Guy Fieri puts South Florida restaurants under the ‘Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives’ spotlight

UPDATED March 11: A previous version of this story left out Hellenic Republic, a Coral Springs restaurant that will be featured on the March 24 episode of “Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives.”

Jeffrey Lemmerman had to do something special when he heard Guy Fieri wanted to spotlight his hamburger hub on wheels, Cheffrey Eats, on the new season of “Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives.”

So he had his brother slap a permanent tribute to the Food Network TV star on the side of his Cheffrey Eats food truck: An anthropomorphized cartoon of Fieri as a frosty-tipped potato spud, garbed in flannel and signature VonZipper sunglasses.

“Producers wanted him to film in the food truck, but he loved that spud,” Lemmerman recalls with a laugh. “He was like, ‘No, let’s do the interview over there with my fat-f--- VeggieTale self.”

Yes, it’s true: South Florida restaurants are once again in Fieri’s culinary crosshairs, and he’s spotlighting five Broward and Palm Beach County eateries on “Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives,” which kicked off its newest season on March 3. They are:

• Homey Italian trattoria Rose’s Daughter in Delray Beach (March 3)

• Whole-animal butchery and sandwich shop The Butcher and the Bar in Boynton Beach (March 17)

• Cult-favorite, hamburger-and-fries food truck Cheffrey Eats (March 17)

• Puerto Rican restaurant La Cosinita Latina in West Palm Beach (March 24)

• Greek and Mediterranean restaurant Hellenic Republic in Coral Springs (March 24)

Fieri’s long-running travelogue series — which has saluted the comfort-food ingenuity of beloved pit-stops across the United States for almost two decades — lately seems to be stuck on the Sunshine State. And South Florida may be his favorite Flavortown: In 2022, he bought a house in Lake Worth Beach, and for the past two years has staged a live all-stars version of “Diners” at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival. One “Diners” episode last season visited Rebel House in Boca Raton, chef Eric Baker’s eclectic comfort-food kitchen, and Fieri also featured three other eateries in 2020.

Filming for this season’s “Diners” segments at the five South Florida restaurants took place in December.

Lemmerman, for one, welcomes the “Diners” publicity bump for Cheffrey Eats, which serves award-winning burgers from the parking lot of Barrel of Monks Brewing in Boca Raton. The food truck landed on Fieri’s radar after Cheffrey Eats fans tipped off Food Network producers, he says.

“Producers were like, ‘You had a whole bunch of people telling us about your truck,’” says Lemmerman, who plans to throw a “Diners” watch party at 9 p.m. March 17 at Barrel of Monks. “It definitely made me stand out.”

He says he won’t spoil what happens during the episode, but Fieri sampled two Cheffrey Eats creations: The Barnyard Burger, a tenderized, butterflied and battered chicken breast atop an Angus chuck blend burger, plus candied bacon and cheddar on a Cusano’s kaiser roll. The second: Brownie-batter cheesecake in a mason jar.

“Most of our burgers are pretty simple, but this one’s over the top even though it’s only four components on the burger,” says Lemmerman, who bought his first food truck with his life savings in 2016, without a business plan or a food concept.

Did Fieri have any advice for Cheffrey Eats?

“He told me to be prepared to consolidate my menu to three burgers if I expand, and figure out shipping for the cheesecakes,” he says. “He’s the man. I have a lot of respect for what he does. He has an amazing talent.”

‘An amazing miracle’

More than Guy Fieri complimenting her short-rib pappardelle, more than describing her black truffle paste as “dangerous,” what Suzanne Perrotto remembers best about her appearance on “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives” (which aired March 3) is that her mother was there to experience it.

Rose’s Daughter — neither drive-in, diner nor dive — is Perrotto’s Italian comfort-food trattoria, which opened in 2019 two blocks north of Delray Beach’s buzzworthy Atlantic Avenue. Perrotto’s mother, Linda Rose Kaufman, is the soul and namesake of the eatery, where all the pastas are handmade. Many of the recipes are an homage to her mother’s home cooking and globetrotting career as a chef. (Kaufman’s chef’s jacket sits in a shadowbox in the kitchen.)

To prepare short-rib pappardelle, Perrotto slow-roasts her short rib for 18 hours and makes pasta with a combination of Semolina fine and Caputo 00 flours. Pasta is served “with an al dente elasticity to it,” she says, topped with English peas, housemade bechamel (mom’s recipe adds cognac, shallots and heavy cream) and black truffle paste.

Of Fieri, she says, “I think in his heart he really understood the meaning of chefs who make everything by hand, who have food in their souls.”

After Fieri filmed the segment, Perrotto recounts, her mother leaned over and said to her, “I just want you to know I’m so proud of what you’ve become, my darling daughter.” Then “she touched me on the side of my face and kissed my cheek.”

The next day, Perrotto’s mother went into the hospital for open-heart surgery.

“She’s not 100 percent yet, but she’s mostly recovered now,” Perrotto says. “It was just an amazing miracle the way everything has turned out.”

‘It was gratifying to see that’

After taking a bite from an all-beef hot dog from The Butcher and the Bar in Boynton Beach, co-owner Eric Anderson says Fieri did something he’s never seen on television: He polished off the whole thing.

“A producer pulled me aside afterward and said, ‘He always takes two bites but never finishes the whole meal,’” Anderson recalls. “It was gratifying to see that.”

At his sandwich shop and whole-animal butchery, everything is scratch-made. Even the New York-style dogs, made with chuck that chef Logan Gates butchers from the cow, stuffs into a casing and douses in mustard and sauerkraut on a soft split-top bun from Old School Bakery in Delray Beach.

Fieri’s segment featured the eatery’s porchetta sandwich, made with pork saddles that Gates rubs with lemon zest, parsley, shaved fennel and garlic before binding it with twine. After roasting for four hours, the porchetta is served on ciabatta smeared with gremolata and lemon vinaigrette, with leftover pork skin “so you get the tasty crunch on top,” Anderson says.

Anderson says Fieri pulled him aside during filming and told him, “‘Your chef’s so talented.’ He said, ‘Whatever you do, don’t lose this kid.’”

Being on Food Network ‘is a big deal’

Hellenic Republic, which opened in 2019 under head chef and longtime Coral Springs resident Nikol Zarbalas, is also planning a watch party for its March 24 episode of “Diners.”

The small Greek-Mediterranean restaurant serves scratch-made Greek meze such as panko-breaded halloumi fries served with housemade dipping sauce, along with spanakopita and herb-and-spice-filled meatballs called beeftekia. There are street food-style items like braised lamb pita topped with pickled red onions as well as meatier entrees including lamb chops and fried chicken and waffles.

Zarbalas says Fieri — accompanied by a local guest, James Beard-winning chef Michelle Bernstein — sampled two dishes during the visit. The first was Hellenic’s spin on shrimp and grits, in which cooked jumbo shrimp are wrapped in golden-fried phyllo dough on a mound of Greek-style grits, and drizzled with a jalapeño simple syrup. The other was Zarbalas’ lamb burger, a beefteki patty smothered in braised lamb on a toasted bun.

“Being featured on Food Network is a big deal for not just myself, but for every restaurant and local chef here in South Florida,” Zarbalas says. “It’s an honor and a privilege and we will celebrate during our watch party and can’t wait to visit and revisit some of our local featured chefs.”