He’s been to amazing places such as New Zealand, Sri Lanka and India but a visit to Florida proved to be extra special for Jimmy Doherty. “For a little boy growing up in Essex, Florida is exotic so I’d always wanted to go there,” he tells us. “Growing up, I was obsessed with the Everglades. I watched shows like Flipper, Gentle Ben and of course, Miami Vice. When I was about 14, I used to gel my hair back and rolled the arms up on my white blazer and pretended I was Don Johnson.”
The TV presenter, chef and farmer, 48, spent nearly a month in the US state as he undertook a gastronomic trip for his new ITV show, Jimmy Doherty’s Taste Of Florida, coming off the back of his extremely successful 'Jimmy Doherty's New Zealand Escape' back in 2015. “It was a real moment of discovery. There’s so much more to Florida than we think. My mission was to discover the food culture that lies beneath that glitzy front we’re all used to,” he says. His exploration began in the north at Panama City and Pensacola, before heading to the Everglades, the natural wetlands of his childhood dream, and Miami. “Florida has a melting pot of cultures,” he reveals. “There’s a really interesting food culture, going from amazing boiled peanuts soaked in Cajun stock to Bloody Marys and chicken wings. It’s really good, honest food. I ticked off a lot of boxes!”
Jimmy Doherty's wife Michaela and their four daughters – Molly Rose, 12, Cora Mae, 11, Neve, seven, and Bo-Lila, six – joined him for part of the trip. “My wife should have come for the whole trip because she would have told me to stop eating. That would have been good because I had to go to the gym quite a lot afterwards,” Jimmy admits, laughing. “I was doing the voiceover the other day and thought, ‘God, I enjoyed myself!’ as I watched the shirts getting tighter and tighter as I’m going along. But that was part of the experience because it was a food journey, like a little food safari.”
He and Michaela, 45, will celebrate their 15th wedding anniversary in August. “A strong partnership is really important. Not only have we been married for all this time, but we’ve worked together all this time as well. We run the business together and I think having our defined roles really helped,” he says of their successful relationship. “It’s a bit corny but we have a shared dream and very similar interests. We’re both homebodies, we love the countryside and we love gardening, but we also like discovery, parties and going on journeys. We’re both dog people and we love creating stuff that people enjoy and that’s a massive kick.” He continues, “Having those shared interests is really important. We’ll both sit and watch Mastermind and University Challenge, which we love, and then we’ll watch TOWIE. And laughter. We do laugh a lot.”
He admits that being in a household dominated by females isn’t always easy. “Picking your battles is important and invest in noise cancelling earphones because it can get quite loud!” he says, laughing. “Every day is an adventure. Each of our children have a different personality and that’s fascinating.”
The other important partnership in his life is his friendship with fellow chef Jamie Oliver. Childhood friends since nursery, they have hosted their own shows, Jamie & Jimmy’s Food Fight Club and Jamie & Jimmy’s Friday Night Feast. “We were in the same class at school from nursery, then primary and secondary school. When you’ve got a friendship like that, you’re constantly learning from your friends,” he shares. “And we’ve got very similar sense of humour. He can just look at me and I’ll crack up – which he does on purpose!”
And Jimmy would jump at the opportunity to work with his “oldest friend and partner in crime” again. Together Jimmy Doherty and Jamie Oliver form the duo Jamie & Jimmy, who together hosted Friday Night Feast. He says: “we’ve been fairly busy doing different shows but it would be lovely to do something with Jamie again,” he says. “There are some great partnerships in TV and I think the best ones are always the ones where there’s a real friendship that's been there for many years.”
Jimmy’s living his best life. Not only is he a doting dad with a loving family, he is a passionate conservationist who runs his own farm and wildlife park in Suffolk with Europe’s largest polar bear reserve. “My younger self would be loving it. As a kid, I had all sorts of animals in my house and used to drive my dad mad,” he says, chuckling. “He would come home and the garage would be turned over with snakes in it or the carport turned into an aviary. I had a wheelbarrow filled up with water and terrapins in it and snakes in my bedroom so I would have been over the moon.”
"One reason I started the farm is because I would hate the feeling of never doing it and sitting with regret,” he continues. “I’m lucky to have a vocation. Whatever it is, if you’ve got a dream, you can do it.”
Where is Jimmy's farm?
If you want to take a visit to Jimmy's farm, it's located in the heart of Suffolk, near Ipswich. It's easily reachable by car and by rail. When putting the farm into your Sat Nav, use this address: Jimmy's Farm, Pannington Hall Lane, Ipswich, Suffolk, IP9 2AR.
Jimmy Doherty’s Taste Of Florida airs on ITV1 and ITVX from 12 February