The Tim & Eric Awesome Show star turned food-world adventurer talks—over oysters and martinis— about winemaking, his forthcoming book on American steakhouses, and “dessert pizza."

I’ve been sitting at the bar at the Old Homestead Steakhouse for five minutes before the host finally walks over to me. I’m guessing he noticed me eating all the free candy overflowing from a massive plastic martini glass and decided to ask if I was waiting for somebody. I tell him yes, and decide to go with “a tall man” as my descriptor for Eric Wareheim. Wareheim is tall— small-forward-sized. But because I haven’t specified his exact height (6’ 7”), the host, who’s about four inches shorter than me, thinks I’m talking about a man who’s sitting alone in the dining room. He leads me to the table and the man smiles. “Bradley?” he asks, in a way that tells me he’s never met Bradley in person before and this was likely a first date.

Everybody sitting in the restaurant is on a date; it’s Valentine’s Day. People love old steakhouses on February 14th. I guess splitting a prime rib is some people's idea of romance. All I know is that the entire situation feels very Wareheim; somewhere between the comedic absurdity of his work with Tim Heidecker, and the tiny-detail-obsessed, food-centric stuff he’s been increasingly focused on over the last few years.

Sadly, Wareheim and I weren’t going on a romantic Valentine’s date; he picked the spot because one of the big projects he’s been working on is a book documenting steakhouses across America. When I finally find him sitting by himself at a table in the upstairs dining room at Old Homestead, he’s nursing an ice-cold martini with blue-cheese-stuffed olives. He’s wearing a grey Stoffa suit with a t-shirt underneath. I clock the white Ferragamo velcro sneakers since he’s a tall guy whose legs don’t fit under the short table.

Wareheim is at an interesting place in his life. He’ll be 48 in April. A lot of people probably still know him best for his work with Heidecker on Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job, which first impacted the Adult Swim universe toward the end of the aughts, long enough ago that it's a key influence on the generation now taking over comedy. (If you need any proof of Tim & Eric’s impact, just wait online for an hour or so until somebody posts the gif of Wareheim’s mind being blown and you’ll understand how even the weirdest comedy teams can sneak into the mainstream.)

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