Las Vegas Weekly

‘Evil cherub’ Andrew Zimmern talks Las Vegas dining and slamming doors

The host of Travel Channel’s ‘Bizarre Foods’ was in town filming his 100th episode

Travel Channel host Andrew Zimmern has a soft spot for Las Vegas. He’s not so bad himself.

Photo: Sarah Feldberg

He’s dined on wildebeest in Namibia, cow’s urine in Goa, tarantulas in Cambodia and … caviar hand rolls in Las Vegas? Andrew Zimmern, host of Travel Channel’s Bizarre Foods and Bizarre Foods America, was in Vegas recently filming his 100th episode with a culinary tour of our best and oddest local bites. The Weekly checked in with the chef-turned-TV-personality on set at the Cosmopolitan to hear about his higher mission, his rougher past and why he loves Las Vegas so damn much.

How has Las Vegas treated you?

I love it here. It’s a great city. I’ve been coming here almost every year for 30 years, and there’s a maturity about the town right now. … What I’m saying in the show is, [there] has really been a growth in the city that you can’t help but admire. … I know privately—and it’s kind of inside baseball, but it’s fascinating—if you were a famous chef in New York you would have your No. 2 guy with you in New York so you could have the days off and the No. 3 guy would run the satellite restaurant out here. Now you have your best people out here, because you have to. Everyone always famously says the hotels throw all this money at the chefs. The hotels now are interviewing chefs. You’ve got to come with financing to play ball. The competitive environment has spawned a maturity in the food scene here that is emblematic of the city.

What brought you back here so much?

First of all, there were always food conferences. ... When I was in my late 20s, friends were out here and every year someone was doing a destination wedding in Las Vegas. It is the wedding capital of the world.

There was a period in my life—I’m an adorable cuddly married old man right now, I’m sort of an evil cherub—but there was a period in my life when I was a very bad, naughty man, and Vegas was the perfect place for me during the worst parts of my life. And I’ve had some fantastic parts of my life here. … There’s an allure here that most cities don’t have. There’s also a personality to this city that a lot of places don’t have. I live in Minneapolis right now—I love it there—we don’t have the personality that Vegas has.

Are you getting off-Strip?

I’ve done Raku. I’ve done Lotus of Siam. I think those are the two iconic, hidden chef gems—the places that food guys have been going for a long, long time together.

What’s something you’ve eaten in Vegas that is really going to stick with you?

That’s a really tough question. I mean, Masa flew in from Japan to stand in the kitchen, make me a couple of little tidbits and then flew to New York that night.

You’ve got juice, as they say in Vegas.

That’s pretty special. Paul Bartolotta is a friend of mine, but he still spent days with us and gave us access to things I’ve only dreamed about. I had my second meal there, technically my third, I guess, and it blew me away again. It’s one of the best restaurants in the world. … So it’s hard to balance that out, however, most people who know my show and know me would not be surprised to find out I was even more impressed by what I had at Raku and Lotus of Siam than standing with my friend Hubert Keller in his kitchen and having him make me a Fleur Burger. Now that was not even close, the best burger experience I’ve ever had—Hubert cooked it himself; it was an insane experience—[but] it’s still drinking the [Lotus of Siam’s] Chutima family’s bowl of dried fish soup. And I’m not trying to play it to the Andrew Zimmern cliché; I still don’t know how they did it.

With Bizarre Foods America, are you finding as much bizarre here?

Always. I mean, I don’t know what’s bizarre to you. How do you define that?

I probably have a pretty high tolerance for what I would consider relatively normal.

What’s normal?

Offal is normal.

It is now. In America we lost it for a generation or two. Our show we use some of the fantastical nature of some of the food as an excuse to be on television. I don’t mean that in the selfish sort of more horrific nature, abusive nature of that word. My higher mission is that in a world where we’re always defining ourselves by our differences we ought to start defining ourselves by the things we have in common as our world shrinks. We owe it to ourselves to grow to understand each other. The best way to that is, there’s some stuff that we all can agree on. We all love Adele, right? Math’s a universal. I think food is universal, too. So even if it’s shocking that some people eat grilled wild bats, there’s something about seeing a family tuck into them with gusto half way around the world where there’s a part of you that’s like, hmmm. If we can be a little more understanding of that, I think we’re in a lot better shape.

When I watch your show, you come off more as a cultural anthropologist than as a chef.

I use food as a lens to take a look at how a place looks and feels and why it behaves how it does historically and currently. It’s kinda like I’m a culinary cultural anthropologist. … I’ve had a chance, through my show, to be with … tribes of people that some career anthropology chairs spend a lifetime trying to get to all three. And we’ve nailed them in pretty short order.

Overcoming those cultural differences and the language barrier must be one of the most rewarding parts of your show. When you’re doing Bizarre Foods America, what changes filming on your home turf?

I’m more curious about what’s going on in my own backyard, and Americans are more suspicious of why you’re standing there with a TV camera. I mean, we’re whores for publicity in this country. We’ll walk down the street in a big city or a small town and everybody’s like, “I want to be the next pregnant teen mom rock star singer” whatever the current thing is. It’s wild. But when I’m in the middle of the rainforest and we’re the only people around, there’s a caring and concern for us. … It may take us a day or two to prove our worth to the tribe in whatever way to be understood, but we can get there.

When we’re in a neighborhood in the Vietnamese community in New Orleans that is the largest one of its type outside of Vietnam, the shades go down and they understand: This is America, we don’t need to talk to you. We can just live our lives. It’s not that they’re not friendly; it’s just that they’re inherently a couple more steps that need to be taken when everybody here is a little more nervous about getting Borat-ed and they’re afraid about people using them for stereotypes. … When you go into rural west Virginia they slam the door in your face because they don’t want the media to portray their hillbilly stereotypes as something that they aren’t. You have to earn their trust. We’ve spent more time in the hollers of Tennessee trying to convince people to talk to us than we have in the jungles of Africa.

Did you anticipate those challenges?

I think we never considered it or cared. I certainly don’t care. I think what’s most fascinating is to have been out on the road for five years and then come back to the United States and spend a year exploring neighborhoods. The reason that people find it more exciting, is that you know when you turn on the TV and you say, “Oh Andrew is in Botswana,” that it’s going to be kinda out there. When it’s like, “Oh Andrew’s in Detroit,” what’s he going to find there? What’s interesting? And I think we’re curious about what goes on in our neighbors’ houses.

What’s next? Are there going to be more Bizarre Food America seasons?

We’ll see. You know, I will work for food. … Every year is a different year and a different time, and the network is reinventing itself. I know I’m going to be on television for a long time with them. I think the fascinating thing about it from a business standpoint is I think by the time this season is over it will have never been more popular. So how could they not do more? It could be a mix. Who knows? Bizarre Foods Canada?

When you’re just at home relaxing, what’s comfort food?

My wife’s roast chicken. It’s well seasoned, but she stuffs the cavity with lemon and herbs, a lot of lemon, and I love that. It’s just dripping in butter and tarragon and the fat is crispy. And she does these potatoes that she shaves paper-thin, and she layers them with herbs and bakes them so they’re like little mille-feuille. Yea, it’s good. And then my kid complains that the broccoli is too hard or the broccoli is too soft …