Phil Rosenthal – Feed Your Head

PopEntertainment
Sep 14
10 min read

Phil Rosenthal

Feed Your Head

By Jay S. Jacobs

Phil Rosenthal has made a living at least partially for just being a really nice, relatable guy. From behind the scenes to in front of the camera, from a podcast studio to theater stages, he’s conquered many of the toughest jobs in entertainment simply through his humble, friendly, fun guy.

Rosenthal first caught our attention during the 1990s sitcom boom. He had actually been a writer and producer earlier on shows like Coach and Baby Boom, but he really hit the heights when Rosenthal and stand-up comedian Ray Romano created Everybody Loves Raymond, a series about a New York sports-writer who lived with his wife across the street from his eccentric parents. The show starred Romano, Patricia Heaton, Brad Garrett, Doris Roberts and Peter Boyle. The series lasted nine seasons – and could have continued going, but Rosenthal and Romano decided to stop the show while it was still at the peak of its powers.

About a decade after the end of Raymond, Rosenthal reinvented himself by becoming the host of a show called I'll Have What Phil's Having, a travelogue which aired on PBS and looked at the people and cuisine of different cities all over the world. PBS could not afford to keep the show going, though, so the project morphed into Somebody Feed Phil, which has been going on Netflix for eight seasons.

Rosenthal has also taken on a popular podcast called Naked Lunch with journalist David Wild. His latest project is a spoken word tour called An Evening With Phil Rosenthal.

We caught up with Rosenthal recently on the day of his Philadelphia stop on the An Evening With Phil Rosenthal tour. We discussed everything from 30 years of Everybody Loves Raymond to stepping out from behind the camera to the importance of experiencing diverse cultures and cuisine.

Somebody Feed Phil. Phil Rosenthal in episode 802 of Somebody Feed Phil. Credit: Courtesy of Netflix / © 2025 Netflix, Inc.

I know that your wife is from Philadelphia, so it must be nice to be doing a show here.

I love Philly. I come all the time. I love the food scene. I think it’s one of the best in the country. I have many friends here, several of whom are coming to the show tonight. So it's a very happy occasion.

You came from behind the scenes with Everybody Loves Raymond, when you were making that, could you have ever imagined that you'd be out front and center in so many different types of entertainment, everything from your travel show to your podcast to doing live shows like you are tonight.

It is amazing to wake up at this age and find yourself Taylor Swift. It's so much fun. It's one of the best second acts you could ever hope for. It wasn't easy to do that. It took many years to make the transition from that, but the sitcom business had changed a lot in the nine years that we were doing Raymond. I was struggling again to get another sitcom on, and then I thought of this dream job, and I just didn't stop until it happened.

What was it that made you think both traveling and food? Why did you feel that those would make a good show for you?

I've always loved it. I started traveling when I was about 23. I got a courier flight to Europe, and it changed my life. And I didn't grow up with a lot of great food, so when I left my parents’ house, I always say it was like in The Wizard of Oz, where she opens the door, and now the movie is in color. Especially when I got to Europe. It was just so exciting. And being in New York City was very exciting. The food scene there in the 80s. Now I find you can get a fantastic meal almost anywhere on Earth. But it just captivated me. I was influenced by Anthony Bourdain, although I would watch him and say, “He's amazing. I'm never doing that.” I thought maybe there were people like me who thought the same thing. For them, maybe seeing a schlemiel like me go outside would make them say, “If he can do it, maybe I can too.”

Somebody Feed Phil. Phil Rosenthal in episode 803 of Somebody Feed Phil. Credit: Courtesy of Netflix / © 2025 Netflix, Inc.

You have visited so many fascinating places over the years. What are some of the places that stand out for you, either for the sights, for the people, or for the food?

Oh, there's so many. The first one that comes to mind right now is Japan, which was a total revelation. The way of life, the esthetic, the perfection in almost everything they touch is incredible to me. And of course, it's one of the best cuisines in the world. I love Spain as well. We did the Basque Country this season, season eight, San Sebastian, and that's one of the food capitals of the world. Then something that might have been a surprise to me this year, because I'd never known anything about it was Tbilisi in the former Soviet Georgia. I don't know what I was expecting. I was expecting because you hear former Soviet Union, you think they're going to have beets and dirt and that's going to be it. (laughs) But I thought the cuisine was extraordinary. It's kind of this meeting place between Eastern and Western Europe, so it's kind of got the best of everything.

Are there any dream cities that you haven't gotten to yet that you hope to be able to go to for future?

Oh, yeah. I haven't been to Greece yet. I haven't been to Türkiye. I haven't been to Shanghai. I haven't been to most of India, or most of Africa. I've only done about 50 shows, and there's 194 countries.

I know that you try not to get political on your show, but how do you feel that showing people from other countries might help your audience to have more of an understanding of different people and societies?

Well, I didn't start out this way and I still understand my role to be entertaining first, but I guess the message is getting in. I'm only using food and my stupid sense of humor to get you the real message, and that is that I think the world would be better if we all could experience a little bit of other people's experiences. That didn't use to be a political issue, but in today's climate, I guess it is. I'm not going to stop doing it. I don't think the literal embracing of people from other cultures should be political. It's just being human.

Live performance is very different than being on camera. Tell me what an audience can expect from An Evening with Phil Rosenthal?

I love it just as much as doing the show, because in the end, it's all about meeting the people. I get to really meet people. We show a little highlight reel, then I come out with a moderator, and I tell hopefully very funny stories about my life and doing Everybody Loves Raymond, then doing Somebody Feed Phil and my travels and adventures. Then the entire second half of the show is Q and A with the audience. That's actually my favorite part.

You said that you have been to Philly often, and you love it here. Have you had time to do anything like visit restaurants or sights while you're in Philly on this trip?

I just got here at 1 am. I'll have today free and half a day tomorrow before I move on to the next city. But I come at least once a year, and so I love to squeeze in as much as I can. I have friends who have restaurants here. We filmed an episode here, so I made all those connections, in addition to family and friends.

I also love your Naked Lunch podcast.

Oh, thank you.

Somebody Feed Phil. Phil Rosenthal in episode 808 of Somebody Feed Phil. Credit: Courtesy of Netflix / © 2025 Netflix, Inc.

What do you and David [Wild] look for in guests for the podcast? You have a really wide variety of diverse types of people.

Oh, thanks. David and I met, I think, when Raymond started, so we have known each other for 30 years. He was a reporter for Rolling Stone, and he wrote such a nice review of Everybody Loves Raymond. I think he was the first major review. So I called him to thank him. I said, “Let's have lunch,” and we've been having lunch ever since. He knows everyone in the music business, and he has a lot of TV connections as well, because he now writes award shows. In addition to writing about music, he writes the Grammys. He writes all kinds of award shows. So he's got access to a lot of people. We used to have lunch with our famous friends, him from the world of music and me from the world of comedy and TV. I always said we should be taping this. So now we are. Naked Lunch is really just an extension of our friendship. We have lunch with our friends, and it's wonderful. We're going on five years now.

You've said many times that your parents helped to inspire your comic sensibility. How do you feel that they live on through your performances?

They're such a part of me. They were the best part of the show. They were very loving and supportive. More than that, they were a font of comic material my whole life. You saw Raymond. Those parents came from somewhere. The way I continue to honor their legacy is at the end of the show, I call my funny friends and have them make a joke for Max. There'll be a joke for Max tonight as well.

You're opening a restaurant in LA which you're naming after your parents. What else you tell me about that? And what is it like to be on the other side of the restaurant biz?

I've been investing in restaurants for about 25 years, all kinds of restaurants. Mainly because I'm not very bright. But I love diners. I feel like they're disappearing from America, so I just wanted to do a classic diner, elevated just by using great ingredients and a chef who knows how to cook them. Nothing fancy, just the best versions of comfort food that we all grew up with; burgers, shakes, waffles, pancakes, French toast, eggs and bacon, omelets, tuna melts, things like this. I found probably one of the best chefs in the country, Nancy Silverton, who feels the same way I do. It's opening in our neighborhood on Larchmont Boulevard in Los Angeles. My favorite thing is that it's called Max and Helen’s.

As you mentioned, there are a lot of comfort foods, things like diners and also delis and stuff like that, seem to be fading away in the world for things like fast food. Do you think that they can make a comeback?

I think a lot of restaurants are having trouble nowadays. It's very hard because of all kinds of factors, not the least of which is the expense of doing business. But diners are so important. I think they have it harder because of the low price point, which is what helps make a diner great. It's so democratic with a small “d.” You don't have a lot of money, you like it. If you do have money, you like it. It's just the kind of food we grew up with and love. They're so popular that they become the center of communities. If you start losing them, maybe you lose this center of community where people of all stripes can talk and hang out. If you lose the community, maybe you lose the country. So I'm going to fix everything with my diner. (laughs)

I was a huge fan of Everybody Loves Raymond.

Thank you.

I can't talk with you without asking you a little bit about that show.

Sure.

Very few sitcoms last as long as that did. When did you know that you had touched a nerve with people? What do you think it is about the show that resonated with people so much?

I can tell you exactly the moment. It was the third episode we were filming in front of an audience. The audience at that time hadn't seen the show. You start filming before, obviously, you're on the air. So they don't know the show, but there was something that happened where it was an episode where they took an IQ test, Deborah and Ray. Ray scored higher, and he was being a little smug about it. Patty Heaton playing Deborah, who was sitting beside him on the couch, and she turned her ice cream bowl over onto his lap, and they just sat there. The laugh was more than just a sight gag. It was, “Oh, we understand this marriage.” It was relatable. The laugh went on for more than 30 seconds, which is a long time with nobody saying anything or doing anything. I felt that we had connected with the audience. They understood who the characters were, and they understood something deeper, this relatability to their own lives. I turned to the writers, and I said, “Oh, we're all going to be millionaires.” Now this year coming up, we will have been on for 30 years.

I recently saw the episode of Somebody Feed Phil that took place in Las Vegas, and you had Ray [Romano] and Brad [Garrett] on the show. Was it fun to get to work with them again?

It's always fun to be with them. We never lost touch. So that was just another dinner. We don't get to see Brad quite as much because he lives in Vegas now, a lot of the time. He has a comedy club there. But we're going to work again, because we just found out that CBS is going to do a 30th anniversary special, so we're going to reunite the cast and the writers and everybody. I'm really looking forward to that.

The world is kind of a dark place right now. How important do you think it is to help to get people to laugh?

It's only the most important thing. I feel like we're providing alternative programming to the news. I think it's dangerous to just watch the news. First of all, you can't believe everything. Second of all, the news shows you maybe five or 10% of the world. The bad part, but that's the part that stands out. They don't report on all the planes that landed safely today. So I'm here to say that there's hope, and that the hope is that most people in the world are sweet, nice, and long to live in peace and in harmony with each other and help each other. But that's not the news. Why? Because it's the majority of things in the world.

Your website is called Phil Rosenthal world. So what do you think a Phil Rosenthal world would be like?

It is exactly what you see on the show. I'm not presenting the world the way I want it to be. I'm presenting the world the way I find it, the way most of the world is.