Somebody Feed Phil review: anodyne comfort show goes stale in eighth season ★★★

Perhaps it is baked into his Somebody Feed Phil contract that Phil Rosenthal, the nebbishy Jewish creator of the 90s sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond remain perpetually apprehensive of unfamiliar experiences, despite now having eight years of televised international travel under his belt.

For the foodie travel series, whose eighth season is released on Netflix this week, remains the same anodyne, mildly entertaining comfort watch it always been. And I’m not sure how much longer it can keep up the act.

In this season, the goofy, buoyant host travels to Amsterdam, the Basque Country, Boston, Tbilisi, Sydney and Adelaide, Las Vegas, Manila and Guatemala. And true to form, Rosenthal expresses surprised delight upon tasting every dish; opportunistically disses his producer brother Richard; warily attempts an activity of which he’s sceptical, and ultimately discovers that this particular city is a unique representation of how good humanity actually is.

In Amsterdam, Rosenthal visits a cafe staffed by people with Down’s Syndrome and is filmed hugging and taking photos with them, and gleefully biting into the pastries they offer. All of this takes place outside the cafe on the street for passersby to see, and it feels, I’m sorry to say, like grandstanding.

In the same episode, our self-styled gourmand meets a group of refugees to make homemade sushi and praises the city for its “international” flair, insisting that if the whole world could share a meal with a refugee like he had, we’d all be better off.

This is the most political he gets, and to be frank it rings slightly hollow. Rosenthal is Jewish. Could he not have addressed Amsterdam’s tragic Jewish history? Visited the Anne Frank House or the city’s Jewish Cultural Quarter? Given some other nod to the complicated past that haunts the Venice of the North?

I am not saying that it is wrong to try to emphasise the good in the world, but the show’s cursory glance at the way contemporary and historical crises have affected the cities and people on which it drops in, feels like shortsighted idealism. And, even worse in the world of television entertainment, it feels boring.

Maybe, as a superfan of Anthony Bourdain’s rogue, politically engaged travel series Parts Unknown and No Reservations, I am placing unfair expectations on Somebody Feed Phil, not least because in 2022 Rosenthal told the JC that the premise of the show was his being “like Anthony Bourdain, if he was afraid of everything”.

But, Bourdain’s political sensibilities apart, his was a credible voice when it came to food. Bourdain was a renowned chef, a true culinary expert. Rosenthal is just...Jewish. And I’m not sure I trust just any hungry Jew to tell me what’s good to eat.

Yes, in earlier seasons, it was mildly endearing to see the way Rosenthal's face lit up when sinking his teeth into something delectable. But eight years on, could he not employ some words to describe what is so good about a given dish, rather than just widening his eyes and smiling to camera?

At moments it's hard to know what this show is trying to do, but what I can definitively say is that Somebody Feed Phil is at its best not when Rosenthal is performing delight for the chefs whose food he is tasting, but when the obviously kind-hearted host engages in impromptu interactions with locals. His conversation with the patrons of a popular diner in south Boston, sprinkled with details of humble, hearty dishes and stories about their lives, is certainly touching.

If there is a series nine, and I hope there is, I’d like to see more vignettes like this – and less of the stale formula.