You Gotta Eat Here! host John Catucci can’t believe his Canadian food show has lasted for so many seasons. Now venturing into Season 5, the fun food-tasting program is heading to Italy, Ireland and the United Kingdom, expanding beyond Canadian borders (but don’t worry, Catucci is still travelling from coast-to-coast here, too).
“If anybody told me that we’d be shooting in Rome and Florence, I’d say ‘You’re insane. You’re lying to me,'” he jokes.
You Gotta Eat Here! follows food-obsessed funnyman Catucci on his quest to find the most delicious, over-the-top, must-try food. In each half-hour episode, John visits three cities and restaurants where he meets the fascinating characters serving up the most irresistible dishes.
In five seasons of You Gotta Eat Here!, Catucci will have visited 396 restaurants and tasted more than 1,188 dishes (plus countless stolen fries). The production has travelled nearly 300,000 km — that’s enough to circle the globe seven-and-a-half times.
Global News caught up with Catucci in Toronto restuarant The Borough, where he tried out their signature Yorkshire pudding burger, which features two Yorkshire puddings in the place of buns. Aside from some discussion about how far he and the show have come and what it means to him, he taught us what the signs of a great burger are. (Hint: the juices should be running down your arms.)
Watch the video interview, above.
‘You Gotta Eat Here!’ airs on Food Network Canada on Fridays at 9 p.m. ET. Season 5 premiered on Feb. 26, 2016. On March 18, Catucci and the gang head to Prohibition in Montreal, Battista’s Calzone Co. in Edmonton and Burgers n’ Fries Forever in Ottawa.