Chef and restaurateur David Chang is taking his love of food on the road in a new CNN travel series that sends him across the United States in search of unexpected meals, local recommendations and hidden culinary gems.
The six-part series, The Detour with David Chang, follows Chang as he travels by car with friends and fellow food personalities, deliberately stepping away from restaurant rankings, social-media influencers and algorithms to discover places through word of mouth.
The series premiered on Sept. 20 and follows a simple philosophy: the destination may be known, but everything in between is open to discovery. Each episode pairs Chang with a different companion and takes him through a new stretch of the country.
Among the food adventures featured are Filipino dishes in Las Vegas, Czech pastries in Texas and Haitian food in Miami. Chang also encounters Cuban fritas served from a laundromat, Asian-inspired barbecue and a Honduran breakfast from a food truck.
One of the show’s central ideas is to rediscover the excitement of finding food without relying on technology to determine where to eat.
Chang said the inspiration came partly from remembering how people discovered music before the internet and social media. He compared that experience with finding memorable food by simply asking people for recommendations and following unexpected leads.
That approach leads to some of the show’s most unexpected moments.
While travelling toward Las Vegas, Chang stopped at a truck stop in Hesperia, California. Instead of visiting only the restaurant selected by the production team, he spotted another place that caught his attention and decided to eat at both.
Another memorable detour begins with a taxi driver in Las Vegas who recommends an Ethiopian restaurant. Chang follows the suggestion and discovers a meal featuring slow-cooked chicken and injera, the traditional sourdough flatbread.
The journey also takes Chang through Texas, where he explores barbecue and meets pitmaster Chuck Charnichart at Barbs in Lockhart. There, traditional barbecue is given new twists, including serrano-glazed ribs and fresh lime.
Chang is joined by a rotating group of companions, including filmmaker Cord Jefferson, comedian Cristela Alonzo and Milk Bar founder Christina Tosi. The series also takes him through Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Sonoma as he explores regional food traditions and contemporary interpretations.
The show also places Chang in a growing field of celebrity-hosted food and travel programmes. CNN describes him as the first chef to host one of its original series since Anthony Bourdain, whose influence on food-and-travel television continues to shape the genre.
But The Detour takes a different approach from conventional restaurant-focused travel shows. Rather than trying to identify the best restaurant in each destination, the series emphasizes conversations with locals and the unexpected places those conversations can lead.
That philosophy is particularly relevant in an era when search engines, review platforms and social-media recommendations can determine much of a traveler’s itinerary before a journey even begins.
For Chang, the road trip is therefore as much about rediscovering curiosity as it is about food. Getting lost, trusting a stranger’s recommendation and trying something unfamiliar become part of the experience.
As the series continues, The Detour offers a different look at American food culture — one built not around carefully planned itineraries, but around the possibility that the most memorable meal may be found somewhere nobody originally intended to visit.
