It didn’t start with a business plan. It started with a fig.
Marcus was standing in a Roman market, sleep-deprived and mid-argument with a fruit vendor about how to tell if a fig is truly ripe. Adamo, passing by with a cloth bag full of anchovies and wild fennel, heard the exchange, stopped, and true to his Sardinian soul couldn’t resist stepping in. “You’re both wrong,” he said. “But at least you care.”
That’s how the first flavor trip began: not with perfection, but with passion.
Over espresso and figs, they swapped kitchen scars and stories. Marcus spoke of crab boils and curry leaves in Seattle; Adamo, of stone-baked breads and sea urchins eaten straight from the rocks. They didn’t know they’d become collaborators. Not yet.
Months later, in a heat-slicked alley behind a pop-up dinner in Austin, Marcus found himself arguing again—this time with a wiry, wild-eyed chef about whether it’s sacrilege to add miso to mole. That chef was David. Anthropologist by training, cook by obsession, he’d just served 30 people fermented cactus salad and grilled quail dusted with ground chapulines. By dessert, they were swapping WhatsApp numbers and fermentation techniques.
It was never about just food. It was about memory, migration, misunderstanding and the alchemy that happens when people stop trying to impress and start trying to connect.
Flavor Trips grew quietly. First, a long distance text thread of dishes they were testing. Then a three-way Zoom call about building a supper club where the menu changed with the winds and the stories changed with the cooks. Then a name. Then Wayfinder Table.
Now, their kitchens stretch from Seattle to San Lorenzo to Austin, but the table is one. They cook in different languages, but tell the same story: that flavor is a way of remembering, that food is the most generous kind of map, and that the best meals happen when you leave the recipe behind.
This is Flavor Trips. Come hungry.