Antoni Porowski, Queer Eye star and Presenter
The Travel Diaries
Holly Rubenstein
4.5 • 813 Ratings
🗓️ 26 May 2026
⏱️ 53 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today’s guest is a global tv star, bestselling author, food obsessive and one of the most beloved members of one of Netflix’s biggest ever shows…Antoni Porowski.
You’ll know Antoni as the much-loved food and wine expert from Netflix’s global phenomenon Queer Eye, where for ten seasons he helped people transform not just the way they cooked and ate, but the way they saw themselves.
Antoni’s own story is such a fascinating journey in itself. In today’s episode, we travel through his life from childhood road trips to the North Carolina coast and the first meal that truly blew his mind, to the trip he saved up for as a young waiter in New York that made him fall completely in love with travel.
We talk about the years before Queer Eye, when he was auditioning, working in restaurants, hustling, and trying to find his way in New York, and what it felt like when the show suddenly changed everything.
And, of course, we dive into his new National Geographic series, Best of the World with Antoni Porowski, which takes him to Paris, Mexico City, London and New York.
Destination Recap:
Holly: AKI Family Resort, Italy
- Pennsylvania, USA
- New York City, USA
- Philadelphia, USA
- Montreal, Canada
- September Cafe, Montreal, Canada
- Rotisserie Italienne, Montreal, Canada
- McGill University, Montreal, Canada
- Mount Royal, Montreal, Canada
- Outremont, Montreal, Canada
- Le Merc, Montreal, Canada
- Bilboquet, Montreal, Canada
- Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, USA
- Dirty Dick’s Crab House, Cape Hatteras, USA
- The Labrador, Cape Hatteras, USA
- Canadian Hole, Cape Hatteras, USA
- Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, USA
- West Virginia, USA
- Vancouver, Canada
- Florence, Italy
- Rome, Italy
- Mexico City, Mexico
- Roma Norte, Mexico City, Mexico
- Rosetta, Mexico City, Mexico
- Canals of Mexico City, Mexico
- Alebrijes Festival, Mexico City, Mexico
- Museo de Arte Popular / Folkloric Museum, Mexico City, Mexico
- Borneo, Malaysia
- Kuching, Malaysia
- Iban longhouses, Sarawak, Malaysia
- Kuching waterfront / canal, Kuching, Malaysia
- Kuching food kiosks, Kuching, Malaysia
- Fire Island, New York, USA
- Long Island, New York, USA
- Ibiza, Spain
- Iceland
- Istanbul, Turkey
- Morocco
- Patagonia, Argentina/Chile
Best of the World with Antoni Porowski premieres June 7 on National Geographic and will be available to stream June 8 on Disney+ and Hulu.
With thanks to...
Richard Haworth - Discover their luxury hotel-quality bedding, towels and table linen at Richard Haworth At Home
Airbnb - Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.co.uk/host
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And if you’d like a little more Travel Diaries in your life, you can find me on Instagram and TikTok @hollyrubenstein.
Thanks so much for listening, and I’ll see you next week.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the Travel Diaries podcast. |
| 0:09.7 | I'm your host Holly Rubinstein and here each week we uncover the seven chapters of my guests, |
| 0:16.1 | Travel Diaries from the first place they fell in love with to their all-time favorite destination, the hidden gem to what's at the top of their travel bucket list. |
| 0:25.7 | Before we get started, if you enjoy this episode, don't forget to hit subscribe or follow on your podcast platform. |
| 0:33.9 | It's free and it means a weekly dose of wanderlust is delivered into your library each week. |
| 0:39.2 | And by doing that, you're also really helping the podcast. |
| 0:42.6 | Today's guest is a global TV star, a best-selling author, food obsessive, and one of the most |
| 0:49.8 | beloved members of one of Netflix's biggest ever shows. |
| 0:53.9 | I see my life sort of divided in two. |
| 0:56.0 | There's life before queer eye and there's life after. |
| 0:59.0 | And then we get to Times Square and we were on both Jumbotrons. |
| 1:02.0 | And it was just this like, this chill down my spine of sort of like, oh wow. |
| 1:06.0 | I remember that moment I was like, oh no, I think I've just done something that I can't take back. |
| 1:12.4 | I don't hear from, you know, the other Muppets, my castmates, for a month or two. And then someone starts the group chat up again and it's like, okay, miss you guys. Like when's the next one coming up? And now we don't have that. I was terrified. I think with fears often where I learn the most important things about myself. |
| 1:30.3 | I mean, I snot cried maybe three times during that scene. It looks like sweat in the show, but it was tears. |
| 1:36.3 | And the scent and taste, basically if shaved raw garlic and camember, a ripe camo bear, had a baby. |
| 1:45.2 | That feeling of 24-7, even after a shower, of having that tight, salty skin from the ocean. |
| 1:53.7 | That was, of course, Anthony Perowski. |
| 1:56.6 | You'll know Anthony as the much-loved food and wine expert from Netflix's global phenomenon, Queer Eye, |
| 2:03.1 | where for 10 seasons he helped people transform not just the way that they cooked and ate, |
| 2:08.6 | but the way that they saw themselves. |
| 2:11.1 | And Anthony's own story is such a fascinating journey in itself. |
... |
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