The Story Behind Phil Rosenthal, Host of Netflix’s ‘Somebody Feed Phil’

From funny to food

Phil Rosenthal, the affable and likable host of Netflix’s Somebody Feed Phil, gets a long feature in the LA Times and it starts out immediately with Rosenthal’s praise for Howlin’ Ray’s fried chicken sandwich. He proclaims it, “This is the best fried chicken sandwich I’ve ever had...I think it’s in the running for best sandwich I’ve ever had.” Rosenthal talks about how he fell in love with food, when he first traveled to Italy during the filming of Everybody Loves Raymond. The profile also goes in depth on Rosenthal’s financial involvement as an investor in upwards of 25 restaurants in Los Angeles, such as Jar, Osteria Mozza, Republique, and Here’s Looking at You.

The love of oysters

LA Magazine goes into the history of Downtown’s Rappahannock Oyster Bar, a chainlet that also lets its chefs get creative in the kitchen versus serving a completely standard menu. Nick Erven, who helmed Saint Martha and his namesake Erven in Santa Monica, helms the kitchen here, serving an LA version of seaside fare.

‘Every’ investor please stand up

Everytable, the socially conscious, reasonably priced pre-made eatery with spots in Santa Monica and South LA has announced a Series A investment round that brought in over $10 million to the startup. This means Everytable could end up launching at the much bigger scale. According to Sam Polk, the company’s CEO, “we’re not looking to open 20 stores — we want to open 20,000 stores.” That’s ambitious.

Five years of Spazio are over

Spazio Cafe, an Italian-leaning cafe located on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica, has closed up shop after five years on the tony Westside street. Toddrickallen notices that the space is completely gutted.

800 Degrees folds in Playa Vista

800 Degree Pizza has closed its outlet in Playa Vista. The location received pretty middling reviews and only opened two years ago. Apparently the Westside tech hub isn’t as strong of a restaurant scene as one might expect.

Hot chicken recipe, right this way

Anyone curious how to make Howlin’ Ray’s hot chicken can look at Tasty’s new recipe video, posted on Twitter right here: