How to eat and travel, just like you're Rick Stein

Ever wanted to eat traditional dishes and engage with local characters just like Rick Stein does on TV? Well, now you can. Here’s how to channel the famous food-travel chef and eat with a greater sense of culture.

Rick Stein enjoying a homemade Greek filo pie in Asprageli, Northern Greece. Source: Arezoo Farahzad / Denham Productions

— Travel with Rick Stein's Cornwall, Long Weekends and French Odyssey series', all streaming free on SBS On Demand —

If you watch SBS, then there’s no doubt you know the following name – Rick Stein.

The celebrity chef is a legend of the screen – with a television career spanning almost 30 years – and a superstar of the food-travel scene. You’ve watched him (probably on repeat) cook fish in Cornwall, taste French delicacies aboard a canal barge, shop at European market stalls on long weekends and eat his way through countries like India, Vietnam, Malaysia and Turkey.

After all this time, after so many airings of his many shows, Stein’s specific style of food-travel remains magnetic. His series’ celebrate the authentic appreciation of the characters behind a culture’s cuisine – from hard-working food producers to grandmothers who cook traditional recipes and unknown chefs in train station brassieres. The chef's passion for food ignites our travel-hungry souls and warms our diverse plates.

If you start talking to local people about their food, you’ll find that they’ll tell you about themselves as well.

So how can we – humble Rick Stein fans – live out our food dreams with the same meaningful essence that the celebrity chef oozes on screen?

Here are a few tips to help you harness Stein so you can travel with curiosity, and eat with a greater sense of culture. It’s what Stein would want, after all!

Rick Stein is a legend of the screen and a superstar of the food-travel scene. Source: Bannisters Hotel Group

Use food as a bridge to connect with people

To Stein, a great dish isn’t just the sum of its flavours or ingredients. As he tells SBS, food is a universal bridge that connects people to each other. So to really absorb a location’s culture, don’t just eat the food – learn about the people behind the food.

“You can you can imagine going to somewhere like Greece or Italy and someone will say: ‘These are the best tomatoes in the world'," explains Stein. "'If you eat any tomatoes, it’s got to be these tomatoes’. They just get very excited about it.

“If you start talking to local people about their food, you’ll find that they’ll tell you about themselves as well."

Consider every invitation you get to eat a home-cooked meal

If you ever get the chance to watch a home cook or chef create a dish in their kitchen, take up the opportunity as long as you feel safe to do so.

Stein explains that such moments have stayed with him long after the cameras have been turned off. Specifically, he recalls a time when he filmed a fish curry being made inside a fisherman’s cottage in Pondicherry, India. “The fisherman's wife said ‘I am so honoured to have you here in my kitchen'. I said ‘I'm honoured to be in your kitchen’ and I truly meant it. Going into people’s homes and seeing what they like to eat is an honour. It is really special.”

As a result of that memorable visit, Stein keeps a simple, fresh and fragrant Pondicherry fish curry on the menu at his NSW restaurants in Mollymook and Port Stephens.

“If you start talking to local people about their food, you’ll find that they’ll tell you about themselves as well,” says Rick Stein. Source: Bannisters Hotel Group

Local people know how it’s done

Move aside fancy restaurants. Local chefs and home cooks are ‘the’ experts on local cuisine.

“I was in Greece quite recently at a restaurant – a fish restaurant, of course," recalls Stein. "The cook made a very simple Greek fish stew. He then presented it to me and said: ‘the thing is, you must put loads of olive oil over it and add loads of salt’. Now when I say ‘loads’, I mean loads! Honestly, these days nobody would dare say how much they like using plenty of salt. But this [man] couldn’t care less.

“Of course, when he added a splash of Greek extra virgin olive oil and ‘loads’ of sea salt on top of the stew, it came alive.”

Do your research and consider ‘divisive’ places to eat

When Stein travels without a film crew, he does what many of us do. He reads online reviews to ascertain where to eat. However, the chef explains, he interprets the comments a bit differently to most.

“Quite often, I will look for a place with a lot of very positive reviews and a lot of very negative reviews. To me, that says the place is probably quite a special, unique place that some people love and other people hate.”

Stein recalls visiting a fish restaurant in Hanoi that just sold deep-fried fish with Vietnamese salads. “I loved it. It's been there for about 500 years – that sort of place. It was very ramshackle.

“I remember somebody wrote to me and said ‘why did you go there? It’s terrible’. Well the answer is – because I have an interest in food. Restaurants aren't just about the quality of the food. They’re also about the atmosphere and the buzz of the place.”