed Gamble]

How's that? Presenting.

[James Acaster]

There you go.

[Ed Gamble]

Get the guy on tv, you get in town.

[James Acaster]

Sorry.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Do you know, it's a lovely show. I sort of got pitched it by Richard Bacon, which is an experience. And our rich is amazing, you know. Damn it, you gotta love this show. And.

[Ed Gamble]

And, yeah, I'll tell you what, 25 years ago, I never thought we'd be sat around talking about Richard Bacon being a format king.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah, yeah, he really is. He's so good with a blank sheet of paper. And there's a few people that worked on the show. There's a guy called Mark Sidaway, who's my exec on the X Factor for years. And Mark's incredible. I mean, bear in mind, Mark, what worked for Simon gal for like 12 years. And then, and then did stuff for the Royal family. So he's been in the court of, you know, the madness for, you know, wherever he's gone. And now he's working with Richard, which is, you know, there's a version of that as well, but which is so brilliant with a blank sheet of paper. So he. So the idea is, come out. I think there's 70 people in the audience and we shot it last year and I just come out and say, listen, congratulations, you've all won £250,000. Big cheers split between you. All you have to do is not utter a sound for the next hour in when the shush button goes, goes, goes on with the shush light goes on in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Get it all out system. Everyone makes noise and we stop. And then it's a combination of comedians, practical jokes, bribes, getting like old grannies from Poland on, you know, that kind of. It's a little bit of everything to try. And our job is then to try and get that money off them.

[Ed Gamble]

It's like a sort of mad variety show.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Because everyone reacts to different things completely.

[Dermot O'Leary]

And some stuff just, you think is really funny and really good and people are just like stony faced and some, and some, some great moments. Also what we sort of didn't really. Because it isn't really a, it's not a reality show or anything, but we've, we've mic them up and they've all got cameras on them. And what we underestimated was how some people are just going, well, if I, if we do well here, we can all make a few grand each. Let's work as a team. And some people are just like. So if I'm, if I just come on and go, who wants to do 200 quid for Lincoln to break? There's one guy just kept going. Yeah. And you can see everyone around him getting more and more on it and more and more. And then we have like time out. So there's like a half time when people can make noise and as soon as that fit, as soon as we've got to half done people like, oh, you absolute effing numpty. I don't give a. I've got 200 quid in my pocket.

[Ed Gamble]

Great.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah. So it was a lot of fun to do. It's a lot of fun to work around comedians as well.

[Ed Gamble]

So Catherine Ryan's involved, she's heading up the team.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, That's. I mean, just, just Brilliant.

[Ed Gamble]

One of the best.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

I mean these are comedians who are putting themselves out there.

[Dermot O'Leary]

We've got Sean Walsh, got Fatiel Gory and we've got Reuben K. Who I do. You know, Ruby was marvelous. He was just. And actually it's really interesting to watch, watch the comedians because they come out and they've got, they've got their five or 10 minutes that they know that they can rely on and you know, and then it's. I mean it's hard enough to present a show you're presenting to silence for. It's about sort of two hour record. But for comedians this must be so difficult because they're getting nothing. I know sort of vaguely where I'm going, at least I've got that. Whereas comedians, it's interesting to see some of them will come and just sort of have to change on the like turn on the sixpence and you know, you realize that some of them are so good at that kind of level of. That's not working. Okay. Oh, hang on a second. That guy looks a bit odd. I can turn around, you know, I can kind of go with him or. Ruben was brilliant for that. Amy Gledhill was brilliant. But so, so many. It's really interesting.

[Ed Gamble]

I can't. Going out in front of an audience who are financially, financially have to be silent. I would look because obviously you know that and doing stuff and that they're not reacting, but there's still a chemical response in your body that would just be like, this is the worst day of my life.

[James Acaster]

Oh, I don't know. I, I did it as a thing for. Actually it was, I think it was Dave again, but it was for online and we had to give these like TED Talks kind of thing. Like these comedic TED talks that we'd written to an audience who were told to be silent. And I find it very comforting knowing before I went on, well, they are going to be silent and they have to be.

[Ed Gamble]

But that's different because you're not trying to make them laugh.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

You know, it's.

[Dermot O'Leary]

You're always trying to make someone laugh if that's your job, aren't you?

[James Acaster]

No way. Well, we always start with still or sparkling water on the dream menu. Damage. You have a preference?

[Dermot O'Leary]

Of course. If we're eating, it's got to be sparkling water.

[Ed Gamble]

Okay.

[James Acaster]

Okay.

[Ed Gamble]

We are. We're definitely eating.

[Dermot O'Leary]

One of you doesn't like sparkling?

[James Acaster]

I don't like it. Really?

[Ed Gamble]

I notice on this podcast I change my opinion on sparkling water weekly and.

[Dermot O'Leary]

It'S based on Whatever the guest says, you're more malleable.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

So, I don't know. I was thinking about this on the way in. I was thinking, what would I. Because I always go sparkling and I don't quite know why. And I think obviously it's more fun, but I only tend to have sparkling water when I'm eating right. And also, I'm a child of the 80s, so when the 80s came along, Perrier came along. Perrier was the first kind of like, not only can you. Is it not just out of a tap, but you can buy it in a bowl. It's a green bowl, it's French. And every now and again we'll add, like a hint of lime or a hint of lemon. And it became sort of in our house. Like, my. My dad never drunk and my mom found wine in the 80s and just never looked back. And so there wasn't that. There wasn't an awful lot of fun stuff to drink. We weren't really allowed fizzy drinks at home. And we also did. We did. We did a thing. I don't know why we did this, but my mum insisted we did a monthly shop. But back in the day, a monthly shop was. You went to the shops after school with your mom, Tesco's or Sainsbury's and you stocked up for a month. So I. I think largely because she didn't really enjoy food shopping. So me and my sister would be bribed to go around and carry these trolleys around. And then at the time, you had to pay by check. So then my poor mum was like, had to write this check. And then you can imagine how unpopular that would be because you're just like, holding up people.

[Ed Gamble]

Huge queues.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

And then you have to get the manager to come and triple sign the check. And so. And all because my mom just didn't want to go shopping every week. So the trade off was that we were allowed one thing each. And I always used to either go for Cocoa Pops or cornflakes squashed down into a cake that's covered in chocolate, you know, like a flat one.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah. Fantastic.

[Dermot O'Leary]

And it could last. But that was my first us. When we started buying stuff, that was my first kind of route into sparkling water. So it was Perrier also.

[James Acaster]

Perio, I almost thought then you were going to say in that story that when you allow one thing, you, as a child chose Perrier water. If this is. I was halfway through the thinking, yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

But so Perry water was like the one thing we bought. And then. And it Was kind of an indulgence, I suppose. And we're. And. And also Miami Vice was on at the time. And I just remember. I remember once, it was probably a young sexual awakening. Some girlfriend of Don Johnson's was just sunbathing on a boat and she opened a bottle of Perry and just poured it all over herself. And I was like, 11, going, yeah. Oh, my God, this is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life. So. Yes.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

So I want to be the water.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Right. And then our first holiday away was France, so. So sort of Irish family. So every holiday was back to Ireland. And then when. And then we sort of, like, started camping a little bit in the uk, but the first sort of glamour holiday was camping in France. And then you go to France and obviously, like, if you're into food even, doesn't matter how old you are, it's the fries, it's the crepes, it. You know, it's the. It's the panu chocolat in the morning. It's all that great, like stuff. And Perio was part of that.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. So it's proper taking you back to the big shop.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

To the. To trips to France. It feels like an entire.

[Ed Gamble]

And I've always said it. I agree with that. And I love sparkling water.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Here's. This is the only problem I have with this podcast. I love your podcast, but this is the fundamental floor in the format, okay.

[Ed Gamble]

Is get bacon on the phone.

[Dermot O'Leary]

It's like asking me, do you want an apple or an avocado? And asking me to come up with the right. Like, they're so cons. Contextual, aren't they?

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[Dermot O'Leary]

So let me throw it back at you guys. When you. Where did popping or bread come from? Did you not go, james did it.

[Ed Gamble]

On the first episode?

[Dermot O'Leary]

Or naan or like.

[James Acaster]

Like, yeah, it was me. I think when we started the podcast, I was going through a phase of every time I was in an Indian restaurant and they bought up the papadoms, thinking, I love papadom so much. Why is it we only have them in universals? I wish I was. I tell you what, I'd love to have it in this other thing. And then, like, so when we were coming up with this format, I was like, this is important to me right now. At the time, it was important to me that I made the guests consider, what if you can have poppadoms? At the beginning of the day, we.

[Ed Gamble]

Were coming up with the format. We did the first episode and he shouted, poppadoms or bread?

[Dermot O'Leary]

And that was spitballing.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

And then I take him.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

You should work with bacon.

[Dermot O'Leary]

You should work with bacon.

[James Acaster]

I'd love to work with Bacon. Yeah. Yeah. I'd love to see. I've only met Bacon once and it was the same time I had my first ever Bloody Mary. I was.

[Ed Gamble]

Bacon does go well with Bloody Mary.

[James Acaster]

But accoutrement. Yeah. I supported Milton Jones on tour in 2011.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

We went into a bar after the final tour date he had. He hadn't been at the show, but Bacon was just there randomly.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Happy to see Milton. Sat down with us. I'd ordered a Bloody Mary, took a sip. I love him now, but I took a sip. Absolutely hated it. Had to sit there drinking this cold soup while listening to Bacon tell Milton about one liners and break down one line of comedy. Two Milton Jones. But I'm delighted to.

[Dermot O'Leary]

It's a separate question. I'm, I'm. I'm totally sold on poppy. Dogs of bread. Yes. You know when someone said, it's always an acquired taste, buddy. Mary.

[James Acaster]

Right.

[Dermot O'Leary]

You didn't like it at the time. What's the cutoff for indulging in that? Because there is a point where you go, actually, I just don't like it.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

So if I do it something enough, then I'll start to like it. But like, food is the only kind of vessel or medium we have where that's okay, isn't it? Otherwise, like, other than that.

[Ed Gamble]

Well, where someone will go, yeah, try it.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Just carry on doing it.

[James Acaster]

People do it with people. People are like, it's all right. Once you get to know him. He's got a cat and you're like, I don't know if I want to put the hours in with this guy.

[Dermot O'Leary]

That guy.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

And I love Oliver and I love everything Italian. I'm a huge, like a huge fan of Italy, but I can't be doing with eating olives, you guys.

[James Acaster]

I love olives, but I like olives. I always respect people tapping out and going, why am I putting the.

[Ed Gamble]

But I think that's. It's fine. That olives are the thing where you're like, oh, kids hate them. And then a lot of the time they'll grow up and they'll love olives.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

I think, you know, when you, when, when you get older, if you eat something, you don't like it, there's no time to start trying to crack on with that thing. Just eat the stuff you like.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

God's sake. It's like TV shows as well. If I don't like the first two episodes or something. I'm not cracking on it.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Oh, really?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

There's a lot of stuff to watch, isn't there? I guess. But I don't know. I feel guilty if I kind of give up after two episodes. What me and my wife tended to do recently is we. We did a whole thing and then we don't watch the last episode. I was just in the car the other day and it just struck me as well, it wasn't like, it's not a conscious thing. I was like, we still haven't finished something or another. I was like, we've devoted a lot of time to that.

[Ed Gamble]

Is it because you don't want it to end?

[Dermot O'Leary]

No.

[Ed Gamble]

You don't want to say goodbye?

[Dermot O'Leary]

It's only. Only if it peters out.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Here's the thing as well. I recently watched a show on Netflix that didn't do a camera. We were like really excited about the second series. Secondary started. Didn't do a recap of the first series and within. And we were like, well, we're totally lost now because they're picking up a story. But we haven't seen this for 18 months.

[James Acaster]

I'm like that with each new series of this morning.

[Dermot O'Leary]

It's 52.

[James Acaster]

I might do a recap. For Christ's sake. I don't know what's happening. This. I can't keep up with all these characters.

[Ed Gamble]

Tell me about yesterday morning.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Well, I give some out for you. Some cookery.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Some lulls.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Bit of semi hard news at the start.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Phone in some description.

[James Acaster]

Great.

[Dermot O'Leary]

And then a demo.

[James Acaster]

I love it.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah. That's all you need to know. Oh, okay. So I go bread, but with a caveat that I do adore a poppadom.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

And I've. I've started to buy papadomas for the house.

[James Acaster]

Great.

[Dermot O'Leary]

For that very reason.

[James Acaster]

Great.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Huge fan. Don't like to mess around with the papadom. Just like, I like. I like it old school.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

But largely just because. Whether it's soda bread or. Which I love, because the whole Irish thing. Warm, good. Soda bread is good.

[James Acaster]

It should be. The listener should know we're speaking to you on St. Patrick's Day.

[Ed Gamble]

Happy St. Patrick's Day.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Thank you, lads. And I love. We'll call it dirty white bread. But. But just regular white bread.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

I'm messing around too much much with it. I still have a love hate relationship with sourdough. Like I'm amazed. And my mates have like things in the fridge and I'm like. Well, I don't understand. Like you add and then you add to it and it's just. It's been there forever. I don't get it. But. But I love a good old fashioned. There's a. I do Glastonbury every year for the. For radio too. Right. And then there's a place on the court. We stay in Wells. And if you guys have ever been to Wells, lovely little Ben's from there.

[James Acaster]

Pretty much not.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Oh, lovely Ben. We stay in a hotel. It's called the Swan, I think. And then on the. And then on the corner there's a little bakery. I'll stay at the Swan that does doorstep. White bread, sausage sandwiches and bacon sandwiches which are just manna from heaven. And it's kind of thick cut white bread, like a farmhouse loaf or something or a split tin or something. And then it's. And then it's just like. Just buttered, straightforward sausage.

[Ed Gamble]

Good.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah, great.

[James Acaster]

Have you been to the Flap Jackery in Wells?

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah, it's amazing. It's right next to it.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

So I always get my presents like for. Thanks for looking after our kid. Sorry about. Sorry A bit of a mess after the weekend. Presents from the flapjackery. Yeah, I love the flapjackery.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, it's good stuff. Good stuff. They're very proud of it.

[Dermot O'Leary]

There's good butchers in Wales as well. Are you making notes about flapjackeries?

[James Acaster]

Yeah, he write everything down and put it on the.

[Ed Gamble]

Put it on the website of all the recommendations.

[Dermot O'Leary]

All right. You have to clear them. Flapjackery.

[James Acaster]

No, no, he'll just put it on the little. In. There's a. A page on the website that is all the eateries.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Oh, I know that we mentioned brilliant. But I didn't know. Do you have to call them and go, listen, guys.

[Ed Gamble]

No, no, no.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Are you familiar with the podcast also Ben.

[Ed Gamble]

Ben runs a comedy festival in Wells. So now, now we've mentioned the Flap Jackery. There might be a few freebies.

[Dermot O'Leary]

There's a great butchers around the corner. Mention them, they're lovely.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Down the road. I don't know the name of them, but.

[Ed Gamble]

Cathedral. Shout out the Cathedral.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Oh yeah, lovely. Yeah.

[James Acaster]

They like to think they're a city. It's funny that they think they're a city, isn't it? Really funny that they all. They'll go on about, well, this is the welcome to the city of Wells, really. As I was walking down the street and an old lady I didn't know said hello to me. That's Not a city. Yeah, that happens in a city. Someone's. Someone's getting beaten up, you know, say hello to strangers.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Whenever it was. I did the Royal wedding. I got asked to do the Royal wedding for the BBC, which is quite exciting. So I did. I went down to Windsor where it was happening and we went down the night before. And it's me, Kirsty Young, and. And just quite a few sort of little reporters and stuff like that, you know, so it's a really big deal. Like, you know, you get given this massive, big, like, fold us, like being doing A levels again, you know, it's proper. So took a month to digest the whole thing. And anyway, we're coming up doing rehearsals, we finished rehearsal, we're coming across the road and this is in Windsor and I walk past this old lady and she was talking to someone she knew and she went. The thing is, I really feel it's going to put Windsor on the map. See the.

[James Acaster]

The castle?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Acaster]

Isn't it their surname?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Your dream starter. Let's get into your menu properly.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Lads, lads, lads. How are you with fish? What's. What's the situation? I don't know. Who likes fish and who doesn't like. We're going to be pretty fish heavy today.

[James Acaster]

Great.

[Ed Gamble]

Nice. Good to hear.

[Dermot O'Leary]

With a few caveats, but caviar is pronounced. Yeah, Come on, Come on.

[Ed Gamble]

It's good humor.

[Dermot O'Leary]

So have you guys ever gigged in Norway?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, I have not.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, I did like it. I actually. I mean, now we're talking about the Royal family. I gave to Oslo half an hour after the Queen died.

[Dermot O'Leary]

So I was the British Queen.

[James Acaster]

Yes, our Queen. I was. I was. I was in the dressing room, the audience were filing in. Then I got the text and obviously all my friends who were doing shows back home. Yeah, their gigs all got canceled.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

And I'm there going, I've still got to go on. And also I've got to go on. I was doing a show at the time where the audience were allowed to do whatever they wanted. That was part of the show. They were allowed to heckle, do whatever they want. And so you walk on stage and they all knew my beloved Queen had passed.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

So as soon as I walked on stage, they're just screaming at me, just dissing me for not having a queen anymore.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Norwegians are quite reserved.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

I thought that was the vibe in Scandinavia, that they'd be quite reserved.

[James Acaster]

But then when the rules are you can do what you want, they're like, oh, we should give him what he wants. He wants us to do this. They were like, we're being good. A good audience by bringing up that his queen is no longer around.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Did you eat while you were there?

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Do you remember, like, did you have a nice dinner?

[James Acaster]

I did. I can't remember what I had because I left for one day for that.

[Dermot O'Leary]

So I've always listened. I've always loved seafood, always love fish. But my wife is Norwegian and when we started dating, we used. We. We kind of went out to world loads here for me, her family. And now we go like a couple of times a year. But we got there and she said the one thing you have to have while you're here in Norwegian prawns from the fjord. And actually sometimes they get them from like the west coast up to Greenland and all of that, like. And now I can't have another prawn. So if someone says to me, oh, do you want a tiger prawn? I'm like, no, no, I don't know. Or if we. If we're traveling or something. You like prawns? Anywhere else I can't be doing. So the Norwegian prawns are just these. It's so simple, but you base it. So I'd have a pint or half a pint of those. And with some Norwegians, like quite dense rye bread, which I can't be doing with. So I would normally go with some lovely white bread, mayonnaise, bit of lemon squeezed on top, and that's maybe a little salad, side salad, but that's all you need as a starter. And it's. And they. They largely are that. They don't catch them in the field so much anymore, but they still do them. There's. So there's a little guy that comes in. You buy them off him. We bought. Bought them off in the. In the. In the kind of quayside or you can get from sort of further afield, the fjord prawns are kind of a little smaller and then the ones on the west coast are bigger, but they are. It's just icy cold, juicy with. The Norwegians adore beer. Beer and coffee. Are they like the two drinks. They've also got a very strange thing. They've got a wine monopoly in Norway. So this is the most brilliantly Norwegian thing in that the government own all the basically off licenses. You can get beer in supermarkets. I'm not sure about spirits. I think you can get spirits in supermarkets, but you get beer in supermarkets. But you. But if you want wine, you go into a separate shop. That's state owned I believe but because they've got this massive, massive sovereign wealth fund and it didn't just away like we did, they can just basically afford to buy really good wine. So they buy. So the state I think buys the wine and so all my brother in laws and stuff have got really high end tastes when it comes whenever they come visit us I'm like. They drink me at a house and home and like all the good stuff. I'm like no, no, no, you knock yourself out. But so they've got basically so wine advisors on tap. So they're really good on. On wine and it's kind of quite. I know.

[Ed Gamble]

So it's great.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. But the prawns are just.

[Ed Gamble]

I love this. But yeah, pint of prawns. Nothing attracts me quicker on a menu than a pint of prawns.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah, me too.

[James Acaster]

Oh yeah. I didn't know that about you.

[Ed Gamble]

Well, I'll be honest, I'm copying my wife to be honest because Charlie like loves prawns so. And at her birthday I'll normally find somewhere to take her that does a pint of prawns. But I do look at a pint of prawn. Sometimes I get a bit like a really old man in a pub and go that's not a pint. There's a head sticking up there that shouldn't count as part of the pint. Shell em peel them and then fill me a pint.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

There was an old place down in Old Gate I think that we used to go to quite often called Tubby Isaacs. I don't think it's there anymore but.

[Ed Gamble]

Tubby Isaac I think I would have if. If Tubby Isaacs was there I'd know.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Are you looking out now? Someone told me to come back but no. Is it gone?

[James Acaster]

It's one in Clacton.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Bonito says that might be the same one. Might. Tabby might have moved out to Clapton but a lot of people have moved out. But it was 24 hours and you can go and get welks there and little cock and stuff like that. It was amazing. So if we sort of that way in town and you'd had a few drinks and stuff we'd always go via there and get like. And also some. A couple of my friends are proper East End Cockney down and Cockney Dom. So and, and they're. So they were literally down and cockney. Yeah. They'd sit in their pants and happily. A pint of welks. Yeah. Or just in vinegar yeah, yeah. Watching the football.

[Ed Gamble]

Did you come up with the name Cockney Dan and Cockney Dom or do they call themselves Cockney?

[Dermot O'Leary]

Oh, no, we came up with it, yeah, definitely. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[James Acaster]

How did you meet Cotney Dan and Cotney Dom?

[Dermot O'Leary]

Cockney Dom is Cotney Dan's brother and I met Cockney Dan through mates, really. Just sort of TV mates. And when we started and then we. We just sort of. It's a nice bunch of friends we've had for. We do a supper club every three months. Someone has to pick where we eat.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Should be seasonal. It's got an ironic tire. We're called Posh Boys Supper Club because none of us are posh and everyone has to wear a suit. But not in a kind of like for far, far away. We've got quite a loose dress code now and then and we've been doing it for 20 years now and it's so nice.

[James Acaster]

Oh, great.

[Ed Gamble]

I've got a supper club as well.

[Dermot O'Leary]

It's nice. Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

We're called Working Class Lads.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Oh, lovely.

[James Acaster]

He goes to McDonald's, but we do.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Sometimes the worst nights are when you get home hungry, you know. And so whenever I do it, I just try and pick somewhere really. I know we're going to get a good meal.

[Ed Gamble]

Where was the last place you went for the supper club?

[Dermot O'Leary]

The last place we went for the supper club was Christmas and it was amazing. It was. I forget the name of the restaurant. It was in Clapham and they did goose and the whole thing was. Our mate just went, look, if anyone's not up. And he was over from the States and he organized it. He said, if anyone's not up for goose, let me know. Until we had Christmas dinner with the goose. It was delicious.

[Ed Gamble]

That's great.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, Juicy, juicy. Goosey.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah, lovely. Goosey, goosey. Lucy. I went to. I started. One of the reasons why I love food so much. I mean, my mom's. My mom, on her own admission, doesn't enjoy cooking. She's not a great cook. But my mum went back to work when I was like 14 or something. Something. And so me and my sister sort of started cooking. She taught us how to cook. And it's one thing I really liked at school and I generally thought it was going to be my. My route in. My sort of route in life, because I didn't really. I failed all my GCSEs. Bar two first time around because I just don't concentrate. And then my dad said, look, let's retake them, but if you don't if you don't get them, that's cool. But let's have a think about what you want to do. And I've done work experience in a restaurant, fell in love with it because it's the same thing. It's show business. Like, working in a restaurant is basically the same as live television. Like, whether you're in the kitchen or whether you're in front of house, you're just. You're making sure that people have a great night and you only get one chance to do it. And I adored it. I loved every second of it. And I thought, well, I'm going to be a chef. And then weirdly, I sort of bucked up my ideas, passed me GCSEs and then I did my A levels and I found out I was. I sort of had a sweet spot of history and politics, so I studied politics and. And then I got. That was the only subject I did really well at. And then that kind of sort of changed my trajectory. But then when I was at university, I just. I worked all my way through university by either being a barman or wait or stuff. And I. I love, absolutely love the industry. And so it was always kind of second nature to me. I've lost my train of thought. But where. Where we. Where are we now? Are we prawns?

[James Acaster]

Well, we can move on.

[Dermot O'Leary]

No, no, no, no, not at all. What were you. What are we talking. I don't want to give you. I'm having a great time. What are we talking about?

[Ed Gamble]

2 seconds before that we were on prawns. We were supper club.

[Dermot O'Leary]

That's it, Goose. That's it. Thank you, God.

[Ed Gamble]

God bless the gift.

[Dermot O'Leary]

So I get to tv, get a job as a runner for a documentary company called Barraclough Carey. And I've got no real aspiration. I want to be an actor. When I was a kid, it wasn't good enough. Knew it wasn't good enough. Straight. Largely during my GCSE practical.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

You know, sometimes when I say you should never listen to the little voices in your head, sometimes you should. And I did. And then so I didn't sort of. I sort of wanted to be a Bontelli without will be a presentable. But I wanted to properly learn it as a craft, you know, But I didn't like. There wasn't like. There was no ins. It wasn't like. So I just thought, well, I want to work in the industry, I want to be a producer, I want to learn how to. To work behind the scenes. So finished university Went away. It was studied politics and media studies. Went away to. Traveled for a little bit, came back, wrote loads of letters, got loads of like 250 rejection fat. We're just clearing our house out at the moment. I found them the other day. Not in a. Kind of like you man. I don't know why I kept him but just. And so I was just sort of transferring from one shoebox to another and then I got three. It's like mid-90s. I got three kind of replies that were half decent. One kind of work experience, one maybe and one come up for a chat. So I get this, I get this runner's job. And then I heard about Screen Test that was going across town. I didn't. That I didn't get. No, I did get. Sorry. I got the screen Test but so. And I ended up doing a pilot for Channel four. So I had had the showreel basically and it was like it was supposed to replace the word or something and it didn't. It was like a kind of late night channel 4 show. But I got callback after callback after callback and like. And I run it at the time. I should know, right? To get this job. I get this job, I go and do it and it gives me a showroom and got me an agent, same agent I got now. So I have to sort of fall ladder and then you're sort of chucked out into my world. And so I was, I had a period where I was going for research jobs and going for presenting jobs at the same company. So I'd go in and they go, we not in. Two weeks ago, doing the screen test, I'm like, yeah, you know, I'm also researching. Oh well, you're not going to get either.

[Ed Gamble]

Anyway, it's weird now but one of.

[Dermot O'Leary]

The jobs I got my sort of was it was working on like lunch melon soup. And that's where I just, I fell in love with food because every day you get these great chefs coming and cooking for you. I remember having goose for the first time but they also. I was in, I was audience researcher. So this is sort of emails in its infancy. So we're like, we're actually just sending out sign pictures or we're sending out recipe cards or sending out. So I was in charge of all of that. Getting the audience in, getting the best audience members on television and all that sort of stuff. So every single day we were fed by these great homex and these great chefs that came in. So I just, I just had this great food every day. And that's where I fell in love with the sort of the diversity and the lovely variety of food.

[Ed Gamble]

Didn't know. Didn't the audience used to bring in their own lunch as well online?

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

I remember that specific memory of an episode of Light Lunch where a lady in the audience, her lunch was sweetie kebabs, loads of sweets on a Honest.

[Dermot O'Leary]

That would have been me. I would have picked her.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah. Good pick. I've never forgotten it.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah, because you'd meet them all and they go, I got made cookies of island too. I'm like, yeah, we do that every day. We've got anything else? Sweetie, you're on television. Hey.

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[James Acaster]

Your dream main course, Dermot.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Now, this is tough, lads, because I'm a fish guy and a merman.

[Ed Gamble]

You're a merman? Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

So it'd definitely be. It's either going to be. It's one of two fish, but then I sort of almost bottled it today on the way in and went, do I do rotisserie chicken? Okay. Because I genuinely think there's not much best better in the world than getting a rotisserie chicken.

[Ed Gamble]

A good rotisserie chicken, which hard to find, I'm sure you'll agree.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, yeah. Here?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Like in France, every village has got some guy that turns up in a van or something that's just opens and in Italy. I know some great, great places for a cherry chicken. But over here. Yeah. Tough.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. I mean, in Paris, which is my sort of main memories of rotisserie chicken, because my wife used to live in Paris in the Marrow. And literally, like the shop opposite her had a rotisserie chicken thing outside with the potatoes in the bottom.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Stop it.

[Ed Gamble]

Just like they're turning and just.

[Dermot O'Leary]

That's every night.

[Ed Gamble]

It's dripping onto the potatoes. Just incredible. Incredible.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Nando's doesn't count.

[Ed Gamble]

It's not, it's not rotisserie chicken, is it? It's Peri. Peri. It has to be turning around on a rotisserie chicken. It's just flat, flat on the floor.

[Dermot O'Leary]

I can't go past a place that does rotisserie chicken and not get rotisserie chicken. And I'm sort of, I've gone down a bit of a rabbit hole of buying my own rotisserie oven. This is so hard.

[Ed Gamble]

Well, you could.

[Dermot O'Leary]

It's quite hard because they're big.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

And then you've got to justify what we're gonna put it.

[Ed Gamble]

You can't use it for everything either. You can't.

[Dermot O'Leary]

No. You just use it for chicken.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah. So no, surely you could do like lamb on it or you could do beef on it or something.

[James Acaster]

A watermelon.

[Ed Gamble]

Difficult. You could do a watermelon on it. It's difficult to justify, isn't it, in the house. You can't be like.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah, I mean, I struggle with an air fryer. I'm not a big fan of an air fryer. I've got to be honest.

[Ed Gamble]

Correct.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Because I, I, we got, I got one and then I sort of cooked in it and I went. It's sort of just like a microwave, that kind of browns food.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. It's an oven. It's a small oven.

[Dermot O'Leary]

It's not small either.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, they're too, they're too bulky for a work surface.

[Dermot O'Leary]

I, I, I admire it, I appreciate it. But it doesn't, it doesn't. Fact. Same as a microwave. Doesn't factor into my day to day.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Because you're aiming at the rotisserie. You want the rotisserie oven. An air fryer is not going to do anything for you. So those potatoes that come with the.

[Dermot O'Leary]

So you got me turning now, the little new potatoes. Some of my early memories are going to, are going to Ireland and my early food memories. I did a show last year about, called Taste of Ireland. It was this kind of travel log, this largely, largely sort of love letter to Ireland. About food. One of the reviewers said, it's like it's paid for by the Irish Tourist Board. And then we looked at the credits and realized she's paid for. But they were really hands off. They were lovely. Tourism island. Brilliant. They just said, look, do what you want, but as long as you call it. As long as you call it the island of Ireland, because that's because we work for the island, then knock yourself out. So I did one. I wanted to do one episode back in Wexford, which is where my family are from. And my earliest memories are us having a caravan. We went back there in the summer and my mum buying fresh mackerel and frying it in the car and stinking the whole caravan out. And so it would either be fresh mackerel or John Dory. And John Dory is probably my favorite adult fish. Like when you sort of grow up and you go to restaurants and you're out, you're allowed to kind of have what you want. But I can't go John Dory because I feel compelled to mackerel.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Because also I love. I sort of. I love to fish. I haven't fished for a while, but. And I'm not a great fisherman. I sort of do a little bit of sea fishing. And if you. Mackerel are basically like. Basically like the kind of rock and roll fish because they like, live fast, die young, and literally will lit, will literally buy anything. So there's so. So if you hit a Charlotte mackerel, you're onto a winner and you feel like you're the best fisherman in the world. But they're not. They're just idiots. They're just like, why is it I want to eat it? And they're so beautiful. They're like little sort of torpedo. Do you like mackerel? Guys love mackerel.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Love little torpedoes when you get them just sort of, you know. And actually I've had. I've sort of done a little sashimi when I've been out there. So you take a soy sauce and an English mustard, just shake it up and then you can, you know, you can do fillet mackerel pretty quick. And, yeah, it's unbelievable. So I think it has to be macro. Has to be barbecued mackerel. And I sort of. I've sort of got this down pat. I always find quite hard to barbecue fish because it sticks and, you know, so I've almost got this down pat where I sort of do a paprika, smoked paprika, butter with it and then. And Then just sort of slather it in that and then it gets really, really charred and it's either you're cooking.

[Ed Gamble]

It whole right on the pokey. Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

And then I serve that with either Jersey Royals or. I think I know one of you is not a massive bald potato fan, but I love Jersey Royals. Or my father in law. Roger does this outstanding potato salad where he just puts white onion and garlic in the bottom and then builds up from there with par and potatoes and that. And just a crispy green salad is.

[James Acaster]

Just, I mean, I love the sound of that potato salad with it. Roger's potato salad.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

With your barbecued mackerel.

[Dermot O'Leary]

A lot of white pepper as well. Yeah, love white pepper.

[Ed Gamble]

The mackerel sounds amazing. Can I ask what barbecue you're using?

[Dermot O'Leary]

Well, good question. I've got two.

[Ed Gamble]

Okay.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Because I, I, I've got like a Weber, which I love. Although I don't know what's happened, but I'm off my game. I've gone somehow I can't retain heat and I don't know what I've done. I might just not be using enough alcohol, but I think I am.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

We're using as much as you used to.

[Dermot O'Leary]

I think so. I don't know. I've got one of those kind of. So I can get it done quick.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

I've got one of the big kind of chimney things. And then you pour, you pour it in. So maybe I'm just not putting enough in there, but it's killing me.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Come on, guys. What do you mean? We're down to 1 150. I'm a 200 guy. Come on.

[Ed Gamble]

Is it your ventilation? Do you need to, I don't think so. Clean out your vents?

[Dermot O'Leary]

Maybe I need to clean up my vents. And then for my 50th, my wife got me an egg.

[James Acaster]

What?

[Ed Gamble]

A big, A big green, Big green egg.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah. Which I love, but I'm still finding my way with.

[Ed Gamble]

I've got a Kamado Joe, which is a ceramic barbecue, and this is going to blow your mind. One of the attachments you can buy for it is a rotisserie attachment. So you want to look into the big green egg situation, because with the Kamado Joe, it's called the jotisserie. And you slot it in between the lid. Yeah, yeah. You slot it in between the lid and the main barbecue and put coals in half the barbecue. And then what I've done in the past is you then spike it on, put it there and plug it in and it just Turns it for you. But you only need the coals in half the thing. So I've done lamb and chicken before, actually, where I then wedge a foil tray of potatoes underneath. So you can do that?

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah, yeah, I know you can do that with an egg. I know you do, but I just haven't. I haven't used it enough yet.

[Ed Gamble]

You've got to do it. You've got to make your own rotisserie.

[James Acaster]

I know you like the sound of that. Rotisserie attachment.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Why have you got one here? Because you're our favorite guest.

[James Acaster]

That would be if. If Richard Bacon had collaborated with us on the format for this. That. That would be in there.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Acaster]

We give each guest.

[Dermot O'Leary]

How are you guys with. With whole fish? You good with whole fish?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, I mean, mackerel, they're quite small, but quite small bones in. In mackerel. Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Pretty good. Pretty easy to fill it back.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

And when it's cooked, it's quite. Because you just go straight down the spines. You can go to either way. I don't know if, you know, I had a fish restaurant in Brighton for seven years.

[James Acaster]

I didn't know this.

[Dermot O'Leary]

And, yeah, the sort of partner in one. It was like the most stressful seven years of my life. Literally. Yeah. Parts of it I absolutely loved and it was so exciting. But I would literally wake up every day and check my phone for the weather in Brighton. Like, we had five unbelievable years, really good years, and then we had two bad winters. And the bad winters just kill you, man. And it was a big building. I knew the game was up when I think we were snowing and the British ski team canceled their reservation. And I was like, well, if, then. Then we're really fucked up. But we, we. We sort of pride ourselves on being. And we. We won a couple awards, I think, down the years for being like, you know, sustainable. And we. So we had a great supplier who we only ever bought bycatch from. So we never. I think in the. In the years we were going, we did. We did fish and chips. Was quite a good sort of restaurant. Fish and chips, which was never. I don't think we ever used cod, I think.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, wow.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah, I think it was always. And I love cod, but, you know, it's just. I think it was always whatever they caught, we put on. It was a lot of fun. Like, you know, I look back at it sort of fondly mostly, you know, it's quite stressful.

[Ed Gamble]

Hospitality just seems so hard. So, I mean, especially at the moment. But it. Yeah, it seems like it's such a difficult.

[James Acaster]

I'm talking about opening a food court and these guys don't want to do it.

[Dermot O'Leary]

You should do it.

[Ed Gamble]

James wants to open a whole food court, though.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. But the three of us together, off menu, free food court.

[Ed Gamble]

The court of St. James is a great quarter.

[James Acaster]

St. James.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Would you rent the space, basically, or how would it work?

[Ed Gamble]

He's not thought about this. Damn it.

[James Acaster]

Just wait for something to come on the market.

[Ed Gamble]

There's no logistics gone into this thing.

[James Acaster]

And then we get a bunch of places we like and we set them all up in the food court. But they have like reduced versions of it of their menu and stuff. Just the greatest hits. Often stuff we've talked about on. Off menu. Yeah, Love some iconic stuff. And then we run that together of the best time.

[Ed Gamble]

How is it financially worth it for them? Slash us?

[James Acaster]

Oh, I mean, people come in, spend the money. I mean, I don't know how I have to spell this out to you.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. But it's the deal. You're working with pre existing businesses. It's, you know, people aren't really eating out anymore. James. It's a hard. It's a hard life. At the moment.

[Dermot O'Leary]

I'm on this.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

It's reopening the fish place.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Oh, there. Well, actually, I genuinely think if we'd had a smaller place.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Been a little hole in the wall that just done it like, so why we'd still be in business.

[James Acaster]

There you go. You could call it the small place spelled like the fish.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Your dream side dish.

[Ed Gamble]

Now you've got the. We're saying the potato salad and the green salad are part of the. The main. So, yeah, you've got an extra side here to play with.

[James Acaster]

Got them Banked.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Wow. That's banked.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Okay, so what Classified. Can I have roasted chicken as a side dish?

[James Acaster]

No.

[Ed Gamble]

Well, hang on.

[James Acaster]

Well, yeah, in a small enough dish.

[Dermot O'Leary]

I guess they're going to be straight up there in the food court. He says no, but actually, I bet.

[James Acaster]

We have let someone do something like that in the past.

[Ed Gamble]

I mean, if the thing is, it couldn't be. I. I don't think it could be a whole rotisserie chicken. I think it would have to be wing. A leg or a wing.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Oh, it can do a wing.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah. Wings.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Is that. What bit. Will you. If you're having a roast chicken at home, everyone's got their favorite bit. What are you going for first?

[Dermot O'Leary]

Well, that a turkey wing is genuine favorite bit of Christmas Day now because they're Massive.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

No one else wants them and I take them away like a cock. A spaniel in a corner. I would literally. And I do most of the cooking at house, so if I'm. By the time the turkey gets to the table, I've sort of. I'm pretty full because I've just had a turkey wing. And like, turkey wings are unbelievable. So I definitely say a wing. I also like brown meat, so I. So. But I like. I don't like it when the skin's, like, flabby. So I like to kind of like, it needs crisping up. So either. Or turn it upside down or. I'm still trying to work it out. Some days you do a roast chicken, it's like, I've absolutely nailed this. And some days, like, why is it a bit too sweaty on the bottom? Do you know what I mean? So, because I love the brown meat, but I like that. I love a crispy skin. You gotta have crispy skin.

[Ed Gamble]

Do you spatchcock?

[Dermot O'Leary]

I don't.

[James Acaster]

We don't usually ask guests such personal questions.

[Dermot O'Leary]

I'm glad you feel comfortable enough. I normally. If I do, it's pre bought.

[Ed Gamble]

Right. Okay.

[Dermot O'Leary]

So I'm allowed chicken. I can have something else.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, you're allowed chicken if you want chicken.

[James Acaster]

But if you want a rotisserie chicken wing, can have that as your side dish.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Okay. I tell you what I love. Spend a lot of time in Italy. Right. And I don't know how they do it, but like a parmesan, like aubergine parmesan. I have no idea how they make that as good as it is. I quite like aubergine.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Like, I'm. I'd rarely cook with them or, you know, I've got nothing against them, but. But how they make that. You're eating it going.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Are you sure there's no meat in this?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, it is. I mean, that dish is probably in my top 10 of absolute go to. That is incredible.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

I think having watched videos of it being made, a lot of it is just frying the. Out of the aubergine. I made it once.

[Dermot O'Leary]

It was good, but I just think. I think I. I didn't fry it hard enough.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

I think it's just loads of olive oil and really frying it from what I can work out.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

But it is so delicious.

[Dermot O'Leary]

I almost went with pasta as my. Yeah, I almost went like a catch of the pepe or a vongoli. Vongali. I love.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Hammy Hill chose that, did he? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Nice choice.

[James Acaster]

When a conversation start up and next time you bump into it. So the chicken wing, the rotisserie chicken or the aubergine parmesan or what you go, let's go.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Aubergine parmesan. We've talked enough about. Yeah, I feel like you've. Well, so I feel like, you know, you let me have my cake, I shouldn't eat it as well because if I. You've basically had me chicken and fish as a. Is a main. So I feel good about this. Thank you.

[James Acaster]

Dream drink.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Can I have stages?

[Ed Gamble]

Sure, yeah. Well, throughout. Throughout the meal. So let's go back to the first drinks.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Prawns. The prawns is a good pint of Guinness. Yeah, Guinness and prawns for me is just a. That's a marriage made in heaven.

[Ed Gamble]

And then you got two. You got two pints next to each other.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Exactly. Pint. A pint.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

And now I like beer as well, but I love. I don't like anything. I'm not a fan of pints of beer. So I've been going to Italy now for a long time and this and. And there's. There's a beer they've got down there in Puglia called Drea D R E H E R. You can't get it here. And it's. It's 4.7 and it's peasants beer, really. It's like. My mate, some of my mates down there kind of like turn the nose up at it, but I just love it. And it's just the most amazing fresh, ice cold beer with a. With. I love it with the rotisserie chicken or with a vongola even, or with pizza and stuff on there. But then if I'm going with the fish, I'm going white wine and I really. I've just finished doing a wine course in Berry Brothers and Rudd.

[James Acaster]

Oh, yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Which is a cracking wine course. Really good. My wife got it for my birthday.

[Ed Gamble]

Was it? Did you do the exam?

[Dermot O'Leary]

Carry it on? No, that's the next stage. I think I will. So I just need to find time. I really enjoyed it.

[Ed Gamble]

I'm doing. I'm doing a course.

[Dermot O'Leary]

How's it going?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, no, end of the month I'm doing it. I'm doing leads. It's three days. Yeah. Looking forward to this.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah, yeah. Have you cleared it with it?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, sorry. I'm doing a wine.

[Dermot O'Leary]

It's got a lot of investor meetings with food.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

And then if you get up to my.

[Ed Gamble]

Well, I'm going to be the smell.

[James Acaster]

You got to be in or not.

[Dermot O'Leary]

He's got the DA on his back. He's having a hard time of it.

[Ed Gamble]

I'm going to do my exams if I want to come. Come on board at the food.

[Dermot O'Leary]

So. Yeah, so. And a lot of it was like stuff I thought I knew anyway. And it's kind of stage. You're not going to learn kind of vintages and, you know, it's not that detailed. Yeah, but you. But I got a lot. In fact, there was. Every time he came in, there's this Berry Brothers do this unbelievable cheese and kind of cured hams or sausage plate with bread. And it's half past six, about half past six. I'm quite hungry normally and I sit down and bait and I just. I just cane it straight away. And then, and then about 20 minutes in, Victoria would go, now just have a little bit of cheese just to balance that.

[James Acaster]

Oh, no.

[Ed Gamble]

Every week this happens.

[Dermot O'Leary]

So I'm sorry. And I know there's a kind of like, people look down on that kind of New Zealand, kind of quite punchy South Blanc, but I really quite like it. I also love kind of wines that feel like they've been lashed from the sea. So I love Muscade, I love Alberina, I love this. I love that kind of west coast of Europe wine.

[Ed Gamble]

You know, there's, it's like Aetna or something like that or.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah, I really love, I love that kind of salinity.

[Ed Gamble]

Are we using the word salinity?

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah, you can even taste the salt in it. Yeah, I love, I like, I love muscadine, you know, Loire whites I really like. So, yeah, one of those guys, right?

[James Acaster]

So, yeah, that's something for each course. Yeah. You got your starter, you got your. Is the beer going anywhere in particular or is that just a shout out?

[Dermot O'Leary]

I've just handed it out to you guys so you can table beer. Just experience it.

[James Acaster]

Have a table beer. Yeah.

[Paige Desorbo]

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[James Acaster]

Dream dessert.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Well, this is hard because both of you looking at me going, it shouldn't be that hard. I love raspberries. Who doesn't? My son, I grew up in Colchester. One of my best mates, a strawberry farm farmer and he, he does. Jim, he does a great line in raspberry as well.

[Ed Gamble]

And actually Cockney gym.

[Dermot O'Leary]

No, Suffolk gym, where we're from in Ireland is like, if you say to people where you say to Irish people where you get strawberries from, they'll go Wexford. So I love, I love summer berries, but raspberries definitely my favorite. And when I was little we used to go camping up in Norfolk in place called Wells next the sea. I don't know if you guys have ever been out there.

[James Acaster]

It's beautiful.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Part of the world, right.

[James Acaster]

Slept in a car there.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Are you gigging up there or.

[James Acaster]

No, we weren't, we just, we just, we wanted to go on holiday there with our friends camping and we thought we'd stake it out first but mistimed our journey. We were, it was a bit late. We were like late teens. We was like, let's just sleep in the car. Yeah, so we did that. Got. Got moved on in the morning by a, by a copper.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Love that. Not many people stake out Norfolk because when you go in there, you are going there.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Yeah. But we were at that age. Matthew had just passed his driving test. We were driving everywhere, looking for any excuse to drive. Yeah. So we're like, great, let's drive there just to see if like, like we want to, you know, before we go there for this holiday. So we just wanted an excuse, so.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Right. Aren't you? I remember my, when I passed my test, my sister was studying in Sheffield and it'd be that end of term. I went, I'm gonna pick her up. Yeah. Now you'd be like, what? Yeah, drive to Sheffield. And it'd be like, I'm gonna stop a little chef.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

I gave up sugar that day. I remember I was going up to see my sister, pick her up and Stopped a Little Chef and I go, and someone said, do you want. How do you want your coffee? And that. Weirdly, I've had a coffee sugar in my coffee today because I feel a little bit. But on the. I was like, I'm not going to have any sugar, I'll take the pancake.

[Ed Gamble]

But that's a grown up moment. I'm trying. I'm driving. I'm in Little Chef.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Oh, man. Driving. The first, the first time when you're on your own is amazing, isn't it?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Just driving literally looking at other drivers going, I'm doing it too. You look. We're on the same road. It's amazing. But Norfolk. So we used to go up there, we used to camp. Me, my mum and dad and my sister. And there used to be a restaurant out there called Friar Tucks. And I can't remember too much about Friar Tucks other than the fact it did a Knickerbocker Glory and a Knickerbocker Glory. You get to a certain age and it is sort of frowned upon to order a Knickerbocker Glory. As a man, I think like you do order Knickerbocker Glory and I think people's respect goes down around the table. As in you kind of get this kind of indulged look where you go, oh, you're right, you're revisiting your youth or something. But it's not a grown up dessert. Yeah, there's a place in. And you can't find a good Knickerbocker Glory. There's a place in. Thanks, baby. There's place in town in London called 54 German Street. Okay. And it's the Fortnite Masons restaurants. Very lovely restaurant. I've only been a few times, but it's really nice. But what they do have is this unbelievable old school dessert menu. There's another place in North London I'm someone that's been on the show must have talked about before called Oslo Court. I don't know if you know, if you know.

[Ed Gamble]

No, I'm not sure.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Oslo Court was set up is an apartment block.

[Ed Gamble]

And I know, I think I know the place you're talking about. Right.

[Dermot O'Leary]

It's around the corner from Lords. So quite often if you go to the Cricket, it's a nice place to go show. But it's very huge neighborhood restaurant. And they've also got this incredible dessert trolley with this guy who's in charge of the dessert trolley. So I've been in there before with my mate Stocksee and Is it like super-70s looking? Oh, yeah. Everything's peach.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

And it's been run by the same family forever. And it's the. In this apartment block and you get, you get melba toast when you go in straight away. Like the tablecloths, the peach. The curtains are peach. The carpet, I think it's peachesque. But the food is absolutely fantastic. But it's quite, it's quite old school food as well. So it'd be like a Croxon Jacques or something like that, you know, or a crab Larochelle and, you know, so it's just marvelous. Kind of.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Kind of quite rich foods. Really good. I was there last time I was there I walked in and there's a concierge thing before. So you. So you go to the left, you go to all the apartments, you go to the right and you go to the restaurant and there was this old lovely kind looking lady who was at reception who was just talking to the concierge. And I was walking in and she saw me, went, excuse me, are you, Are you on television? And I said, yes. And she went, oh, awful show, Awful. I was like, I'm sorry, what? Oh, terrible, terrible program. Awful. I didn't stop to ask which one. If you find yourself clarifying.

[Ed Gamble]

Terrifying.

[Dermot O'Leary]

I was quite traumatized. And my mates came in and went, did you meet that old woman outside? And they went, yeah. I said, what'd she say to you? I said, what did she ask what we did? And what did you ask? What'd you say? And they said, we were working television. And she said to them, there's nothing on television. It's all.

[James Acaster]

I was like, what?

[Dermot O'Leary]

She's so angry.

[James Acaster]

She hates all television.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Make me feel slightly better.

[James Acaster]

So she hates all your programs? Which one?

[Dermot O'Leary]

At least she's consistent. But they do. I've had a nick of glory there. So Knickerbocker glory. Is this just this great fun dessert that I think if it's on, it's. You so rarely see. Yeah, yeah. If it's on the menu, you've got to go for it. And I was going to say eat a mess. And I love eating mess, but you can get. Eat a mess all the time. You can make it so easily. It's like people are coming around. Have we got raspberries, some meringue nests, bit of ice cream or cream or whatever, and some berries and some mint.

[Ed Gamble]

Smash it all up, it's done.

[Dermot O'Leary]

It's quite easy. Yeah, I'm a huge fan of a Pavlova or a Baked Alaska as well. Anything that involves that kind of. Yeah, right.

[James Acaster]

Baked Alaska's on the menu. It's getting ordered 100%. It's the rule. It's the rule.

[Dermot O'Leary]

100%.

[Ed Gamble]

We went out for lunch, it was my birthday last week and went out for lunch with my in laws and my mum and my wife and at the Woolsey. James. We had lunch the day after.

[Dermot O'Leary]

James.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

He wasn't invited to the.

[Ed Gamble]

We had lunch the day after.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. I had a birthday lunch with him.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. But there was a banana split on the dessert menu and my father in law got the banana split and I don't think I've ever seen him happier. Cause it was fucking massive.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Was it?

[Ed Gamble]

It was gigantic.

[Dermot O'Leary]

I was gonna say. Cause if you're in a restaurant and you're serving a banana split, especially a restaurant. I like the Worsley.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

It's got to be the real deal, isn't it? You can hide making a banana split. It's like banana ice cream, chocolate sauce. Yeah. So you know it's got to be. If it's going to be in a restaurant like that, it's got to be amazing.

[Ed Gamble]

It made an impact when it arrived at the table.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

He was absolutely delighted.

[Dermot O'Leary]

What's your favorite dessert guys? You. Because I was like, I was in two minds. I was like every now and again if you get a crepe suzette for example, I'm like when do you have a crepes?

[James Acaster]

Is that sure Delicious.

[Ed Gamble]

I'm a chalky boy. But I had a fantastic apple tart tatin recently. Yeah, really good. But no, I'll normally go if there's a chocolate thing on the menu I'm going chocolate based but tarte tatin.

[James Acaster]

I mean now you've put baked Alaska in my head. There's a place in Leeds called Ox Club. Ox Club. Do a different baked Alaska pretty much. Or every time I've been or sent friends there there's always a different flavor Baked Alaska on there. So there's always baked Alaska but it's always different each time. Different ice cream different. And it's always is 10 out of 10. So that's. You've put that in my head. That's the dessert I would like right now.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Good. Dessert menu's fantastic.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

My mum and dad live in. In the. From Wexford. Right. In Ireland and they live about three or four kilometers from the coast. And there's a restaurant down there called Mary Barry's. Mary Berries is just an institution in Wexford sort of anywhere in southern Ireland. So it's around the corner from big fishing port, so get great fish there. But then they'll just like. The special will be like, oh, it's turkey and ham roast. Well, okay. Well, I was gonna go for the place, but. Yeah. And then. But their dessert menu, like, they'll come up and go, this all, like dessert menu is. It's everything you need. All the Knickerbocker glories.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

And then every now and again they'll come up and go, the special say is a Rolo cheesecake. And you're like, who makes a Rolo cheesecake? This is incredible. When's the last time you had Knickerbocker Glory?

[Ed Gamble]

It'd be years ago.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Even the name is fun, isn't it?

[Ed Gamble]

You used to get Kabaka Glory. Yeah. Really good.

[James Acaster]

I found. Think probably when I was a kid and like I. Even then I probably still read more stories that reference Knickerbocker glories than I've actually had. Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah. You know, I think that's the universal truth. I think also I love the kind of. It takes an effort and it takes a long spoon. It's like you're like an anti love at the end of it, aren't you, with them on the Knickerbocker.

[Ed Gamble]

We just used to have one of those spoons in our house and I don't know where it came from.

[Dermot O'Leary]

So true.

[Ed Gamble]

I've got a long spoon.

[Dermot O'Leary]

One long spoon.

[Ed Gamble]

When did we find the spoon?

[Dermot O'Leary]

I need to start making. My son Nick is 4. I think he really appreciate Nick Glory. He loves ice.

[Ed Gamble]

I met your son at radio too. Yeah, he was romping about Casper.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Like he owned the place. It was brilliant. Just. I think Claudia was on air and he just worked. He just went into the studio with Claudia.

[Dermot O'Leary]

It's largely it. If Claudia's around, they've got this mutual loving. She's bought like half. His clothes are basically from Claudia Winkleman. Seriously. He's got a jacket.

[Ed Gamble]

Wearing a jacket with his name on the back.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Great.

[Ed Gamble]

I was going to ask if. If you're having a wine with dessert or. Or a cocktail to finish off the menu.

[Dermot O'Leary]

I like dessert wine, but I never ever order it. Like whenever I have it, I quite like it. But it's always quite. I always find it quite. It's so sweet and I'm. And I never like a little. I like a digestive, but I'm. I'd probably just have coffee, if I'm honest.

[Ed Gamble]

Have a coffee.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

No sugar.

[Ed Gamble]

No sugar.

[Dermot O'Leary]

You have sugar sugs with the, the, with the knickerbocker glory.

[James Acaster]

Sweet enough.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Get out of here with that. But I do like a little something. I did a show a couple of years ago with, well, about 10 years ago, Gordon Buchanan. Who you should get on here. That's amazing. Like wildlife cameraman, just the nicest guy you're ever going to meet.

[James Acaster]

We haven't had many wildlife cameramen on the podcast yet.

[Ed Gamble]

Almost none.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Such a lovely guy and he's so sort of well versed and well traveled and has eaten so much different food everywhere.

[Ed Gamble]

You know, not the wildlife though, right.

[Dermot O'Leary]

And Gordon had a show about 10 years ago called, I think it was called Wild Weekends or something. And basically it was in the UK and it was the year I did, I wasn't doing X Factor. And he called me up and said, listen, I've, you know, is there any wildlife you'd want to see? And I love the outdoors, you know, love camping, I love all that stuff, stuff you don't really get a chance to do that often. And I said, well, I'd love to, you know, I'd love to do is swim. I'd love to see basking sharks or whales somewhere within the uk. And he went, great, leave it with me. So we went up to sky and for like three, four days and, and we just hit the sweet spot. The weather was amazing. We saw first day, we saw like golden eagles and otters and seals and all of this. And we camped out on rum. That was the great night. We were kayaking and we caught my mackerel and the mackerel were like tuna, they were massive. And then we camped out that night on rum and only 30 people or something live on rum, so it's the next island along and, you know, got bitten by midgies and all this. But me and Gordon, cameraman, sound man of a night, got the mackerel. Gordon cooked up this kind of couscous.

[James Acaster]

I'm.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Now, I'm not the world's biggest couscous fan, but it was kind of like, you know, a bit of stock in it. It was really lovely fresh mackerel. And then he opened up a bottle of Talisker whiskey. And I really like whiskey, but I don't tend to drink an awful lot of it. And, and I think we're all sort of, of kind of brought up with it being, you know, terrible hangovers and all that sort of stuff. And actually he went, no, no, we don't. We have like, you drink it like coffee, you have like two and I just like afterwards, you know, as a. As a digestive, really, or just at the end of the food, and then we just sort of send you on your way to bed. And it totally changed how I looked at whiskey. And so now I really enjoy it. But I'll have. I'll never have more than two, and I'll just have one just to, like, sometimes just. Just, you know, the end of an evening or something, just to kind of. Kind of mellow it all away. It's really lovely. I mean, you know, over the course of, like, three days, the four of us drank this bottle, but it was just, you know, it wasn't drunk once. Yeah, it's just really lovely.

[Ed Gamble]

We can give you a little whiskey at the end of the.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Oh, thank you.

[James Acaster]

Send you to bed.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, send you to bed.

[James Acaster]

I need to mend you back to you now, please. See how you feel about it. You would like Perrier water? You would like.

[Dermot O'Leary]

I mean, I wasn't. Sparkling's fine. I don't mind where it's.

[Ed Gamble]

No, you got Perry with some light.

[James Acaster]

You would like soda bread and white bread. Problems with bread. You would like a pint of Norwegian prawns with white bread, mayo, lemon side salad, main course, barbecued mackerel with smoked paprika, butter. Oh, yeah, There's a pint of Guinness with that starter, actually. Thank you for picking me up on that. Barbecue mackerel with smoked paprika, butter Rogers potato salad, crispy green salad and wine. What was the wine again?

[Dermot O'Leary]

Anything West Coast European, kind of.

[James Acaster]

What?

[Dermot O'Leary]

Watch lav.

[Ed Gamble]

Well, you said. Yeah, that's what you said.

[James Acaster]

Aubergine parmigiano for your side drink. Oh, yeah, that's where Benito's written all the. All the drinks there.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Nice little table beer, gorgeous.

[James Acaster]

Oh, yeah. I think the Dreyer beer is your dream drink. And those other drinks are with those courses. And dessert. Knickerbocker glory from Oslo Court and a coffee, no sugar, and some whiskey to send you the.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, yeah, that's lovely.

[James Acaster]

That's pretty great.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Thanks, guys.

[James Acaster]

That sounds very tasty. Dermot, I. I think I most want to try the. The prawns because I haven't had a pint of Norwegian prawns. And if they're so good it makes you not want another prawn again from anywhere else.

[Dermot O'Leary]

100.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, I gotta try those prawns, baby.

[James Acaster]

Well done. Thank you so much for coming on. Is there any. Any X Factor contestant you wish was sharing this meal with?

[Dermot O'Leary]

Oh, that's a nice question.

[James Acaster]

One X Factor contest contestant Can I.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Have a judge or a contestant?

[James Acaster]

You seriously want one of the judges?

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah. Jersey's a world of fun. Yeah, yeah, if you want a good drinking buddy.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Nicole is pretty much as great as a camp. So, yeah, we did judge his houses once and we ended up in Nice and. And me and her got there the night before. We're staying in this like massive house and we had the chef and so the chef had cooked this kind of, you know, there's that sort of kind of job, isn't it? Traveling chef around Europe in the summer quite often. Who's this really sweet guy? And you know, I mean, I was kind of just tagging along, but then obviously he said, what do you want to eat, Nicole? And pick this menu and blah, blah. And then towards the end of night, she said, you don't have any port, do you? And the kind of color drained from this guy's face because he didn't have any port. He was like, you know, obviously, you know, serving Nicole Scherzinger, stunning and beautiful and funny and lovely and all this sort of stuff. And he went, oh, God, no, let me see what I can get. And he came back with this kind of bottle and he poured a glass of it and she's dried it. She went, oh my God, that's lovely. And he left it and it was cooking Sher. So we then proceeded to get shit faced on cooking sherry. And then she was like, we've got to find something else. So by this time this guy's gone home. So we are opening every cupboard in this house. So it's like an Airbnb. Massive Airbnb. So we're just like. He's like, I found some beer. She's just an absolute animal.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Dermot O'Leary]

And then so, you know, we have this great night and there's like four or five are staying there. We all go to bed. I wake up in the morning feeling, oh God, I'm gonna go down and have a swim, like in the sea and feel a lot better. I love swimming this. And I get up and I look out my window and she's literally just going like a 10 mile run. I'm like, wow, I hate you. How do you do? Yeah, Jersey.

[Ed Gamble]

She's there.

[James Acaster]

She's there for that.

[Dermot O'Leary]

And then if it's the contestant, then, I mean, let's go with Ryland. I mean, you know, you know that guy's going to ring the party.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, no brainer.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Wherever he goes.

[Ed Gamble]

Thank you so much for coming to the Dream restaurant. There we are. What a wonderful episode. With Dermot.

[James Acaster]

That was a delicious menu. Nice man, a wonderful man. And he didn't choose Cheerios so we didn't have to kick old Cheerio Leary out of the dream restaurant. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Boom.

[Ed Gamble]

Silence is golden is on you and Dave weekly on Mondays and all episodes are available to stream for free on younow.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Watch all of that. Watch all of that.

[Ed Gamble]

Watch all of that. I am on tour in New Zealand and Australia in June.

[James Acaster]

Very exciting. I'll miss you.

[Ed Gamble]

I'll miss you too, buddy. Edgamble.co.uk for tickets, buy some tickets. Come and see me in all the different places in New Zealand and Australia.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. 100%.

[Ed Gamble]

100%.

[James Acaster]

Benito just wants you all to know that he thinks about you all the time. All of you listeners. And you all mean a lot to him and you're always in his heart.

[Ed Gamble]

He holds you very close to his soul.

[James Acaster]

Yes.

[Ed Gamble]

Goodbye.

[James Acaster]

Goodbye, foreign.

[Paige Desorbo]

Hey, this is Paige Desorbo from Giggly Squad and this episode is brought to you by Nordstrom. Summer's here and with weekend getaways, celebrations and more on your calendar, Nordstrom has everything you need for your best dress season ever. From playful prints and breezy fabrics to 70s inspired looks and bright handbags. Discover new arrivals from your favorite brands like Reformation, Veronica Beard, Farm, Rio, Levi's and more. It's easy too, with free shipping and free returns in store order, pickup and more. Plus NordicLub members enjoy free 2 day shipping on thousands of items in select areas. Shop today in stores [e-mail] moms deserve our very best, especially on Mother's day. There's only one place I trust to deliver high quality mom Approved rose bouquets. 1-800-flowers.com this year, 1-800-Flowers wants to make sure all the mothers in your life get the best with double the roses for free. When you buy one dozen, they'll double your bouquet to two dozen roses. To claim the double roses offer, go to 1-800flowers.com acasta that's 1-800-flowers.com acast, the official florist of Mother's Day.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Hello there off menu listeners. It's me, Amy Gledhill, and you might remember me from my episode of Off.

[James Acaster]

Menu when I chose to have seaweed on mash. And I'll be taking no further questions.

[Dermot O'Leary]

And my name is Ian Smith and.

[James Acaster]

You may remember me from the one.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Line of dialogue I had in a non Broadcast Channel 4 pilot. Maybe you were in the studio audience at the time. Who can forget? But that's not what we're here to talk about no nor the news. Our podcast is coming back for series four and don't worry, it's not a boring news podcast.

[Paige Desorbo]

No way.

[Dermot O'Leary]

We're two northerners living in London and.

[Ed Gamble]

Every week we catch up on the.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Weirdest most bizarre local news from up north.

[James Acaster]

Things like woman in tears after spotting.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Spitting image of dead dog in bath mat Pure evil blackbird named Derek terrorizing Yorkshire village and attacking children and we're joined by special correspondence every week like you one and only Ed Gamble who you might have heard of.

[James Acaster]

You'll remember him from this podcast the one you're listening to now.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah he hosts it.

[James Acaster]

Yeah co host he was on my.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Episode of off menu.

[James Acaster]

Was he?

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah yeah yeah I think he was in the non Broadcast Channel 4 pilot I did as well.

[Paige Desorbo]

Oh he will have been he's a nice guy.

[Dermot O'Leary]

Yeah so that's Northern news starting next Thursday the 1st of May and then every Thursday after that. Join us.