Andrew Zimmern's Nonstop Road (and Food) Show

The star of TV’s ‘Bizarre Foods’ and dozens of other projects may be the fastest-moving man in showbiz. But he is frank about the toll his breakneck pace has taken.

WAYZATA, Minn. — On a warm August evening at an outdoor charity rock concert not far from Minneapolis, restlessness overtook Andrew Zimmern.

So he pushed through a cloud of cigar smoke, dodged a waiter handing out tuna tartare on edible spoons and charmed his way past a guard at the backstage fence. Somehow, he ended up on stage with Cheap Trick, screaming the group’s 1978 hit “Surrender” into a microphone, a Hamer “Gonna Raise Hell” Explorer guitar slung over his shoulder.

His deep need to stay in motion is apparent whether you’re a fan of his long-running Travel Channel show “Bizarre Foods With Andrew Zimmern,” one of his two million followers on Twitter and Instagram, or just a reporter along for the ride.

He drives his Audi too fast. He pulls his ball cap low and snakes through crowded restaurants to avoid fans seeking selfies. He hustles through airports like a sled dog with a cellphone.

Mr. Zimmern is on the road so often — on his way to make television about food or give a speech about food or tell business executives what to do about food — that his head hits his own pillow only about a third of the year. Even when he is home in Minneapolis, the city where he landed 26 years ago strung out, broke and with no options left but one more stint in rehab, he is so tightly scheduled he can’t find time to call up an old friend for dinner.

Still, without the grounding he finds in Minnesota, who knows what would have happened to this son of New York with a Vassar education and a taste for expensive furniture, guitars and disc golf?

“I’m always surprised at the number of people who don’t know who he is here,” said Adam Platt, the executive editor of Twin Cities Business, who edited Mr. Zimmern when he was a food writer for Mpls.St.Paul Magazine. “In the Midwest, and especially in Minnesota, there is a substantial community for whom food is simply fuel.”

A little anonymity is a good thing for a man who needs a security team when he travels to many of the 150 countries where his show appears. “I think if I were in New York or L.A., I’d be a lot more douchey,” Mr. Zimmern said.'>>>

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/11/dining/andrew-zimmern-profile.html?