The Mayor of Flavortown heads to Source in Harvard Square.
By Katelyn Umholtz August 13, 2024
Flavortown fans of Greater Boston may hear a familiar name when watching the bleach-haired Guy Fieri roll up to a local restaurant in “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives” this week.
Source in Cambridge, an eatery known for its elevated pizzas made with locally sourced ingredients, joins the long list of Boston spots — Bagelsaurus, Cutty’s, and Trina’s Starlite Lounge, to name a few — that have made their small-screen debut on the long-running foodie road trip show hosted by Fieri.
The Cambridge restaurant was selected to appear as one of the featured eateries in an upcoming episode after a lengthy interview process, owner Daniel Roughan said. By May, the show’s crew and the Food Network star were there filming the kitchen topping pizzas and diners eating brunch.
To be on the program, you have to agree to showcase two foods and reveal their recipes, so chef Brian Kevorkian said he was careful about which menu items not to give away.
“I wanted to do [Brussels sprouts] on the show,” Kevorkian said, noting that the vegetable small plate is their most popular dish. “When they were like ‘you have to give us your full recipe,’ then we can’t do that dish. There’s only one person in the restaurant who knows the recipe — it’s me.”
The menu items that will get their 15 minutes of fame include the rum baba, a brioche made using rum and french toast batter on Source’s brunch menu, and their popular pepperoni cup-topped pizza.
For those new to the show, each episode features three restaurants. In the case of Friday’s new episode, that will include Source, alongside an Italian restaurant in California and a breakfast cafe in Ohio.
It isn’t known, of course, what will make it into the edit of the episode, but Kevorkian said he showed Fieri how they make their dough, talked about the process of making the rum baba, and it will also typically feature customers who share positive remarks about the dish or restaurant.
When asked what surprised the Source team the most about Fieri and his crew, both Kevorkian and Roughan said it was just how friendly they were, particularly Fieri.
“It was a lot of fun just to have another person that has that hyper, sort of rapid fire type [personality] like I am, and to be in the kitchen,” Kevorkian said. “It made for a good show, lots of energy.”
Viewers can catch the Mayor of Flavortown at this Cambridge restaurant Friday at 9 p.m. ET on Food Network.
https://www.boston.com/food/restaurants/2024/08/13/source-cambridge-diners-drive-ins-dives/
Airs Friday, August 16th at 9pm on the Food Network, view here.