Off Menu Podcast With Ed Gamble & James Acaster: the Best Episodes

The best podcast hosts are like friends, but better, because you’ll never have to go to their wedding and can click unsubscribe if they get weird. They’re company when you’re not dressed for company, officemates when you work from home, and family with a pause button.

Comedians Ed Gamble and James Acaster on the Off Menu podcast are especially good company because they’re funny gluttons. If they were family, they’d be brothers you’d come home from uni at Christmas to find have invented Revels Plus (a bag each of Revels, Malteasers, Minstrels, Sour Skittles and Munchies combined in a mixing bowl) and a game involving sofa cushions. In short, they’re good boys. A cheese boy and a dessert boy/genie who, alongside shadowy lever-puller the Great Benito, are the owner-operators of a dream restaurant that asks guests from Dan Aykroyd to Louis Theroux to name their dream starter, main, side dish, drink and dessert, in that order.

If you’ve yet to have the pleasure, do get involved with this pick of the finest Off Menu episodes so far. They’ve been expecting you for some time…

15. Jamie Oliver 

Throughout the Off Menu podcast, the hosts have many fanboy moments, but in the Jamie Oliver episode you can feel them bursting with excitement and awe (and not just because he brings them his dream starter to share). Through the swoons we get underpant recommendations, cookery tips and three men who just bloody love food having a lovely chat. You can tell how much of an influence Oliver has had on Acaster and Gamble’s food obsessions and it’s really sweet to be an audible witness to.

14. Kumail Nanjiani

One image endures from comedian-actor-writer Kumail Nanjiani’s dream menu: him as a baby loving biryani so much that he crawled inside a pan filled with it. It’s a family legend that never happened, apparently but a charming – if unhygienic – tableau.

This episode is here to represent Off Menu’s many American guests whose cool LA lifestyles contrast with Ed and James’ London fox-feeding, broccoli chorizo pasta chat. Added points for plenty of genie canon discussion and yearning for a pre-Ratatouille world where food has no emotional associations.

13. Jayde Adams

Fans will know why this recorded-in-lockdown episode is a must. It’s not just that comedian-actor-presenter Jayde Adams lives well and knows food. It’s not just because of the #jaydebangamash potato masher story, or the guest appearances from best pal Babs, or the special delivery of a dozen pairs of homemade pants midway through. It’s not even all the Heston Blumenthal chat or the anecdote about the gigantic prawn cocktail. The reason this one’s in the hall of fame is a first for the dream restaurant about which the genie and the maître d’ couldn’t be more delighted.

12. Richard E Grant

What a guest. The hosts are understandably excited about meeting national treasure Richard E Grant, who is on extremely good form here. He drops unprompted luvvie anecdotes (singing karaoke at Olivia Colman’s post-Oscars lock-in), plays along with their fantasy seagull nonsense, and outlines his monthly Christmas pudding habit in a way that makes you think this is a man who’s really got it together. There’s even a very interesting turn when Grant, apparently fascinated by the art of stand-up comedy, starts interviewing Ed and James and gets some real insights. Great work all round.

11. Miriam Margolyes

Every booking agent must punch the air when Miriam Margolyes is confirmed; whatever she’s appearing on, she never disappoints. Unsurprisingly knowing Miriam, the chat in this top-notch appearance jumps around and you never know what tangent she’ll go down next.

There’s no messing as she won’t stand for any of the lads’ nonsense; she chastises the boys for keeping it “below the waist” (even though she started it and continues it) but after all she’s a woman who likes ‘serious bread’ and eats onions like apples. In her episode the most dominant food is nothing she orders on her dream menu, but the cheese and onion sandwich that she’s munching – on-brand and brilliant.

10. Bridget Christie

Not only is the very funny Bridget Christie well able to outdo any strangeness James Acaster can throw her way (see: the Mr Tumnus menopause thermostat fantasy), her dream menu is surprisingly moving. What shines through it is Christie’s love for her family. Her courses are nostalgic and meaningful, the prize for a life lived well.

In addition to that, she’s also a lunatic with ant-like qualities who keeps her children’s umbilical cords in a box along with their discarded hair and teeth. Listen in for talk of spinach, egg-feathers, the existential threat posed by Turkish Delight, and the scarring time a mouse ran over her amniotic fluid. And did you know she’s 50? Don’t know if she mentioned it. 

9. Harry Hill

You can tell when a podcast host is blagging familiarity with a guest’s career, and this Christmas special is the opposite of that. James and Ed hang on every word from Harry Hill about his early days on the stand-up circuit and clearly know his material inside out. They’re delighted with the man and the result is just a lovely time had by all. We get clarinet impressions, Hill’s best chicken-related heckle comeback, spag vong, lots of Bake-Off, You’ve Been Framed! and TV Burp talk and so much genuine laughter this should probably place higher on this list come to think of it.

8. Alison Spittle

Irish stand up Alison Spittle was a joy on the podcast, not because of her food choices (which were pretty odd) but because she was completely and absolutely hilarious. During her appearance we learnt that ‘funeral’ is a soup flavour, there’s a global WhatsApp group for soup enthusiasts, there’s a limit to how many prawn crackers someone wants to eat when they are offered an unlimited supply, and a blended family can be brought together with a (to be honest weird sounding) Ainsley Harriott recipe. A completely bonkers and incredibly fun episode.

7. Greg Davies

There’s a sweet spot when it comes to comedians having their comedian mates on a podcast, and this is it. Maybe it’s because, although former tour-mates Ed Gamble and Greg Davies clearly know each other very well, their rapport is more al dente than soggy and overdone. This Christmas special is a great crossover for Taskmaster fans (see also: Alex Horne, another solid episode with somebody who couldn’t care less about food), characterised by easy camaraderie, funny anecdotes and weird behind-the-scenes details of life on a comedy tour.

Also: in his menu choice, Greg Davies does something so injurious to Ed Gamble that you can’t help but love the chaos. Betcha by golly, wow.

6. Kathy Burke

Kathy Burke had long been on the list of dream guests for Off Menu (or as she calls it the ‘Where’s Me Dinner’ podcast) and the dream came true for us all when she joined the (over the moon) hosts to share her choices. 

Naturally hilarious and completely charming, Kathy is hard not to fall in love with during the hour she spends with Gamble and Acaster. She knows what she likes and wants to cook all of her choices for herself (of course), doles out some brilliant anecdotes, moans about vegetarian menu choices of the past (including Gordon Ramsay’s rejected risotto) and sage advice (the invaluable “Ed…..some people are c*nts”).

5. Rylan Clark

Before going into this episode, it’s important to know that inside Off Menu is another podcast: investigatory true crime series ‘James Acaster v Celebrity Bake-Off: The Unravelling’. In it, Acaster lures in guests connected to his 2019 Bake-Off appearance under the guise of a normal episode, and then grills them for answers about his time on the show. (He’s unable to answer those questions himself because he’d taken leave of his senses during filming and still maintains that he was robbed of being awarded Star Baker despite serving soupy flapjacks and a solitary cream horn that dripped like a Dali clock in the Technical.) Rylan Clark being one of his competitors, this is Acaster’s chance to dig up the truth.

The truth is dug up, and with it, so many treasures. Number one is a live phone call with Rylan’s mum, who’s been stealing his lamps and checking the cupboards in his house for his chopped up corpse. Number two is the ‘falling on a hake’ incident that gave Rylan his fish phobia. The list goes on. It’s a very funny episode, the menu of which is totally irrelevant to your enjoyment.

4. Bob Mortimer

Usually, Off Menu guests are dragged along as passengers on Gamble and Acaster’s flights of fancy, but here, Bob Mortimer is the pilot, performing loop-the-loops of bizarreness that cover topics including meats (both pocket and car), desert scorpion hunts, Peter Beardsley, how a genie might affect play in a standard FA league match, and mystery fish fingers.

Bob’s food choices are largely driven by nostalgia (he misses the days when crisps were really a very dirty thing) and sodium content. He explains why sixteen sugars in a cup of tea is the right amount and seventeen would be too sweet, his appreciation of the Ginsters range, and the correct way to swirl condiments on a family member’s Odeon hot dog (with your finger). If you’ve enjoyed Mortimer on Taskmaster or Would I Lie to You, you’ll know both what to expect, and why this is a must-listen.

3. Michelle Keegan

Put simply, Acaster’s 2019 appearance on Celebrity Bake-Off changed the man (see above: Rylan Clark), and this beauty of an episode with Star Baker Michelle Keegan is our proof. Actor Keegan is a bread-loving delight who quickly tuned into her role as chief winder-up of James Acaster – always a rewarding dynamic. By the time she makes her dessert choice, all hell breaks loose and the result is glorious chaos.

Even before the cheese board schism, Keegan’s childhood memories provide a rich selection of ‘hang on, what?!’ befuddlement. Fence-hopping to scrounge food off the neighbours, eating leftover school dinners, bits boards, 2am ham toast snacking, everything coming with a slice of Warburtons (even her choice of wine is bread-related)… it’s a very fun, very carb heavy time. 

2. Ainsley Harriott

Human manifestation of joy Ainsley Harriott does not disappoint at the dream restaurant; there’s a lot of singing, constant belly laughs and a shedload of fun in truly one of the podcast’s best episodes. The boys describe Harriott as a huge part of both of their childhoods and you can feel how much they love him and are so happy to hang out with him. 

It’s no surprise that a man who coined ‘Susie salt and Percy pepper’, went viral with “why hello Jill!” and told us to “give your meat a good ol’ rub” is a soundbite-machine in this episode; he’s so entertaining you don’t notice while you’re listening how many actually useful food tips he’s doling out – such is the magic of Ainsley, he’s teaching us all through hilarious osmosis. 

1. Joe Thomas

If you came away from his stint on Taskmaster still not quite knowing who Joe Thomas is, then his Off Menu will tell you: the man’s an absolute mess. Where to begin? Thomas holds full conversations with himself, posing and answering his own questions, arguing with his violent inner monologue, flipping from hesitant and cerebral to absolutely enraged with zero requirement for outside input. It’s very, very funny, but you’re also left worrying whether he’s getting quite enough sleep.

This episode starts slow with a great deal of butter chat before building to a headline story involving a dead lamb, a local dad at a romantic time of year, and a hole in the back garden of a woman known only as Soft Touch. Then Willie and his Perfect Chocolate Christmas gets involved, the wheels come off, and somehow James Acaster emerges from it as the straight man. Weird, funny and unforgettable, the lamb story and Willie are now such a part of Off Menu lore they’ve even made a return visit for a 2020 Christmas special. A bonafide classic.

Honorable Munchions 

You also can’t go wrong with the water-averse Claudia Winkleman, the extremely patient Professor Brian Cox, the suave Stanley Tucci, Nicola Coughlan locking herself out of her flat mid-recording, David O’Doherty‘s seafood slaughter soup, and Tim ‘Shall I be mother?’ Key, to name just a few.

The Off Menu Podcast is available to stream on Spotify, Apple, Amazon Music and more.