Chef and TV personality Michael Symon tells us why he’s hungry for more.

The cameras have just shut off and the lights have been turned down, yet Michael Symon is still very much on. Having just wrapped the day’s filming of The Chew, ABC’s food-centric daily life – style show which he co-hosts with the likes of Mario Batali among others, Symon remains engaged and personable with plenty of his infectious laughter to go around.

Thanks to his personality that lends itself to being in front of the camera, Symon is a fixture on television sets these days, popping up everywhere from The Chew to Food Network. What’s more, his role on The Chew brought him to Orlando to take in the tastes of Epcot’s International Food & Wine Festival for the past two years, and we’re hopeful he’ll keep coming back for more.

As strong as Symon’s jovial sensibilities and celebrity presence are, though, they don’t surpass the reverence he shows for food. He is both an Iron Chef and a James Beard Award winner, and he operates several restaurants in his native Cleveland, as well as Detroit, Washington, D.C. and all the way down to a burger joint in Austin, Texas. We spoke with him about his career and found out how his friendly rivalry with Bobby Flay extends further than the kitchen.

ORLANDO FAMILY MAGAZINE: You briefly hosted Dinner Impossible. What do you recall about that?

MS: I remember when we did chocolate-covered bacon before that was a hot thing. People were looking at me like, “What you are doing?” But now it’s in every candy store. And we did the big clam bake, it was great. That show took years off my life but it was fun.

OFM: How so?

MS: On Iron Chef, you cook really high-end food for six people, which is always fun. But on Dinner Impossible, we need to make food for 2,000 people. The way I approach cooking, I never buy anything that is presliced, precut, etc. And now we need 600 pounds of carrots. But it was great. I filled in for Robert [Irvine] for a while.

OFM: When you are working on a show, do you get out much to explore the area where you are shooting?

MS: No. Whenever I do television, I tell people, look: I am a chef and a restaurateur first, so we need to make this work around that. I fly in, do the show, fly out and get back to the restaurants. That’s how I keep my sanity.

OFM: Some would say the restaurant business is a little chaotic, but you are saying it keeps you sane. Does that mean you are a little twisted?

MS: For sure.

With Mario Batali on The Chew

MS: I’m in the kitchens all the time. I need to be in them, it’s in my blood. Last week was a great example: We get done filming [The Chew] at 2 [p.m.] on Thursday. I was on a plane and I’m in Cleveland by 4:30 and worked Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday morning, came back to New York to do the show.

OFM: Are you sick of the term celebrity chef?

MS: Yeah, it’s an interesting and great time to be a chef. But how can I say this … not even sure being PC is the right term…

OFM: That there are a lot of great entertainers on TV who are not chefs?

MS: There’s a lot of people who are great entertainers, great teachers, but the term chef is thrown around so loosely these days. When they say they are a chef, I say a chef of what? A TV studio? It’s flattering, it’s great, but I never think of myself that way. I think of myself as a cook.

OFM: Well, you seem very comfortable in front of the camera. How much do you enjoy doing the TV work?

MS: I enjoy it, my favorite part about being a chef is teaching young cooks. So, my favorite thing about being on TV is having the ability to be in 3 million people’s kitchen every day and show why food is important to us. It’s relatively simple to get a home-cooked meal on your table to feed your family.

OFM: How does being from Cleveland help shape the way you are as a chef?

MS: It grounds me a lot, even though I have a lot of fine dining restaurants, I don’t think of my food as fussy. There’s a lot of food out there that is fussy these days. We use high-end ingredients, handle them with care, but we just let them speak for themselves, we don’t mess with them too much. I hope when people take a bite of certain dishes it takes them to a place—their childhood or a vacation and gives them a taste sensation.

OFM: You are a chef, a TV personality, author, etc. What do you do to unwind from it all?

MS: Well it won’t sound like decompressing, but my son just opened up a little gourmet donut and coffee shop. So, my wife Liz and I worked with him in the donut shop all summer. It was incredibly fun and a stress reliever to watch your kid get started in the business and have success.

When I’m home I garden a lot, I love putzing around in the yard. And I adore golf, I’ve been playing since I was 8 years old.

OFM: Playing golf would stress me out even more.

MS: Well then, you’re not good enough (laughs). It’s not stressful for me because I’m always taking money from Bobby Flay (laughs).

OFM: The culinary world has evolved so much in the past 10-15 years, where would you like to see it go in the next decade?

MS: The direction food has taken has such a positive twist. I hope it continues and consumers continue to demand from restaurants and chefs to know where food comes from and how it is raised and how it’s produced. I think that is an important part of our future.

This article appeared in Orlando Family Magazine’s April 2017 issue.