I watch TV as a way to see and experience things that are outside my reach.
When COVID shut down restaurants across the globe, I binged Chef’s Table as a replacement for the dining experience and fell in love with the obsessive personalities that brought their Michelin star restaurants to life. The Nancy Silverton’s of the world who were willing to bake a million loaves of bread in the middle of the night until they found the perfect recipe. There’s just nothing in my life I’m that addicted to, but I love watching people who have that itch. I am fascinated by food. By travel. By culture.
I’ve been lucky enough to dine at two restaurants with stars of their own thus far, but for the most part, my exposure to this world comes exclusively through television. I think most people fall into one of several reality TV camps—I’ve never stayed long in Bravo/Bachelor-land, but I have binged almost every food documentary I could get my hands on. And that’s why I found this season of Chef’s Table to be so disappointing.
I’ve never been to culinary school. I’ve only been to Europe once. I don’t fall into some elite or expert category when it comes to food. But I have seen most of these chef’s stories told elsewhere before. Anthony Bourdain is the common throughline between this seasons featured chefs: Jamie Oliver, José Andrés, Thomas Keller, and Alice Waters. Andrés and Keller featured prominently in several episodes of Bourdain’s television series, and Oliver and Waters found themselves on the receiving end of both Bourdain’s criticism and praise.
The French Laundry, El Bullí, and Chez Panisse have been covered extensively in the food documentary genre. Grant Achatz’ episode in season two covered his time working under Keller, just as Netflix’s Salt Fat Acid Heat covered Samin Nosrat’s time under Waters. Both chefs make appearances in this season speaking to their respective mentor’s careers giving the voiceover a sense of redundancy.
Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent covers the rise of Chez Panisse from the angle of Waters’ former partner, and Keller, Andrés, and Waters all have their own Master Class series. It’s media oversaturation in a series I value for bringing me stories of people and places I’ve never heard of before, and will likely never get to experience myself.
Jamie Oliver, on the other hand, is a household name I did not have a deep understanding or appreciation for. His episode played much like Netflix’s Beckham documentary, diving into the brit’s rapid rise to fame at an early age, one I was too young at the time to follow in much detail. The second-best-selling British author behind J.K. Rowling ironically grew up hating the written word. Opening up about his battles with dyslexia, he shares that he wrote the majority of his first book with a Dictaphone, recording recipes across a series of cassette tapes.
Oliver’s episode also delves into his activism to create jobs for struggling teens, improve school meals for young students, and help change his country’s deep seated habits around food over the course of his career. It’s an inspiring tale with highs and lows I didn’t see coming, mainly because he isn’t ingrained in the incestuous whirlpool of the Michelin star machine that Chef’s Table gets most of its content from.
I’m not sure if producers are just running out of restaurants to cover, or if this economy is inhibiting new ones of the Chef’s Table caliber from opening, but one thing is for sure, the series is loosing it’s luster and edge. I miss the days of such shocking fare as reindeer snout. I want to be wowed. I want to be disgusted. I want to be awestruck. This season’s ‘greatest hits’ mix tape just completely missed the mark.
When COVID shut down restaurants across the globe, I binged Chef’s Table as a replacement for the dining experience and fell in love with the obsessive personalities that brought their Michelin star restaurants to life. The Nancy Silverton’s of the world who were willing to bake a million loaves of bread in the middle of the night until they found the perfect recipe. There’s just nothing in my life I’m that addicted to, but I love watching people who have that itch. I am fascinated by food. By travel. By culture.
I’ve been lucky enough to dine at two restaurants with stars of their own thus far, but for the most part, my exposure to this world comes exclusively through television. I think most people fall into one of several reality TV camps—I’ve never stayed long in Bravo/Bachelor-land, but I have binged almost every food documentary I could get my hands on. And that’s why I found this season of Chef’s Table to be so disappointing.
I’ve never been to culinary school. I’ve only been to Europe once. I don’t fall into some elite or expert category when it comes to food. But I have seen most of these chef’s stories told elsewhere before. Anthony Bourdain is the common throughline between this seasons featured chefs: Jamie Oliver, José Andrés, Thomas Keller, and Alice Waters. Andrés and Keller featured prominently in several episodes of Bourdain’s television series, and Oliver and Waters found themselves on the receiving end of both Bourdain’s criticism and praise.
The French Laundry, El Bullí, and Chez Panisse have been covered extensively in the food documentary genre. Grant Achatz’ episode in season two covered his time working under Keller, just as Netflix’s Salt Fat Acid Heat covered Samin Nosrat’s time under Waters. Both chefs make appearances in this season speaking to their respective mentor’s careers giving the voiceover a sense of redundancy.
Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent covers the rise of Chez Panisse from the angle of Waters’ former partner, and Keller, Andrés, and Waters all have their own Master Class series. It’s media oversaturation in a series I value for bringing me stories of people and places I’ve never heard of before, and will likely never get to experience myself.
Jamie Oliver, on the other hand, is a household name I did not have a deep understanding or appreciation for. His episode played much like Netflix’s Beckham documentary, diving into the brit’s rapid rise to fame at an early age, one I was too young at the time to follow in much detail. The second-best-selling British author behind J.K. Rowling ironically grew up hating the written word. Opening up about his battles with dyslexia, he shares that he wrote the majority of his first book with a Dictaphone, recording recipes across a series of cassette tapes.
Oliver’s episode also delves into his activism to create jobs for struggling teens, improve school meals for young students, and help change his country’s deep seated habits around food over the course of his career. It’s an inspiring tale with highs and lows I didn’t see coming, mainly because he isn’t ingrained in the incestuous whirlpool of the Michelin star machine that Chef’s Table gets most of its content from.
I’m not sure if producers are just running out of restaurants to cover, or if this economy is inhibiting new ones of the Chef’s Table caliber from opening, but one thing is for sure, the series is loosing it’s luster and edge. I miss the days of such shocking fare as reindeer snout. I want to be wowed. I want to be disgusted. I want to be awestruck. This season’s ‘greatest hits’ mix tape just completely missed the mark.