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Susmita Baral
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The longtime traveler always asks locals one simple question: “Where do you eat after work?”
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(jpeg)/TAL-header-andrew-zimmern-ZIMMERNFOODEX1026-83ce071d03df431b9963db740d097a23.jpg "Andrew Zimmern attends the Asian Night Market during the 2025 South Beach Wine & Food Festival on February 23, 2025 in Miami Beach, Florida.Credit: Jason Koerner/Getty Images")
Andrew Zimmern attends the Asian Night Market during the 2025 South Beach Wine & Food Festival on February 23, 2025 in Miami Beach, Florida.
Credit: Jason Koerner/Getty Images
In Cayey, Puerto Rico, there’s a small mountain neighborhood called Guavate where weekends turn into an all-day party. Bands play along the streets as locals drink, dance, and make their way from vendor to vendor, stopping for bites along the way. At the center of it all is a legendary Puerto Rican hog roast—one of Andrew Zimmern’s favorite food experiences to date.
The festivities are a fitting example of one of Zimmern’s biggest culinary hot takes: the best meals you have when you travel won’t require a reservation. “The 20 most incredible food experiences I’ve ever had have either not been in those types of restaurants or not been in restaurants at all—but are things that everyone can participate in,” he says.
Take what Zimmern calls “the most incredible restaurant I’ve ever been to.” It’s Badjao Seafront Restaurant, a spot in Palawan, the Philippines, which he walked along a stilted walkway over the water to reach. The menu changes according to what local fishermen and vendors bring in that day—essentially, it’s the catch of the hour. Some days, there’s lobster and shellfish; on others, tuna collars and whole fish dishes.
More recently, Zimmern’s travels took him to Busan, South Korea, where he visited Jagalchi Market. There, he bought an entire Canadian king crab for about $90—a fraction of what he says a comparable crab would cost at a New York City restaurant—and had it prepared upstairs. Is it fine dining? No. Is it in any Michelin guides? Also no. But it’s the kind of meal that has stayed with him, and one he counts among his fondest dining experiences.
That’s not to say Zimmern has anything against restaurants that take reservations—or that they shouldn’t make your itinerary. Rather, he wants to challenge the assumption that a reservation automatically makes a restaurant more legitimate. “I think people are under the mistaken impression that if a restaurant has a reservation system and takes them, that somehow it’s better than a place that doesn’t, or safer, or more legitimate, or in some way superior—and that’s just not the case,” he says.
His broader travel philosophy is simple: eat as the locals do. “I want to eat where the people in that town, village, or city go for the best food.”
For Zimmern, the search begins well before a trip. He follows local chefs and independent food writers, building lists around the places they frequent and recommend. “I’m one of those people that ask everyone … I love the detective work of it.”
Once he arrives, he asks locals where they eat—and pushes past the obvious answers in search of the places they actually love. “You just have to make sure that you say no to their first suggestion because they want you to go to a place that they think is more fit for tourists.”
His go-to question is straightforward: “Where do you eat after work?”
But he also leaves plenty of room for spontaneity. When Zimmern is considering walking into a restaurant on a whim, he looks for happy workers and customers, listens for the sounds of people enjoying themselves, and pays attention to how the place smells. “If they do not have happy workers and customers, I do not eat there.”
That passion for culinary discovery has also shaped Zimmern’s curated trips, which grew out of the same all-consuming research he does for his own travels. “I do two or three trips a year. I’m obsessive about them,” he says. “We also want to take them to great restaurants. We want them to see the great sights and sounds and smells. My curated trips are guaranteed to show you the best of a place and I want people to leave there saying, ‘That was an incredible, incredible journey.’”
For all his emphasis on getting off the beaten path and avoiding reservations, Zimmern isn’t suggesting travelers skip the classics. In fact, he suggests travelers stay on the beaten path if that’s what they want. “If it’s somebody’s first time in Paris, show them the Eiffel Tower,” he says. “It doesn’t matter if it’s touristy, right? Show them the f***ing Eiffel Tower.”
Andrew Zimmern attends the Asian Night Market during the 2025 South Beach Wine & Food Festival on February 23, 2025 in Miami Beach, Florida.
Credit: Jason Koerner/Getty Images
In Cayey, Puerto Rico, there’s a small mountain neighborhood called Guavate where weekends turn into an all-day party. Bands play along the streets as locals drink, dance, and make their way from vendor to vendor, stopping for bites along the way. At the center of it all is a legendary Puerto Rican hog roast—one of Andrew Zimmern’s favorite food experiences to date.
The festivities are a fitting example of one of Zimmern’s biggest culinary hot takes: the best meals you have when you travel won’t require a reservation. “The 20 most incredible food experiences I’ve ever had have either not been in those types of restaurants or not been in restaurants at all—but are things that everyone can participate in,” he says.
Take what Zimmern calls “the most incredible restaurant I’ve ever been to.” It’s Badjao Seafront Restaurant, a spot in Palawan, the Philippines, which he walked along a stilted walkway over the water to reach. The menu changes according to what local fishermen and vendors bring in that day—essentially, it’s the catch of the hour. Some days, there’s lobster and shellfish; on others, tuna collars and whole fish dishes.
More recently, Zimmern’s travels took him to Busan, South Korea, where he visited Jagalchi Market. There, he bought an entire Canadian king crab for about $90—a fraction of what he says a comparable crab would cost at a New York City restaurant—and had it prepared upstairs. Is it fine dining? No. Is it in any Michelin guides? Also no. But it’s the kind of meal that has stayed with him, and one he counts among his fondest dining experiences.
That’s not to say Zimmern has anything against restaurants that take reservations—or that they shouldn’t make your itinerary. Rather, he wants to challenge the assumption that a reservation automatically makes a restaurant more legitimate. “I think people are under the mistaken impression that if a restaurant has a reservation system and takes them, that somehow it’s better than a place that doesn’t, or safer, or more legitimate, or in some way superior—and that’s just not the case,” he says.
His broader travel philosophy is simple: eat as the locals do. “I want to eat where the people in that town, village, or city go for the best food.”
For Zimmern, the search begins well before a trip. He follows local chefs and independent food writers, building lists around the places they frequent and recommend. “I’m one of those people that ask everyone … I love the detective work of it.”
Once he arrives, he asks locals where they eat—and pushes past the obvious answers in search of the places they actually love. “You just have to make sure that you say no to their first suggestion because they want you to go to a place that they think is more fit for tourists.”
His go-to question is straightforward: “Where do you eat after work?”
But he also leaves plenty of room for spontaneity. When Zimmern is considering walking into a restaurant on a whim, he looks for happy workers and customers, listens for the sounds of people enjoying themselves, and pays attention to how the place smells. “If they do not have happy workers and customers, I do not eat there.”
That passion for culinary discovery has also shaped Zimmern’s curated trips, which grew out of the same all-consuming research he does for his own travels. “I do two or three trips a year. I’m obsessive about them,” he says. “We also want to take them to great restaurants. We want them to see the great sights and sounds and smells. My curated trips are guaranteed to show you the best of a place and I want people to leave there saying, ‘That was an incredible, incredible journey.’”
For all his emphasis on getting off the beaten path and avoiding reservations, Zimmern isn’t suggesting travelers skip the classics. In fact, he suggests travelers stay on the beaten path if that’s what they want. “If it’s somebody’s first time in Paris, show them the Eiffel Tower,” he says. “It doesn’t matter if it’s touristy, right? Show them the f***ing Eiffel Tower.”