Styling: Andie Redman. Photograph: Pål Hansen/The Observer
Poppadoms or bread? The secret ingredient. The Great Benito. The genie waiter. If any of that makes sense to you, then you might be responsible for one of the 120m downloads of the megahit food-comedy podcast Off Menu. For the past five years, comedians James Acaster and Ed Gamble have invited celebrity guests, including Florence Pugh, Jamie Oliver, Paul Mescal, Yotam Ottolenghi, Lily Allen and Miriam Margolyes, to visit their imaginary dream restaurant, where they discuss and then choose their all-time favourite starter, main, dessert, drinks and sundries. It is Desert Island Discs for dining, with a side serving of surreal humour.
“The first time we did a live episode, [comedian] Isy Suttie chose Thai red curry for her main, and there was a round of applause,” says Gamble, fresh from tucking into the meatballs for OFM’s photoshoot riffing on the Lady and the Tramp spaghetti scene. “So weird. If you didn’t know what this was, and you were just strolling past the Southbank Centre, and you heard someone go, ‘Thai red curry’, and everyone starts clapping …”
