Discovering Chile with Phil Rosenthal: His Ultimate Travel Secret Revealed

Phil Rosenthal never has a bad day. I know this because I traveled with Phil for a week while he and his team shot an episode in Santiago, Chile, for the newest season of his eponymous show, Somebody Feed Phil.

I know he doesn’t have a bad day because I watched Phil enjoy going to the airport in Los Angeles (an admittedly miserable experience). He didn’t complain when we had to wait in long lines to get COVID tests in the Santiago airport and quarantine ourselves in the hotel until our results arrived. Each day of the week was filled with endless amounts of optimism, jokes, and boyhood wonder that a kid from Queens gets to do this job for a living.

Phil is a different kind of celebrity. He’s equal parts anonymous and famous. He can walk through an entire city without a hassle but every day he gets stopped at least once and takes a photo with a fan without fail. He’s a 62-year-old white male who somehow appeals to demographics of every race, religion, creed, and gender. He offends no one.

If you ask him about this fascinating little world he’s carved out for himself, he’ll just say he’s lucky to be here. But Phil knows the secret to this world, and the secret is what’s behind the magic of the show.

This is a week behind the scenes with Phil and his crew in Santiago. The food he ate, the places he went, the happy accidents along the way, and the secret that is right in front of us, every single day.

Day 1

The first thing to know about Phil is that he is a walker. One mile, three miles, it doesn’t seem to matter. Phil wants to walk, see the city, meet some people, and immerse himself in a place.

“The best way to see a city is to walk around. It’s good exercise, number one. This is the way I usually am when I’m a tourist — I walk and walk and walk and walk until I find a place that’s good for lunch. And then I walk and walk and walk and walk until dinner,” Phil jokingly explains.

Post-quarantine, we got our first walk, a 1.5-mile jaunt to La Mesa restaurant with Phil and his brother Richard, who produces the show. The brothers share a language having traveled the world together; conversations ultimately come down to food, food portions, and food jokes.

There’s a buzz in Santiago. Graffiti litters nearly every wall, echoing a revolution that was stalled by COVID in early 2020. But a referendum on gay marriage is only days away, and a massively consequential presidential election is next week. The city has changing energy, and you feel it everywhere.

Walking to La Mesa, we’re stopped on the street by two Jewish, Venezuelan tourists who love Phil because he also happens to be Jewish, and because Netflix’s global appeal has no bounds. Phil stops for a photo. He always stops.

“There’s no bigger thrill in the world than for that to happen. And it’s because of Netflix. Netflix has endless reach,” Phil says with his perma-smile.

Five minutes later, a man stops his car in the middle of traffic and yells out Phil’s name. He jumps out of his car and hastily runs over to grab a pic with Phil, who is more than happy to oblige. The sounds of horns mean nothing.

We arrive at La Mesa, whose name means “the table” and echoes one of Phil’s mantras that all problems could be solved over a meal at a table. The restaurant patio is a greenery-filled garden with hanging lights and long wooden tables.

Phil’s crew waits for us as they down Pisco sours and Chilean beer while reminiscing about past episodes of the show in far-off lands. They’re a band of brothers and sisters, a tight-knit crew who are lovers of food and travel.

Before the group begins production on an episode of the show, Phil gathers them all together for a family meal. This embodies the underlying magic of their show — it’s all about family.

“I would be nothing without this crew. They cover my buns, they buoy me, and they are fun. We laugh a lot. You know, any time you do a show, you become a family if you do it right. And now I have this really tight-knit family; the more we get to do the show, the closer we become. I know about their personal lives. I know what they like and what they don’t like, and I love feeding them.”

More on the feeding them later.

Amidst a slew of inside jokes and more Pisco sours, La Mesa chef Álvaro Romero bludgeons us with the entire menu of Chilean seafood delights – oysters, ceviche, terrines, lobster, lamb chops (not seafood), and more. It’s good to be on this crew, and this is only night one.

Day 2

Most everything on the production in Chile is planned: where they shoot, how they shoot, when they eat, and who they meet. However, the show’s lean and fungible crew makes it easy to change things on the fly.

“I hate doing second takes on anything. It ruins the spontaneity. I’ll get notes from an executive who might hear the crew laugh and want to cut it, but we’re not hiding that we’re doing a TV show, so we leave it in.”

The first day of shooting finds Phil and team capturing B-roll throughout the city. Shots in front of government buildings, famous statues, and popular plazas will infuse the show with Phil’s sense of awe while strolling through the streets.

We stop in Plaza de Armas, the main square in Santiago, surrounded by stately buildings, filled with palm trees, secret lovers, vagrants, and stray dogs. Phil incorporates everything into the shot, most especially the dog, who acts as our bodyguard when anyone else gets too close to the cameras.

One of the main obstacles the crew encounters is finding shots without people’s masks on. The goal is to make the show aspirational and timeless, and masks evoke thoughts of the pandemic — not the desire to explore and discover.

Because of the impromptu nature of the show, the crew is always ready with releases for people to sign, ensuring they can be shown on camera without future lawsuits. Most people are willing to sign the release.

“We were in Helsinki, and I had some pizza, and I was giving away pizza to the people and this one lady who I had a great conversation with wouldn’t sign the release. But most people like to be on TV,” Phil said.

From the plaza, we head to the Municipal Theatre of Santiago. The national theater, opened in 1857, is home to the country’s most indelible operas and stage performances. Here, Phil is in his element. He’s an artist’s artist who appreciates every aspect of the creative process. His love of being on stage, smelling the dusty curtains, and fawning over the stunning balcony seats is pure Phil. He greets everyone and takes photos with everyone. Theater people love him for a reason.

There’s nothing cool about Phil. He walks around the city in dad jeans and a tattered hoodie. He can feel relatable and authentic, which draws a loyal following. This relatability makes him more kindred spirits with other travel personalities.

Between shots, Phil and I walk through random neighborhoods and alleyways, admiring the ornate graffiti and stopping to say hi to strangers on the street. Phil loves to walk, and when he sees something he likes, he calls the crew and gets more B-roll for the show. It’s unplanned, but instinctively spot on.

When shooting a show like this — tight, lean, and fast — the crew packs a lot into a day. After B-roll in the morning though, Phil begins to eat.

Santiago is known for an array of sandwiches, like the Churrasco, which is a thinly sliced steak sandwich with heaps of mayo, avocado, and tomato. There’s the El Lomito, a pork loin sandwich with more mayo. And the El Completo, a hot dog with sauerkraut, onions, tomatoes, and more mayo (sensing a theme).

One of the stops was at Antigua Fuente, a shop serving Completos since 1968. Located a block from Plaza Baquedano, it’s one of the few stores that wasn’t destroyed during mass protests before the pandemic. The central meeting place saw hundreds of thousands of protesters who took care to spare a beloved sandwich shop while shouting for political change.

It’s not lost on the crew that they’re standing in a hotbed of political upheaval on the same day same-sex marriage is legalized. It’s a groundbreaking moment for Chile and all of South America.

The next stop was in Santiago’s Meat Packing District at an outdoor sandwich shop named Pica de Jaime. The streets are jam-packed with shoulder-to-shoulder eaters looking for meat sandwiches. Heat pours off the open grills against the steaming concrete from the berating sun. Here, the pork sandwiches are as big as your head, and Phil graciously shares every bite with his crew, who pass each sandwich to one another, mid-shot, to enjoy the treats by hand. They’re a family, and this is how a family shares its food.

The final stop is at Liguria, a famous restaurant and bar that’s been serving fried fish sandwiches for more than 120 years. Here, hipster bartenders pour Pisco sours and clever craft cocktails while a blind piano player serenades the scene. Phil’s eyes light up with every bite.

Phil doesn’t eat alone; gregariousness is his form of godliness. There are no empty stomachs on his crew, and this is part of the reason this group keeps returning episode after episode. Who wouldn’t want to film all over the world, eat the best food (even if it’s shared), and bask in a new culture of culinary delights? He orders extra sandwiches for everyone because these were the best, and you can’t leave without tasting the best.

The bartenders offer a toast, explaining that what happens at Liguria stays at Liguria, and if you break eye contact while toasting, you’ll have seven years of bad luck. Phil exclaims, “That’s what I have already!” and downs his drink with aplomb.

Day 3

Phil and the crew are extra excited this morning because they know they’re heading to Boragó, the world’s 38th best-ranked restaurant helmed by molecular gastronomy specialist Rodolfo Guzmán.

We join the master chef in his laboratory, a spotlessly clean kitchen/apothecary with unnamed jars filled with fermenting concoctions that will shock and awe guests in three to five years from now. A chalkboard is filled with ingredients reminiscent of “A Beautiful Mind,” where insanity meets genius. Guzmán is not messing around.

Phil is hand-fed freshly cut lamb ribs that have been roasting over an open fire pit. Regardless of the prestige, Phil still feeds his crew slices by hand. The lab is a foodie’s dreamscape where Guzmán wows with local specialties like sea strawberries, succulent plants that surprise with a strawberry flavor and odor mixed with a briny aftertaste. And then there’s piure, an uni-like tunicate that grows on coral, nature’s greatest hangover cure, and is said to mimic the effects of Viagra. Phil’s expression is somewhere between nausea and confusion.

From Boragó, the crew packs up and we all head out on the two-hour drive to Valparaiso, a coastal port city northwest of Santiago. The drive passes through vineyards, mountains, and desert, evoking hints of Northern California mixed with the east coast of Spain.

Valparaiso is known as Chile’s street art capital, and it’s easy to see why. Cobblestoned roads are adorned with ornate murals covering every apartment and boutique shop. The hills of the city mix old and new — dilapidated factories, chic restaurants, worn-out colonial houses, and trendy vintage stores.

Wandering the alleyways with Phil, we’re often stopped by random fans. One fan told Phil that he changed her life. The woman went on to explain how she and her boyfriend were moving to Lisbon because of watching his show. She’s overwhelmed that Phil is randomly in this small part of the world, as she calls her jealous boyfriend to recount the encounter.

This was more than a brief interaction. So moved by the woman’s story, Phil brings her to the restaurant where he’s about to shoot another scene. He invites her to eat with him, now a part of the show itself. The restaurant, María maría, is an adorable hillside café with coffee, pastries, and remarkable sandwiches on homemade sourdough.

But the highlight for Phil wasn’t the food; it was being able to give this random woman one of the greatest moments of her life. It’s small moments like these that make this show special and unique.

Valparaiso may be known for its art scene, but it’s also not the safest city, especially in the area where they’re shooting. A crew carrying thousands of dollars of camera equipment and ferrying around an international celebrity tends to attract attention.

Unbeknownst to Phil, the crew had to fend off a thief who tried to grab their drone. One crew member nearly broke his finger and lost a camera lens and an SD card. But this is the chaos of production, and it’s not the first time the crew has had run-ins around the globe.

Day 4

The crew has seen some things. There was the stolen phone in Vietnam, the car crash in Nashville, the canceled episode in Puglia when the show’s director got COVID and was stuck in Madrid, and the riots in Rio. The drone theft was simply par for the course, and this crew was barely fazed as they moved into day four of production.

Every episode of Somebody Feed Phil has an element of community outreach. For Chile, it’s visiting an Olla Comune, a soup kitchen that emerged during the pandemic to help bring meals to struggling communities. Run by the Por Todas Foundation, the kitchens provide freshly cooked food to hungry Chileans who bring their own Tupperware to be filled. Phil joins the line to help feed the hungry and, in typical Phil fashion, play with the kids.

Running a production during COVID brings some quirks. There are two nurses on staff at all times handing out N95 masks and continuously sanitizing everyone’s hands. Phil gets tested for COVID every few days, and anyone interacting with Phil without a mask gets tested before the team begins shooting.

It almost boggles the mind that Phil has never contracted COVID. Even with these precautions, he rarely wears a mask himself, regularly interacts with everyone who approaches him, and has been traveling around the world on commercial flights for months. Maybe optimism is the true vaccine?

After the soup kitchen, the crew moves over to Demencia, a gastropub from renowned Chilean chef Benjamin Nast, boasting a large outdoor terrace and an unmistakable neon sign flashing the name. The creative cuisine here is Asian/Chilean fusion with treats like rice cake mac ‘n cheese, divine miso-infused butter, and raw seafood doused in lilac oil and avocado. Phil’s eyes widen with each bite, especially when combining the miso butter with the outstanding sourdough bread from local bakery Popular.

A fan of the show, the baker from Popular personally stopped by to connect with Phil. In the middle of their meal, the baker’s wife went into labor, and he rushed off. He then FaceTimed Phil on the way to the hospital, not wanting to miss out on sharing more of the meal with one of his favorite TV celebrities. Don’t be surprised if that baby somehow makes it onto the show as well.

The day ends with a stroll through the bustling city center. Phil takes photos with more fans while the crew avoids the police, who are strict about permits. The city’s stark contrasts all come into view as a crowd mingles around a candidate running for public office, shouting over a megaphone. Rich and poor, modern and old, past and future, the crush of traffic and smog, and Phil, smiling through it all in a constant state of wonder.

“I tell people I have the perfect level of fame right now. I wish this for everyone,” he says. “Once or twice a day someone comes up to you and says they like you or you do a good job. I don’t have that at home. So, I wish everybody could have that feeling. You know, it’s not like I’m Justin Timberlake and can’t go outside. I love when people come and say hello. I wouldn’t be doing what I do if I didn’t like people. And they’re always at least to me – maybe because I’m old – respectful and nice and nobody grabs me. It’s rare they interrupt me while I’m eating but even that I don’t mind.”

Day 5

One of the most stunning meals of the entire production was served up by the inimitable couple at Ambrosía Bistro. Led by Chef Carolina Bazán and her partner/sommelier Rosario Onetto, this small countertop spot brings fine dining to a casual eatery. Here, Phil devours fresh local seafood through a mix of Chilean and French cooking styles. Pork bao buns contrast with lettuce-wrapped taquitos and beef cheeks atop pomegranate beans. Natural wines are poured liberally for Phil and the entire crew who simultaneously marvel at the spectacular meal before them.

This meal held extra meaning as the couple epitomized the new Santiago. A Santiago where gay marriage is now possible, on the verge of electing the youngest president in its history who leans heavily on socialist ideals to bring equality to the masses. We all felt it with every bite.

For a show that packs in an intense number of scenes, day five was lean. After lunch, the team shot more B-roll around the city and visited Gran Torre Santiago, which is the tallest building in South America, towering 300 meters over the city. The vistas are stunning as drone footage captures Phil’s authentic reactions to how sprawling Santiago truly is. The city sits in the Maipo Valley and is surrounded by the epic snow-capped Andes Mountains. From the top of Gran Torre, you feel the nearly 7 million people living, working, and eating here. It’s a colossal place and has earned its reputation as an excellent food haven.

“I didn’t know what to expect. I had never been here before,” Phil said. “I was surprised at how beautiful a lot of the city was, even after their recent revolution. I was surprised at how liberal it was becoming; they passed gay marriage while we were there. And there are the most beautiful parks, then 15 minutes outside of town, we’re in the Andes Mountains. It’s incredible. It’s a spectacular place. I wish it wasn’t an 11-hour trip.”

Day 6

On the final day of production, the crew meets up at La Calma, run by chef Gabriel Layera, known as a seafood aficionado who forages for fresh daily catches and is credited with providing some of the best restaurants in town with their fish. Phil is joined by chefs Álvaro Romero of La Mesa and Benjamin Nast of Demencia. This trio is redefining the future of Chilean cuisine and has formed a brotherhood that is helping put the city and country on the global foodie map.

After indulging in a cavalcade of Chilean seafood specialties, the entire crew pauses for a final lunch at this majestic spot. This is Phil’s road family, eating together at one of the best restaurants, feeding one another by hand, reminiscing about the crazy, jam-packed week, and gearing up for the final shot of the show.

The crew breaks and heads into the Andes Mountains. If you’ve seen the show, you know Phil invites everyone he’s met throughout the city for one last meal. This final meal occurs amidst the beauty of Chile’s mountains. There’s an open fire and a potluck. These are the absolute best chefs in the country, all coming together for a family meal with Phil.

This is what this show is about: connecting with a place, its people, and a culture over a meal. It embodies the idea of an extended family around the world. The reason Phil’s show can change a woman’s life, make someone stop their car in the middle of traffic, or receive a FaceTime from the delivery room is that Phil understands the secret. The secret is family. The crew, his brother, the people he meets; he knows it’s relatable to all, but it’s never forced. It’s always authentically about family.

“I think the show is everything I’ve learned over the years about how to make a show, how to tell a story, and it’s in the service of everything else I love in life. Which includes making shows, by the way, which I love doing. But everything else I love in life is family, friends, food, travel, and laughs. And so this is, for me, the vehicle for that.”