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Hello and welcome to Table Talk, the Spectator's Food and Drink Podcast.

I'm Lara Prendergast, and today I'm delighted to be joined by Michael Z.

An author and cook, Michael, is the creator of Symmetry Breakfast,

which started out as an Instagram account before amassing over 670,000 followers and becoming one of the most popular food books of 2016.

He's now based in Italy and known for his particular brand of British Chinese fusion food.

His third book, Zau Fan, Breakfast of China, is out now.

Michael, welcome to Table Talk.

Fantastic, it's my absolute pleasure.

Michael, we always start at the beginning.

What are your earliest memories of food?

I actually have quite a lot of memories of food from when I was very, very young.

I actually grew up in chippies and takeaways and Chinese restaurants that my family had long before I was born.

And so I remember summer holidays spent working in a chippy in Liverpool.

I remember going to Chinese supermarkets.

But then I also remember going to my mother's side of the family in Scotland

and the sort of, you know, Nouvelle cuisine that the Glaswegians love so much, sort of like,

you know, iron brew and pizza crunch and all these things. I've really strong memories of my

grandmother's coconut cake. Yeah, so it's a very eclectic mix of things. I think food was always, I wouldn't say

it was necessarily a super celebrated part of my childhood. It was just always there.

And your grandfather, I think I'm right and saying, ran a restaurant in Liverpool,

and I think you helped out in your

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