A new GQ profile on Guy Fieri covers his magical life in Sonoma, punctuated by racing cars, neighbors' complaints, his love for food and his stable of ostentatious cars.
Who doesn't love some Fieri? "It’s pronounced FEE-eddy."
GQ writer Drew Magary booked his ticket to Flavortown to preview Fieri's new wine line, Hunt & Ryde, which debuts this fall with three varietals, which Magary pronounces as "light and peppery." The bottles will barely reference Fieri, who wants the wine — not his frosted tips and outsize persona — to take the spotlight.
Here are the highlights — some of them may actually surprise you
1. He owns a horny tortoise
Guy Fieri has a pet sulcata tortoise named Pops that likes to hump an "old, crusty hard hat" sitting in the middle of its pen. “We’ll hear him," Fieri tells GQ. "There must be a season or something, ’cos he gets goin’.”
Guy's turtle also loves to eat dog shit. As Fieri points out, "It is the foie gras of the turtle.”
I can never eat foie gras again without thinking about how Guy Fieri feeds dog feces to his tortoise and calls it foie gras.
2. When it comes to vanity license plates, Guy Fieri is not playing around
He has a yellow Camaro (with a black racing stripe) with a license plate that says "RYDERSS", thus named after his 8 year old son Ryder — this will be Ryder's car, once he is 16. I'm sure Ryder will love that.
He also has cars with license plates that say, FOOD FYT, CADLAQ, LIVFAST and BLKTRFL. BLKTRFL is obviously my favourite. Does he take it when he's shopping for black truffle? Would the companion car be WHYTTRFL? How about a little family of cars that include TRFLOIL?
3. Self-loathing is on the menu
Apparently Guy Fieri hates fried food. This is a genuine surprise, given how often many fried items pop up on his menus. Is it healthy to hate something that is such an integral part of your personal brand? Will he reveal he's never eaten donkeysauce next? Do any of us know Guy at all? #enlightened
4. Fieri is very disappointed with Anthony Bourdain
Bourdain is one of Fieri's most outspoken critics, holding him up as the current incarnation of everything that's wrong with the Food Network and maybe also America. In response, Fieri tells Magary:
“It’s actually disappointing,” Fieri says when I tell him about Bourdain’s show. “I don’t like him making fun of people, and I don’t like him talking shit. And he’s never talked shit to my face. I know he’s definitely gotta have issues, ’cos the average person doesn’t behave that way. It’s not that I’m not open to the reality that the food world was like this from a few people’s perspective. It’s just, What are you doing? What is your instigation? You have nothing else to fucking worry about than if I have bleached hair or not? I mean, fuck.”
Shots fired — but Bourdain declined to comment for the article.
5. There is no longer any doubt that Flavortown is basically Fieri's backyard
He has two trailers in his backyard and one is home to a huli-huli rotisserie machine that can spit-roast THIRTY SIX chickens simultaneously. Now that is the American dream, right there.
Read the entire profile and try — just try! — not to fall a little in love with Fieri in spite of yourself.
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