What's he got going on this week?

The US celebrity chef suffered an unusually severe review in Tuesday's New York Times. The attack on Guy's American Kitchen and Bar in New York was an open letter to Fieri, hurling rhetorical spears like, "When we hear the words Donkey Sauce, which part of the donkey are we supposed to think about?" and "Why did the toasted marshmallow taste like fish?"

So who is this Fieri?

Think both of the Hairy Bikers rolled into one big, brash American. After 20 years in the restaurant business, he won a TV contest seeking a new face for food programmes. His current show, Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, celebrates America's no-frills cuisine.

He doesn't look like a take-it-on-the-chin kind of guy.

Nope. Yesterday Fieri flew to New York for a fairly measured TV interview, saying: "I've read reviews – there's good and there's bad in the restaurant business – but that to me went so overboard, it really seemed like there was another agenda.

Sounds like the critic might just be a snob.

The critic in question denies this, saying that if Fieri will venerate honest grub for Joe Patriot, he should cook it right, asking: "When you cruise around the country for your show… rasping out slangy odes to the unfancy places where Americans like to get down and greasy, do you really mean it?"

That can't be good.

Readers of the New York Times restaurant pages probably aren't the types to drool gapingly at a menu which signs off with the motto "Go big or go home," so perhaps Fieri isn't too worried for his gastronomic constituency just yet.