How to Eat Like a Top Chef When You Travel!!

The Chef's Cut - Level Media

This episode of The Chef's Cut shares insider tips for finding exceptional dining experiences while traveling, emphasizing local insights, neighborhood selection, and authentic food culture over tourist traps. Hosts disc

Key takeaways

• Book key meals in advance for popular cities

Transcript preview

Today on the air. We're going to be here. We are talking about summer time travel. There are so many underrated food cities out there are so many underrated food cities out there. How to find great restaurants in any city no matter where you're going. If you book an air b and b whether or not you should book that food tour. Look for the smaller ones. Smaller ones. Put the private ones worth the money. Like an off the beaten path kind of thing. But first, Chef's Cut Nation, you know what time it is. We need 10 seconds of your day. Please go in to rate and review the show wherever you get your pods. It really, really helps. summer we're having it. I think one of the things we got to talk about is a lot of people travel for the summer right chefs included and so people ask us a lot about like how how do we pick where we eat when we get yeah right yeah and I think when we travel professionally a lot of times you know things are set up for us but when we get our personal time like when you're traveling just for you when it's you know AG's time off and she's going once you pick that city like what do you start looking into of like where you want to you get into it. Because obviously we're looking at restaurants. But like how do you begin? Like let's say, you know, I'm like, all right, you know, Stephen comes up tomorrow and is like, hey, I booked us a trip. We're going to Stockholm for five days. Right, right. Which knowing him that could happen. Like where are you starting once you get that information? Stephen is a planner and I am not. I'd like to kind of walk around a city. But that doesn't always work out because when I'm walking around the city, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, get referrals from talking to people but then the restaurants booked. So I've started to become a little bit more of a planner. So once we find out the city and there are so many underrated food cities out there domestically abroad in the US I think Philly it's blown up recently but for the past 10 years I've been telling people that Philly is one of the best food cities in the US. It's starting to get that love and Lisbon also. So we'll start with a city. and then say we're there for seven days. We will book at least four meals, maybe two lunches, two dinners, and we'll kind of leave a few things up to like the walk around. Because we are walkers. Hold on. Before you get into that, are we booking a hotel or are we booking an Airbnb? Ah, okay. If it's just the two of us and it's under a week, it's a hotel. If it's over a week, or if it's over a week, or if we're meeting up with friends, or family, then it's going to be an Airbnb. Like I'm here in France in the south of France for two months for work. So I'm at an Airbnb. Yeah. Because you don't want to live at a hotel for two months. Like you need to be able to cook and have some groceries. You know what I mean? So it's because it's interesting to me. It's like I was always in the Airbnb person whenever like, you know when we were younger when we go abroad. And I think the funny thing for me now is like now that I have kids, the air being b and b because like a hotel is a night so if it's just like me and hill traveling it's like the hotel now is like we're like when I went to you know Paris when I was 30 we're like oh it'll be so cool to have like you know a little like rented apartment in Paris and will feel so Paris and we'll sit on the balcony and smoke cigarettes and drink wine you know what I mean eat local past Exactly. And I can go downstairs and get a glass of wine, bring it back up to my room, somebody will make the sheet, somebody will make the bed change the towels. I'll leave that glass and it just disappears. I'm not going to put it in a dishwasher. I'm not going to take it out. I don't want to be. That is the luxury. Like, it just goes away like magic. Yes. Like, so it's interesting to me, it's like, which I never thought I would be. both team hotel right now for this for this less than a week just me and Stephen hotel all the way 100% now when Adrian Cheatham books a hotel what's she looking for do you pick a type of hotel first or do you pick area first find the hotel in the area you want sometimes it starts with the type of hotel because yes I'm a rewards person and I love to get my rewards travel so sometimes it does start with the But in a lot of cities it starts with the neighborhood because I do want to be able to walk I don't want to have to take cabs everywhere right and you know even internationally Uber is is pretty extensive nowadays so like even here in the south of France I can take Uber's like it's not a big deal But I do want to be able to walk to town on my day off I want to be able or if I'm traveling I have downtime I want to be able to walk around an area that people frequent. So I want nothing too touristy, but I like a mix of touristy and local. I like those kind of neighborhoods that offer coffee shops, restaurants, or they come alive at night time with wine bars and restaurants. So that's what I'm looking for is something that I don't have to take a taxi every time I want to go out in the city. I want to be able to find an area that's happening enough that I can have stuff to do near my hotel. Yeah, I agree. I'm very much like the area and then like find the hotel around. Right. So like in Rome for instance I know I love staying around where the Campo Fiore market is because the Campo Fiore market is very lively in the morning, very lively at night. There's great bakeries around at cafes, bars, restaurants, right? So but it's also really centrally located where it's like you're not far from the other markets, you know what I mean if you want to walk to those which when I'm there that's really important to me. It's. It's not far. It's not far. It's not far. It's not far. It's not far. It's not far. It's not far. It's not and trust ever you could walk to you know pretty much everything right and that's what I love when I'm there I want to walk around a city I want to look at the buildings and pretend like I know something about architecture even though I know absolutely nothing you know I mean just like oh is that post-gothic I don't know it could be but like that for me is like so important is like the area and then I'm like because I'm like you know whatever for a hotel like you know it's like I want a nice enough hotel like you know it's like I want that I want that not like a hotel. Like I've traveled with people who are like they you know need the best hotel. Yeah I'm like I need I need it to be clean right and that's about it especially like if I'm traveling with you know with Hill it'll be a little bit nicer but if I'm traveling by myself I'm like I don't care right I'm an animal as long as it's in a good area and that's like so in Paris because I go to Paris like four or five times a year for work and I was staying in different neighborhoods every time and Joe I'm month. Erron desmal. Errol desmal. So I would stay in a different Erondisse Mall every time and I finally found one that I loved and it's got my two favorite restaurants in Paris. Freddie's which is like a wine bar, small plates kind of place. And then Machama Bailey's restaurant in Paris called Leourette is in the same area. It's in St. Germain, the sixth and they're 10 minutes from each other. So I usually stay at a hotel near there. because when I get off of work, like I want to be able to walk to a restaurant to grab a glass of wine. Maybe if my shama's in town, I'll see her and we'll hang out and have a glass of wine. And it's also a seven minute walk to the Grandipicere, which is the big grocery store that I do a lot of my shopping at. So it's like the perfect location. There's cafes in the morning, there's bakeries. And then it comes alive at night, too. So it's got like the best of both world. that come to that neighborhood so I can get the train anywhere in the city if I'm staying in the six. Yeah and I feel like this is like my kind of like low-key like if I don't know like where I begin because it's like there's so much information about restaurants out there right bars and everything everything right but I feel like I will look up like the best coffee shops in the city especially when I went to Paris because like Paris Paris The French, I don't know what they have going on. But, however, before I went there, a friend of mine who had worked in Paris told me, he said, if you want good coffee in Paris, the only place you're going to find it is, he goes, the best coffee shops are all run by Australians. So I Google Australian coffee shops Paris, and I found a neighborhood where there was two. I think it was the 19th is where we stayed. And so I was like, my coffee in the morning wherever I am. Like being able to do that is such a treat for me. So here's the question when you're going to a city whether it's for work or for personal travel. How do you decide what restaurants to go to? Are you looking at the list that are out there? Are you getting references like what is the Joe method for finding good restaurants when you travel? different cities. I'd say the first thing I do is if I know anyone in that city that's my first stop right that's my first stop is I'm gonna text them and be like hey I'm coming out I want to come see you where else should I go and I feel like if I do that if it's you know I mean they're gonna give me three days of stuff because I get that question all the time people send me a text they'll be like hey I'm coming to Chicago I want to come have you know dinner at Rosemary or Choirchau for or tutteotte or tutteutto or tutte or tutte or tutte or tutte or tutte or tutte or tutte or tutte whatever whatever whatever whatever whatever whatever whatever. ask them is where you staying. Yeah. So once they tell me where they're staying I'll be like okay these are the places you should go. So like first if I have any sort of contact in that city I'm gonna flush that out first if I know anyone who lives there even if it's like a friend of a friend I'll hit somebody up or if like one of our friends like if you know like obviously you don't live in Paris but if I was going to Paris right now.