Netflix travel show with a difference has filmed an episode in Ireland

New Yorker Phil Rosenthal presents a travel show with a difference on Netflix, ‘Somebody Feed Phil’. He’s just filmed an episode here, he talks to Ed Power.

Irish seaweed with a Japanese twist, Turkish brunch on the northside of Dublin and an up-close encounter with bees in east Cork were among the highlights when Netflix’s Phil Rosenthal brought his hit food and travel show to Ireland recently.

Somebody Feed Phil is a playful riff on the Anthony Bourdain culinary travelogue formula. Rosenthal, a successful producer whose big smash was the US sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, travels the world, making friends and breaking bread. Season one found him wandering the byways of Lisbon, New Orleans, Bangkok and elsewhere.

Now it’s Ireland’s turn, as he devotes an entire episode to the nation’s culinary scene. “I’d been to Ireland before — to Kinsale for a TV festival,” he says, from a bench in London’s Hyde Park.

“I thought the food was fantastic. We stopped in Dublin too. The dining all over was just wonderful. I’m also in love with the countryside. I’m a big fan of Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon, which was filmed in Ireland.”

Rosenthal’s visit to Ireland packs in its share of cliches. He says “top of the morning” in that American way and throws in a entirely un-ironic “faith and begorrah” at the end. He also hums the praises of boxty and fetches up at the Dublin visitor centre of a well-known conglomerate that sells a lot of stout. We are introduced to his ‘Irish’ wife who is perfectly charming but also 100% American. You’ll roll your eyes a few times.

“Those places... they are popular for a reason. I’m not a famous chef, I’m not even a travel expert,” he says of bunging-in of the occasional tourist-friendly stereotype. “I’m a tourist, like most of our audience. And I want to show them the greatest hits, in addition to the other things.”

The show improves immeasurably as he veers off the beaten path and stops saying “top of the morning”. A call to Dublin hipster eatery Brother Hubbard sees Rosenthal try the signature dish of Turkish Eggs Menemem, inspired by proprietor Garrett Fitzgerald’s time in Istanbul.

He also forages for seaweed with Sally McKenna, co-author of a well-regarded guide to Irish dining, and plunges into the freezing sea off Greystones, Co Wicklow, with perennially cheerful Happy Pear twins, David and Stephen Flynn.

Just as intriguingly, Rosenthal leaves behind the corporate beer and the boxty of Dublin to dine with Takashi Miyazaki, chef and owner of Miyazaki Japanese restaurant in Cork.

Miyazaki shares one of his signature dishes: sea-weed tempura, a creation that leaves Rosenthal as close to speechless as is probably possible for the chatterbox New Yorker. He proclaims that, despite sampling Japanese food around the world, he’s never had anything as innovative and intriguing.

“Seaweed in Ireland is delicious like nowhere else,” says Rosenthal. “[Miyazaki] is doing wonderful things with the local fish and seaweed. I had seaweed tempura at his restaurant and it was spectacular.”

While in Cork he stops for a pint (of Beamish) at The Oval on South Main Street and makes the pilgrimage to Ballymaloe in the east of the county. He met the founder of Ballymaloe, Myrtle Allen, who died in June.

“I had never been before,” he says. “I had heard about the reputation and I wanted to go. I got to meet Myrtle, before she was passed way. Darina showed me around. And Rachel came with me to the Japanese restaurant.”

In east Cork, he also embarks on a spot of insect husbandry. Beekeeping isn’t everybody’s idea of fun but Rosenthal looks especially spooked as he dons protective garb and visits a hive.

Fortunately, he has a gift for making sheer terror seem funny — plus, with Netflix’s endless resources, the sequence is, as with the rest of the episode, gorgeously shot.

One of the serious points Everybody Feed Phil makes is that Irish dining has become more confident and has learned to celebrate and promote its natural advantages.

“It’s something I’m noticing around the world — even in places that weren’t famous for their food,” says Rosenthal. “Maybe it’s because of the internet. Everyone has access to what everyone else is doing.

“A kid in Ireland can see what a chef in Paris or Los Angeles or New York is doing. The bar has been raised — people are realising the ingredients that are indigenous to where they are from are going to taste a lot better right there.”

Rosenthal (58) spent most of his career behind the camera. From Queens in New York he’s appeared in projects as diverse as Curb Your Enthusiasm, 30 Rock and The Simpsons Movie (in which he is credited as a father speaking on TV).

His big success, however, was Everybody Love Raymond. Though it never had much of a profile in Ireland, in the US it was a phenomenon, running for nine seasons and inspiring remakes in Egypt, Russia, India, the Netherlands and very nearly the UK, where a pilot starring Lee Mack and Catherine Tate, entitled The Smiths, was filmed by the BBC.

He’s done well out of ‘Raymond’, which has been sold into syndication in the US. Still, despite an estimated net worth of $75 million, Rosenthal isn’t one for just sitting back on his laurels. When the smoke cleared, he was determined his next project would combine his love for travel and his passion for communicating.

“I love every aspect of show-business,” he says.

“In college I was a theatre major. I got a very well-rounded education in everything from performing to writing, directing and production. On Somebody Feed Phil, I get to utilise all I know about show business, the stuff I learned in my years running Everybody Loves Raymond. Everything I adore about show business, I put in service of everything I adore in life — family, friends, food, travel, humour. This might be the pinnacle of my silly existence.”

Somebody Feed Phil feels like a playful riff on the formula pioneered by the late Anthony Bourdain, who died by suicide last month. That was more or less how Rosenthal pitched it to Netflix.

“He revitalised an entire genre,” he says of Bourdain. “He brought his life and experience to this type of show and was a tremendous influence on all of us.

He was, in fact, a tremendous influence on anyone who travels or eats. The way I sold the Somebody Feed Phil was by saying, ‘I’m exactly like Anthony Bourdain — if he was afraid of everything’.”

And though he is of course passionate about food Rosenthal believes the ultimate message of the series goes beyond the culinary realm. “It’s a show about human connection disguised as a food and travel show. I’m using food and humour to hook you and get you to travel. There’s no more mind expanding thing that we can do in life.”

Somebody Feed Phil series two begins on Netflix today.