Searching for a Hidden Gem Restaurant? Phil Rosenthal Says This Is How to Find Great Food While You Travel

Planning where to eat on vacation can be daunting. If you only have a few days in a new city — let alone country — how can you begin to decide how you should spend your limited time, money, and stomach space?

When it comes to exploring new places through delicious bites, few people are as experienced as Phil Rosenthal. The television writer and producer has been hosting Somebody Feed Phil since 2018, a show that takes him all over the world to experience diverse food cultures. What makes Rosenthal’s travels so relatable is that he isn’t a professional chef; he’s just another food lover, like so many of us, who wants to learn about and taste new dishes from across the globe. 

In anticipation of Phil Rosenthal’s appearance at the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen this summer, where he’ll be screening an episode of his show alongside our editor in chief, Hunter Lewis, the documentarian shared some of his essential tips for how to research and plan where you’re going to eat while traveling, so you can fend off your decision paralysis and feel confident that you’ll have a delicious trip, no matter where you go.

Cross-reference your resources

Rosenthal confirms that there is no single, magical resource for determining where to eat while traveling abroad. Instead, he starts his research like the rest of us, using Google. However, just because reviews on Yelp suggest that a restaurant is worth a detour doesn’t guarantee it will be great. So the television host recommends that you cross-reference any recommendation you find.

“You just don’t go by one recommendation. You cross-reference,” he tells Food & Wine. “You start to see… What did the local papers say? What did the other magazines — who are professionals, who tried everything — what do they say?” He also notes that this is especially important in the age of social media, when many consumers source food and drink recommendations from viral videos. 

However, just because something looks delicious in a quick clip doesn’t mean it will deliver in person. According to Rosenthal, you should verify via multiple sources of recommendation that a restaurant, bar, or other eatery is worth your time before adding it to the itinerary.

Leave room for serendipity

To be clear, researching where to eat while traveling is good. And when you do it, you should cross-reference your recommendations. However, one important caveat is that you shouldn’t overdo your research. If you’ve pre-determined every breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack, you may miss out on places that look delicious at the moment or that a local recommends to you.

“This is something that I have taken to heart in my own personal life when I travel,” Rosenthal says. “Yes, have the key reservations for the places you don’t want to miss, but leave room in your schedule — just like we do on the show — for serendipity, for stuff to happen when you’re there. 

“And you’ll often see that in the show, where we suddenly get a tip from someone on the street maybe, or we’re just passing something and go in. I love doing that. And sometimes those are the most wonderful finds.”

Look beyond restaurants

Dining at a restaurant is, of course, how you’ll enjoy most meals while traveling. However, there are often many facets of a locale’s food culture that can’t be conveyed solely through a traditional restaurant meal. Visit a food court to sample a variety of dishes and seek out communal meals with new people whenever possible. If you have access to a kitchen, buy ingredients at a market and experiment with cooking them yourself.

For example, if you’re in Georgia — the country, not the state — befriend locals, and you might be invited to a supra, a traditional feast that features a table completely covered in different dishes and plenty of bottles of local orange wine. Although it’s less traditional, visitors can buy tickets to some supras through platforms like Tripadvisor. 

Or, as Rosenthal points out, “If you love cooking, why wouldn’t you take a cooking class? You’re going to come home not just with the knowledge of the culture, but with the knowledge of how to make this at home if you want.” Taking a cooking class is an excellent way to gain a deeper understanding of the ingredients and techniques involved in a dish, expanding your knowledge beyond just the flavor of the finished item. It will also enable you to impress everyone with some new cooking skills when you return home.