He runs a restaurant called Le Grand Cirque in Melbourne. And he's just made a two-part documentary on travelling through western France, which starts tonight on Channel Seven.

He's been a restless soul since he was 13, when he surprised his family of professional chefs by enrolling as a student at a circus school. After three years of "unicycle, clowning, juggling, a bit of acrobat", he decided cooking was his passion after all, and moved to London (where he studied at the Cafe Royal) and then to Sydney (where he was the chef at Bilson's when it was awarded three hats in The Good Food Guide).

That led to a new career as talent quest judge, but after four years, he became restless about that too.

"I was asking Channel Seven last year if we could do something else than My Kitchen Rules," he says.

"They said 'What would you be interested to do?' I said 'I know a lot of people have done food and travelling, but that's pretty much what I would love to do'. They came back and said 'What about if you go back home and show us your country?' I thought that was a great idea."

Did his time filming in Brittany (and trying to refresh his circus skills, with mixed success) give him an urge to live in France again? "Probably not. I'm pretty much set to stay in Australia, if you don't mind."

Why? "Australia is a little bit more easy going - friendly, smiling people. From north to south and east to west there are so many different places, it's like a different country in every state. The produce is great, the sunshine, I feel at home."

I felt compelled to pick a bone: "Your Sydney restaurant, L'Etoile, was my local, but you closed it. Now I find out you've opened a restaurant in bloody Melbourne?"

His response: "Oh, sorry. I think a lot of people would be annoyed, but at the end of the day if something is not working and you've done everything in your power, unfortunately there's only one solution and that's to move. I was attached to the place - it was my first baby - but I just had to put my business cap on.

"I just find Sydney quite difficult in the last few years. They've become really, really … what's the word … fickle. There doesn't seem to be loyalty from the customers. As soon as there's a new restaurant opening, they just fly like birds and never come back to the nest."

So of all his careers, which does he prefer? "I enjoy being a judge, and I try to find something positive in every dish. But if you had a knife on my throat and I had to choose, I'd probably say restaurants. A restaurant is something I will always be involved in, because it's my life. It can be stressful at times, but it's what I've been born for."

Just not in Sydney.

My France With Manu begins at 7.30pm Sunday on Seven.

A game of revenge

There are about to be spoilers here, so if you have only recently got around to thinking you might catch up with seasons one, two and three of Game of Thrones on DVD or download, in preparation for the start of season four tomorrow, you'd better stop reading now.

But seriously, where have you been for the past three years? And if you are planning to start watching GoT4 tomorrow, you must be one of the few thousand Australians who pay a premium to subscribe to the Showcase channel, because you will not be able to buy the new episodes on any download service until all 10 episodes have been broadcast, thanks to an exclusivity deal between Foxtel and the US channel HBO. Or you're planning to be an illegal downloader, and I have no sympathy for you.

All I want from this season of Game of Thrones is for the psychopath Joffrey to die, slowly and painfully. But I'm worried that in wanting that, I've become like him. I can blame the writers of GoT for turning me into this monster.

I started out admiring the brave and honourable Ned Stark, assuming he was the hero of the series. The writers had him executed in episode nine of season one. Then I assumed Ned's son Robb was the hero, since he was also brave and honourable, and was gathering an army to remove the conniving and sadistic Lannister family from power. In episode nine of season three, the writers massacred Robb, his wife, his mother, his unborn child and most of his followers (in what has come to be known as the Red Wedding).

Now I have to assume that the dwarf Tyrion Lannister is the hero, since he is often brave and occasionally honourable. So I expect him to be murdered nine weeks from now.

The GoT showrunner David Benioff isn't confirming anything, except to say: "There is tremendous clamour for revenge, especially in the wake of the Red Wedding … [but] this is definitely the most dangerous season for Tyrion. It seems like almost every episode he's in jeopardy of having his head removed from his shoulders … It's just more intense than it ever has been.''

Peter Dinklage, who's become an international sex symbol through his portrayal of Tyrion, also expects his character to die before King Joffrey, because justice is not a priority for the writers. Dinklage confessed this recently on The David Letterman Show: ''I haven't read the books, and George Martin, our author, is probably going to kill my character soon because I mentioned that. I started to read it, and I got confused.''

Game of Thrones starts at 3.30pm tomorrow on Showcase.

The empress of Asperger's

One of the most intriguing characters ever written for television is back. She's Saga Noren, the emotion-free detective in the Danish thriller series The Bridge, about a corpse discovered on the border of Sweden and Denmark. Noren turned into Sonya Cross, the detective in the US thriller The Bridge, about a corpse on the border of Mexico and the United States, and Elise Wasserman, the detective in the BBC thriller The Tunnel, about a corpse on the border of Britain and France. Season 2 of the Danish original has just started on SBS1.

The Saga/Sonya/Elise character is often described as manifesting Asperger's syndrome (or being "on the autism spectrum", now the term Asperger's is medically unfashionable). Diane Kruger, star of the US version, has an autism adviser on set to make sure she gets the mannerisms right.

Sofia Helin prefers to trust her own acting abilities. She told the Nordicana conference in London recently that playing Saga is "like being behind a glass wall".

"No character has ever affected me in so many ways as Saga - both negatively and positively," she says. "I'm a person who is driven by my emotions very much. Saga helps me to think about facts in situations."

But is Saga an Asperger's case? "Keeping the audience curious about what's wrong with her, we all agreed is a good idea. Saga doesn't see herself as someone with Asperger's. She has probably read about it. She knows that she would have it if she asked some expert. In some way, with her logic and smart thinking, she has managed to step away from these experts. To me it's more interesting to not put a title on her."

Helin's costar, Kim Bodnia, thinks every culture should remake The Bridge to portray their own border conflicts. He says: "I would wish that North Korea and South Korea would do it."

The Bridge season 2 is on Wednesdays at 9.30pm on SBS1.

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