After growing up in Greenville, South Carolina, and receiving his culinary training at Johnson & Wales in Charleston, chef and restaurateur Tyler Florence headed west to open Wayfare Tavern in San Francisco. Along the way, he also became a Food Network star best known for hosting The Great Food Truck Race, a literal moving feast that takes competing teams to new locations and challenges each episode. The nineteenth season once again brought Florence back to the South for high-energy cook-offs that started in Nashville, revved up to Knoxville, and doubled back to Louisville. (The Churchill Downs–set finale aired September 6.) He slowed down just long enough to feed us some thoughts on his favorite Southern trucks and an accidental pilgrimage to the birthplace of KFC.
This season’s teams have hailed from as far away as Hawaii, but it’s not too much of a spoiler to reveal that two Southern trucks made it into the final three.
Yes, we connected on our Southern roots. Cason Funnel Cakes from Richmond owns a fun food style perfect for a truck, and it smells good from down the street. It’s how they finish funnel cakes and make them contemporary that takes them to the next level. And Stuph’D from New Orleans is so creative with from-scratch, fried-to-order beignets—not just traditional sweet beignets but savory beignets with incredible fillings like shrimp and spicy sausage. Both of those teams are family operations and bring a great dynamic.
From some sweaty on-camera moments, it looks like the competition wasn’t the only thing that was heated.
It was so hot. We’re not in an air-conditioned studio, we’re always outdoors, and we started shooting in early summer. It was definitely the hot and humid South, and we were dodging rainstorms every single day. Sometimes I say just put a tarp over us, grab umbrellas, and keep the camera rolling while it pours.
Given all the bites you take during judging, did you have the appetite to make any food discoveries along the way?
Always. I think J.C. Holdway, the wood-fire Appalachian restaurant in Knoxville, sent out everything on the menu, and it was spectacular. UT Knoxville has this great, student-run creamery on campus, and, oh, I got to throw out the first pitch at a Vols baseball game. In Corbin, Kentucky, I was driving and driving, trying to track down this barbecue place, and slammed on my brakes when I realized I’d just passed the birthplace of the first Kentucky Fried Chicken location from the 1930s. There’s a museum there with memorabilia and videos of Harland Sanders, and a contemporary KFC attached to it. That was really fun and amazing.
What sort of local ingredients did the teams have to figure out how to use?
We gave them fresh blackberries, which were nice and tart, and Kentucky beer cheese, which maybe wasn’t the easiest thing to work with. And Tennessee whiskey when the trucks were competing for sales at Leiper’s Fork Distillery in Franklin, Tennessee. I got a signed bottle there and have it in my office right now.
What are your thoughts about getting to shoot an episode at Dollywood not long before Dolly Parton’s passing?
I’m actually really proud of that. My mom had season tickets to Dollywood for forever, but this was my first visit, and everyone there couldn’t have been kinder. They were so lovely to work with.
Are there things you learn from the plucky world of food trucks that you take back to your own restaurants?
I always learn something. That’s the curiosity of a good chef, to not be above anything. I’m proud to be playing a part in the food-truck phenomenon. There are now 67,000 active food trucks in America, and we helped grow that fan base. Twenty years in, America has developed a legitimate street-food culture. My biggest impact on the food world has been through this.
Where do you like to eat when you visit family back in Greenville?
It’s a very different city than when I lived there, so it’s almost like I’m rolling in and seeing it for the first time. There are so many good places now. Tupelo Honey does a super job. I have a real soft spot for Soby’s New South Cuisine and have cooked there a couple of times. Lewis Barbecue is absolutely genre-defining. Beyond that, I’m always up for soul food or a meat-and-three. When you walk in the door and smell collard greens and pork fat and fresh biscuits, there’s nothing better.
Steve Russell is a Garden & Gun contributing editor who also has written for Men’s Journal, Life, Rolling Stone, and Playboy. Born in Mississippi and raised in Tennessee, he resided in New Orleans and New York City before settling down in Charlottesville, Virginia, because it’s far enough south that biscuits are an expected component of a good breakfast.