823: Interpol’s Daniel Kessler: Guitarist, Restaurateur, Spanish Food Freak

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
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**Daniel Kessler** (1:08)
Seymour Stein is a legendary music industry figure. Just him and I were talking, we started talking about Brooklyn. I was like, my brother lived on Ocean Parkway in the 90s and blah, blah. He just starts singing the song about Ocean Parkway, and he has an angelic voice. He sounds amazing, and he's just singing to me in this really fancy restaurant by the Ocean Parkway.

**Matt Rodbard** (1:30)
This is TASTE. I'm your host, Matt Rodbard. Daniel Kessler is a guitarist and founding member of Interpol, one of New York's defining bands. He also helped build Bergen Hill, a beloved Carroll Gardens crudo bar he conceived from scratch with Ravi DeRossi, and quietly became a fixture of the city's cocktail and natural wine scene. On the eve of Interpol's eighth album, This Mirror Weighs a Ton, Kessler joins me to talk about what turned a late night bar regular into a serious eater, dining between Barcelona and the East Village, and we remember the early 2000s New York City food scene. I hope you enjoy this episode.
Daniel Kessler, welcome to This Is TASTE. It's great to see you.

**Daniel Kessler** (2:19)
Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

**Matt Rodbard** (2:20)
I think I interviewed the band 22 years ago.

**Daniel Kessler** (2:24)
Wow.

**Matt Rodbard** (2:24)
Antics, great album.

**Daniel Kessler** (2:25)
Thank you.

**Matt Rodbard** (2:26)
It was a cool conversation. It did well. Sold some copies.

**Daniel Kessler** (2:31)
OK, yeah. I said I remember it well.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:33)
Oh, you remember it well. Antics, I remember it well.

**Matt Rodbard** (2:35)
OK.
We could talk about music all day. We will get into a little bit of that, but I do want to talk about food and your deep connection with restaurants in New York and just your travels. You're obviously very interested in the culinary arts. But where do you, right now, in New York, when you're not on tour and not playing, what's your restaurant rotation?

**Daniel Kessler** (2:58)
I mean, I feel like I'm not as like, oh, what's the latest as I used to be, keeping up as though it's kind of exhausting and there's always so many things, besides things that catch your eye while walking about, which is cool.
So lately, I've probably just been going to old steadies that feel good, especially when you don't get to be home too often. You want to go places that make you feel good and have dishes that you love or reliable, or just like the room or something like that. So I go to Altra Paradiso a lot because I went there last night and it was great. And it's really just, I always feel great there and the dishes are just always on point. I go to Superiority Burger.

**Matt Rodbard** (3:37)
Now, you got me twisted.

**Daniel Kessler** (3:39)
I know, something about it.

**Matt Rodbard** (3:40)
Superiority Burger.

**Daniel Kessler** (3:41)
But I go there all the time. That place is kind of an amazing spot in so many ways. But there's also those dishes that are gonna be part of the establishment menu. But then the specials, like the yuba for sure. And the date shake, which is the greatest thing all the time.

**Matt Rodbard** (3:57)
Date shake is great.

**Daniel Kessler** (3:58)
I love that date shake.
But then there's also, oh, and also they have this like, I think it's like pumpkin, not butternut squash. I think it's like pumpkin puree. And then they have these, like I have a halloumi where you can get tofu, which I really like. This like deep fried tofu and it's really delicious and a little spice and it's just a unique sort of something that they could only create. But all their specials are always great. All the salads are always great. I find all the vegetables are in season that they get excited about from the farmers' markets.

**Matt Rodbard** (4:23)
Brooks is going over to the farmers' market every single day.

**Daniel Kessler** (4:25)
He's amazing. And then that place is also, you just look around. It's like, I feel like if you, it reminds me almost in that scene in The Usual Suspects when at the end of it, like the film when they're, spoiler alert, but in the film, they like look at the wall and they realize like all the things they've been pulling to put the story together, these little things. There's all the walls. There's like a thing that reminds me of something from a yester, New York, like a bit of a tangent, but like there's like a sign there for this fanzine store called See Here. And I hadn't thought about this store in a really long time until I saw the sign, but then it brought me back to being 18 years old, having just moved to New York. And it was a fanzine store that was like in the basement on.