Food Network's Guy Fieri Rolls Into Bradenton To Film Hit TV Show

may be one of Bradenton's best-kept secrets, but after Tuesday's visit from one of Food Network's biggest stars, the secret will soon be out.

Guy Fieri, the spiky-haired, tattooed TV host and culinary character, visited Jose's, 8799 Cortez Rd. W., on Tuesday to film a segment for his hit cable show, "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives."

The popular program, which spotlights creative chefs at hole-in-the-wall restaurants all over the country, found the perfect place for Fieri's tastes.

"Anybody that gets to live within 50 miles of this joint is lucky," Fieri said. "I think they're gonna have to build a small airstrip (for me) to come visit."

Fieri sampled some of owner Jose Baserva's picadillo (Cuban ground beef in a tomato-based sauce) and paella (a yellow rice dish mixed with meats and seafood) and offered some rave reviews in between segments.

"Delicious," Fieri said. "I mean, come on. He's heating a little sweet plantain ... It's dynamite."

About 12 of Jose's customers e-mailed the Food Network in the past year or so requesting Fieri's show come to Bradenton, Baserva said. He's not sure which e-mail finally won them over — although he thinks it might have been the one that described the 52-year-old restaurant owner as "a cross between Billy Joel and Cheech Marin."

Fieri said it was Baserva's friendly personality, as much as his authentic Cuban recipes, that attracted the show's producers to Bradenton.

"Dude kills me," Fieri said. "You just want to sit down with him and eat some paella and have some cold beers with him and say, 'Tell me another story.' "

Customer Kevin Friedman, 55, has been coming in to Jose's for about two years, not just for for the food, but for the entertainment provided by Baserva himself.

"He's just a character," Friedman said. "Every time he's got a new story. His eyes bulge out like a championship wrestler. He loves telling stories. It's easy to come back."

Stop in on a typical day and you'll find Baserva laughing it up with his customers or busy at work behind the counter inside the small eatery. On one recent afternoon, Baserva was carving up a fish that a group of customers had just caught earlier that day in the Gulf.

All the food at Jose's is homemade and prepared according to authentic recipes from Baserva's native Cuba. His specialty is lechon asado — roast pork — that's featured as a regular dish and on a sandwich, as well as in their pressed Cuban sandwich with ham and cheese.

The production company spent a 10-hour day filming at Jose's about a week and a half ago, then another four hours with Fieri on Tuesday — all for a segment that will be about 15 minutes long. The episode will air on the Food Network sometime within the next few months, the producers said. Baserva will be notified a month in advance so he can promote it.

On Tuesday, Fieri met with a hand-picked group of customers who were allowed in for the shoot. He signed autographs for them and the restaurant staff, including one on the pages of a Mad Magazine comic that spoofed the blond-haired chef.

"He's a real nice guy," said server Cathy Davis, who snagged the autograph for her future brother-in-law, a big Fieri fan.

Bradenton's Renee and Jerry Knab have been coming to Jose's since a few days after the restaurant opened in 2007 and were some of the lucky few invited in for the taping. They brought their daughters — Katie, 13; Kara, 9; and Abbey, 4 — who said they are big Fieri fans and got to pose for a family picture with him.

"He was very sweet," Renee Knab said. "I thought that was awesome. Looking at him on TV, I thought he could be mean. He was not what I expected."

The show's Minnesota-based crew, which has spent the past few days in the St. Petersburg/Tampa area and filmed at two other locations earlier on Tuesday, also brought along the show's signature red 1967 Camaro, which rumbled into Jose's parking lot bearing the "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" logo on its license plate.

Fieri said he had never been to Bradenton — he kept pronouncing it Bradington and had to do multiple takes during his introductory segment —but came through the area in 2007 to film an episode at Sarasota's , home of the "turducken." He called that show one of his favorites, but said Tuesday's visit with Baserva was also well worth the trip.

"The guy's amazing. He appreciates food and he loves people, and that's the beauty of it. That's what you love," Fieri said. "At 'Triple D,' it's not just about great food. They gotta have great food, and they gotta have the unique environment. But they gotta truly be a character; they have to truly be a person of food."

Baserva fits the bill. Exhausted after the hectic shoot, the gregarious owner was still beaming from his meeting with Fieri.

"He's funny, he's detail oriented," Baserva said. "He loved the food."

And the publicity still to come from his Food Network debut?

"That's priceless."