Ahead of the release of National Geographic’s No Taste Like Home with Antoni Porowski, we catch up with the Queer Eye star to hear all about his culinary adventures with the likes Florence Pugh, Awkwafina and Henry Golding
Words: Aobh O'Brien-Moody
If there’s one thing Antoni Porowski has learnt from his seven years as one fifth of Queer Eye’s Fab Five, it’s the ability to connect with people over food. As the series’ resident food and wine expert, he had us all sobbing over dishes as innocuous as guacamole as he unpacked the kitchen-related neuroses and fears of the show’s makeover subjects, tenderly peeling back their layers and empowering them through the processes of cooking, eating and entertaining.
Now, Porowski brings this carefully honed skill to a new solo project. National Geographic’s No Taste Like Home with Antoni Porowski sees the charismatic 40-year-old play gastronomic guide as he brings a star-studded line-up – each episode centres around a different celebrity – on a culinary journey of personal and cultural discovery. He joins Florence Pugh’s family for a traditional English Sunday roast; makes kimchi with Awkwafina in South Korea; harvests clams with Justin Theroux in Italy; shares a German beer with James Marsden in the Bavarian mountains; prepares ikan semah with Henry Golding in Borneo; and picks moringa leaves with Issa Rae in Senegal.
Harvesting clams with Justin Theroux. Photo: National Geographic
Antoni and Justin tuck into a plate of pasta. Photo: National Geographic
The series presents an opportunity for audiences to see a different, more authentic side to these public personas, says Porowski. “We all see actors in film and TV, and we see them as concepts. We see them as characters that we look up to, that we respect, or who are villains, who we’re a little afraid of – but they're concepts. They're not individuals.” The show portrays the deeply human side of its guests, capturing the joy, shock, sadness and nostalgia experienced by each celebrity as they learn more about their heritage and ancestors.
Wandering the Yorkshire countryside with Florence Pugh. Photo: National Geographic
Dealing so closely with such personal subject matter made it impossible for Porowski to remain an impassive third party. “Walking with Florence through this lovely park, and to present her with this information and then to point to the literal – like you can’t see goosebumps under this jacket, but they’re there,” he says. “To literally point to the building where we know that her ancestors lived for a significant amount of time – that hits you. To be sitting with Awkwafina at a coffee shop and to meet her mom's high school friends and to have them share photos that she's never seen of her mom, when you know she lost her when she was four years old, is incredibly emotional.”
Antoni and Awkwafina. Photo: National Geographic
The guests, who were given no script or schedule, had to hand over control and embrace the unknown. “For the most part, except knowing what city they're in, they didn't know what they were doing every single day. We truly did keep it a surprise,” says Porowski. In response to this vulnerability, Porowski serves more as a spiritual leader than a presenter in the conventional sense. “I'm hosting this journey with this person, and I'm kind of holding their hand, sometimes literally, through it. I think it's knowing when to offer my opinion and expertise, but it's more about just kind of going in with curiosity, checking in with them, practicing bedside manner, seeing how they're feeling about the process, and just being a conduit for them to make their own discoveries.”
Sharing a German beer with James Marsden. Photo: National Geographic
Antoni and Issa Rae in Senegal. Photo: National Geographic
Key to the success of the series is its emphasis on accuracy and authenticity. Each episode is extensively researched, with genealogists hired to visit the locations before filming and multiple sources on hand to corroborate oral histories. “A really important part of the show was making sure that we include these experts,” says Porowski. “I think authenticity is something that I learned on Queer Guy is a very powerful thing that people respond to. Viewers are smart. And Nat Geo viewers are especially smart. So having the experts there and me presenting with a little bit of information and then offering someone else to really paint the full picture so that I'm not there to give any misinformation – that was paramount in pre-production.”
Toasting with Henry Golding in Borneo. Photo: National Geographic
Porowski’s passion for food is undeniable, emphasised throughout the series with every hungry glint, satisfied lip smack and happily satiated sigh, “If you met any member of my family, we are all so deeply obsessed with food,” he says. “With talking about it, making it, figuring out how to make it better. We're having one meal, we're talking about the next.” Creating No Taste Like Home left him with questions about his own family’s relationship with food, which he’d always been aware of but never properly interrogated. “Making tortellini en brodo with Justin in Emilia-Romagna made me think about this soup that we have at Christmas Eve that's vegetarian – we don't eat any meat at Christmas Eve, which I'd be curious to see, like, what's the background of that? Why did we do that one day a year? And we would have these tiny, little tortellini – we call them uzka – with wild mushrooms in a clear beet broth, in a borsch. Similar, but very different, but also like, the exact same shape of the pasta in the broth. What are the ties? What's the relationship? How did we get there?”
These are the sorts of questions Porowski hopes audiences will start asking of their own culinary habits and the food traditions that have been passed down. “It does sort of ignite a curiosity,” he says. “And that's what I hope viewers get from it, where they start to get curious about the dishes and the things they take for granted.”
No Taste Like Home with Antoni Porowski is available from Monday 24th February on Disney+ and Wednesday 26th February at 10pm on National Geographic Channel.
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