Adam Richman on London and the US food revolution

In the heart of Austin's bustling Sixth Street is a small, unremarkable youth hostel. Go in and you'll see a bookcase. Prise it open, as if you're entering a supervillain's lair, and you'll find not a secret passage leading to a room full of doomsday devices, but a tiny, Prohibition-themed restaurant serving up some of the best sandwiches in the city. If that's not exclusive enough, go off-menu and order the Lieutenant, with Bucheron cheese, oven-dried tomatoes, a balsamic reduction and capicola. If the guy at the counter questions you, be insistent and you'll get your sandwich – with all its luxuriant trimmings.

Unfortunately, I can't claim to have worked this for myself. For a start, I've never even been to Austin. But I know a guy who specialises in this kind of thing.

The casual viewer may recognise him as Adam Richman, conqueror of some terrifyingly voluminous food challenges on Food Network's hit show Man v. Food. The dedicated one, though, will know better. This is Adam Richman – TV host, author, producer, and impassioned explorer of some of the most far-ranging and eclectic foods America has to offer. He's back doing what he does best – scoping out great eating and drinking spots across the US, getting down and dirty in the kitchens of innovative chefs who are taking America's food scene, chewing it up, and spitting it back out as you've never seen before. Needless to say, our curiosity was well and truly piqued.

Man Finds Food and the end of an eating-challenge era...

I'm sitting down with Richman in a particularly brightly coloured room, bags full of fresh bread and produce in one corner, to talk about his new show, Man Finds Food. As the name suggests, it's not all that different in make-up to the show that made him, as he puts it in one episode, "mildly relevant on basic cable" (or 'famous', as I'd put it if I were in his shoes). There is, however, one crucial change: there's no eating challenge.

Photography by David Harrison

For many, that's what Man v. Food revolved around – but for me, and plenty of other regular watchers, it was all about watching a man very much in love with gastronomy scoping out oyster shacks on the banks of the Mississippi, or providing thorough examinations of the food scenes in far-flung American towns you'd never have heard of unless you lived there.

"It's not something most people would even contemplate attempting," he tells me of the challenges that are thankfully firmly in his past, "because they were so extreme in nature. The spectacle was something that people would rally around, but it was also very polarising at points.

"But with Man Finds Food, the premise is essentially to go to a city and find the hidden, off-the-beaten-track restaurants, or the off-the-menu dishes. I've always loved doing that, so it speaks to a personal passion. I'd never done a food challenge before the first episode of Man v. Food, but finding these hidden places has been something that I've loved doing completely independently of having a television career."

And it's not only the actual undertaking of the mammoth eating feats that he's pleased to be rid of; it's also the screen time they take up, too. Episodes are just half an hour long, with ad breaks, and Richman clearly feels his time is better spent sourcing food spots than taking on more challenges.

"From a physical standpoint, of course, it's profoundly liberating to not have to do the challenge, but it also gave us two more locations to hit per show. In a Man v. Food episode you hit three – one of which where you barely focus on the other aspects of the menu; you're doing the spiciest, the biggest, the heaviest, the largest and so on.

"With Man Finds Food it's about true deliciousness, and it's about cachet – being the guy who knows a guy. There's no reason that the elite or the erudite should be the only people who have the privilege of going 'Dude, third floor of this apartment building – there's a great restaurant in one of these places.'"

Richman's profile has been steadily on the up in the UK for a while now. Even taking into account last year's unfortunate spat with social media users – an episode that threatened to derail Man Finds Food's running, but which he countered with a frank explanation and apology straight away – he's a hugely popular figure. His love of football (he's a matchgoing Tottenham Hotspur fan, a regular on sports panel shows when he's over, and he even participated in televised charity match Soccer Aid last year – an event for which he temporarily became vegan to lose weight) is one reason; but it's just as much down to his genuine well of knowledge, not just of American food scenes but of ours, too.

Even so, Man Finds Food threatens to strike a new chord with Londoners. We're a city of people who love being the ones in the know – if you love food, you can't refresh your Twitter timeline in 2015 without some mention of underground speakeasies and clandestine supper clubs. The thought of not only exploring some of the best culinary scenes in America, but going in with the explicit intention of uncovering some of the best-hidden gems along the way is bound to get people interested.

"As with Man v. Food," he says, "our mandate was no chains, no big conglomerates and the chance to showcase these amazing independent restaurants and giving them a chance to reap the benefits of the publicity, and of their hard work. We're talking awesome people making great food in unlikely places. I just think it's extraordinary.

I'd never even done a food challenge before we started filming Man v. Food

"It's also ones that are geographically hidden. Places either in highly residential areas you'd never go to, or places you literally can't see. I mean, that restaurant behind a bookcase in a youth hostel; it's so hidden. Sixth Street is the hub of Austin's nightlife; it's the most populated place – one block off of the busiest streets in Austin and it's that well-hidden."

A lobster shack in Boston is another hard-to-find eating spot he remembers fondly: "The owner has a fully-functioning restaurant out of his garage. You sit on patio furniture and eat on these picnic tables behind the house he was born in. They have three menu items: lobster, lobster salad or an off-the-menu dish called a chowder. It's so fresh, and they just know how to cook it right."

Hold on – we're getting dangerously close to 'pop-up' territory here, the likes of which London can't get enough of. I could easily imagine going to a lobster shack set up in an east-London garage, sitting on picnic tables and eating chowder. In fact, I can think of three easygoing, US-style lobster delis that have opened up in central London in the last six months alone. Which brings me to thinking that while I've got Richman here, I should probably ask him about how he feels his home country is represented in London's thriving food scene.

Photography by David Harrison

The General Washington of London's American food revolution...

If there's a trend to end all trends in London's recent timeline, it's not Peruvian; it's not cold-pressed juice or kale; it's not supper clubs – it's American food. We just cannot get enough. The renovation and subsequent exaltation of the burger might have been the catalyst, but now there are chefs, American and otherwise, cooking soul food and BBQ that veterans across the pond would be proud of. I'm talking to a man who could well serve as the face of American food to his British viewers – I have to ask what he makes of it, and whether he feels he's played a part.

"I got asked this question on Sunday Brunch," he replies. "Simon Rimmer asked me if I think there really is an American food revolution happening in London. I said "Well, I possess enough hubris to think I might be General Washington of that revolution." I can only tell you that guys like the Rib Man and Red's Barbecue up in Leeds and Manchester have cited me as a source of inspiration, and I'm so honoured by it."

But, Richman aside, why have we taken to it to such an extent? "I think it's also because American comfort food is a creation based solely on deliciousness, and tradition be damned," he says. "We use cuts of meats that aren't normally used here; we do types of preparations that are not normally done here. And I think we're flavour-forward.

"People in England have written some scathing tweets about the plastic silverware I've used or the paper napkins and stuff like that because there is that come-as-you-are, blue-jean mentality that has existed in America for aeons, but in England, not so much. Street food – apart from taking fish and chips away in a paper cone – wasn't really common here until very recently.

"I think you have such an educated populace here in England. It's full of savvy young men and women who increasingly want to experience more. You have one of the oldest cultures, whereas Americans are super young and ever-changing. In London you have affluent, educated people and you've got curiosity. That, and you have international visitors who all bring an influence with them."

I went to Chick King on the High Road for the first time two trips ago. It's a rite of passage for Spurs fans

I'm also curious as to how much of the London food scene he's experienced, since he usually flies in for media visits, which aren't renowned for liberal amounts of downtime: "Press usually dictates the bulk of my schedule, but I love Mildred's on Lexington in Soho, I love Manna in Primrose Hill on Erskine. There are so many great little Chinese places that I've gotten great vegetable dishes from, on Gerrard, on Macclesfield, on Shaftesbury.

"As a Tottenham fan I only went to Chick King on the High Road for the first time two trips ago, and it's like a rite of passage. I also didn't realise that the basement of Selfridges is a historically auspicious salt beef parlour – one of the oldest in London – so I've done that.

"My friend Seamus Mullen opened a terrific restaurant at the Mondrian, at Sea Containers. Our friendship aside, I was blown away. Going back a few years, Nick Frost took me to Hix in Soho – that was a tasty meal – and I love Providores on Marylebone High Street. That was terrific. I love The Rib Man at King's Cross, Mark Gevaux. He's a badass, I love what he does..."

I'm in danger of letting Richman get carried away in a personal whirlwind of fond food memories – I did mention he was passionate about such things – so I observe that for someone who claims not to have dipped much of a toe into the scene, he's been around a fair bit. The reply is characteristically adroit: "What can I tell you – I've got big toes."

Photography by David Harrison

The death of toxic orange cheese...

The concept of 'American food' as we know it is a tricky one. Historically, British opinion has been that it's dumbed-down; obvious; all about big portions. As Richman puts it, "Americans tend to throw huge flavour bombs at everything – sometimes too much." Conversely, British food has endured a reputation overseas of being stodgy, bland and generally uninspiring – something it has often, if not always, deserved.

It's difficult to summarise, because falling into the trap of judging a nation's food on the exports that make it to these shores isn't always an accurate barometer. In fact, if you want to see what Americans are actually eating, Man v. Food (or, if you're a purist, Man v. Food Nation, which removes the eating challenge from the show's original format) along with other Food Network staples and, of course, Man Finds Food, is a far better gauge.

But, if you watch as much American food programming as I do, you'll surely have noticed a change over the last decade or so: there's less toxic orange cheese, more locally-produced ricotta; fewer identikit diners, more authentic, local restaurants. Above all, there's an identifiable groundswell that suggests American food, especially outside its largest cities, is growing up.

This is, of course, an observation made from the outside in. Richman, however, is firmly an insider. "The modern American is a much more educated eater," he says. "I think people now have more access to better and more refined ingredients – ones that maybe five to ten years ago might have been labelled 'specialty' or 'ethnic' are now commonplace. Things like sriracha, pickled ginger, wasabi.

"I think people are cooking more; food shows are everywhere. There's that odd notion of the 'food celebrity' or 'food entertainer' – something I could be said to represent – and I think it makes food culture more accessible. I think you're finding higher-end ingredients at more low-brow, workaday places. My cousin, who never knew what deglazing a pan was, now knows exactly what he can deglaze a pan with. But he had never heard that term before he watched Food Network. Now you can watch a cook come on some talk show and say "Let's lift those brown bits off the pan with a bit of stock or a splash of wine or a glug of beer."

The casual Man v. Food viewer might be surprised at how eloquently Richman sermonises on his work. But that same viewer may also be taken aback at quite how much has changed in his decade-long presenting career – the eating challenges in his shows have gone the way of the emphasis on huge portions in contemporary America. The cachet in finding hidden venues and dishes has replaced it, just as the average American, according to Richman, seems to have discovered how much better food is when it's taken seriously, and done creatively.

Saffron isn't a mythical Andalusian spice you can't find. It's on aisle six

That little thing called the Internet is, of course, at least partly responsible. It's no surprise to me, at least, that the modern American has a much better knowledge of previously unknown produce; we're living in an age where someone in New York can see an article or a recipe shared on Twitter by someone in London and written by someone in France – all within 30 seconds. That and gastronomy focused TV shows like the ones Richman made his name on mean we all feel closer to the culinary landscapes of countries across the globe.

Richman wholeheartedly agrees: "I think it's the availability, and the flow-through of ideas in the information age," he states. "People who'd never heard of saffron before are now talking about saffron recipes, because it's one search away. It's not this mythical Andalusian spice-thread that you can't find. It's like, 'oh, it's on aisle six'."

With pretty much unfettered connectivity, we may be on the cusp of a truly global food scene. The rate of progression and amalgamation in the last decade has been staggering, and will presumably only get faster. That's why we need people like Richman – accessible, passionate people who will take on the exploration we can't physically do ourselves, and keep us in touch in a way that won't overwhelm us.

Finally, because I can't resist asking, will we ever see the Man Finds Food format take on London? I must admit that the thought of Richman rolling around Soho, Broadway market, or any of east London's street food festivals performing his characteristic "bite, near-orgasmic face, moan" routine (his words, not mine) is an exciting one. I don't know about you, but the parts of Man Finds Food that remind me of London are the ones I really relish.

Richman's answer is pretty much what you'd expect from a "self-confessed Anglophile" who grew up seeing etchings of his grandparents in Trafalgar Square at his house, "receives fan-mail from Luton and Rochdale", supports a London football team before an American one, and who clearly adores our capital city nearly as much as his hometown of Brooklyn: "It's not up to me, but I'm praying."

Of course, it's up to the networks. But he's got a clear fanbase here, and more importantly a food scene it'd take ten seasons of a TV show to make a dent in, let alone one.

But if Richman loves the idea of a restaurant accessible only via a bookcase in Austin, there's one behind a curtain at the back of a clothes shop in Shoreditch I could show him. Here's hoping... ■

Man Finds Food is on at 10pm weeknights on Food Network, freeview 41, freesat 149, Sky 248, Virgin 287. For more info, go to foodnetwork.co.uk.