The latest season of Netflix’s long-running docuseries Chef’s Table profiles four of the most famous and celebrated chefs of the past half-century: Thomas Keller, Jamie Oliver, José Andrés and Alice Waters. We decided to review the Thomas Keller episode because, well, because we share a last name. Simple as that.
Opening Shot: Closeups of knickknacks in an office. Chef Thomas Keller starts pulling out medals, complete with ribbons, out of a shiny stock pot. Among them are several James Beard Awards.
The Gist: All four of the chefs profiled for Chef’s Table: Legends are so famous that even people who aren’t culinary nerds know who they are. Andrés is probably best known for starting World Central Kitchen, a nonprofit that has fed people in war zones and in the wake of natural disasters. Waters started the farm-to-table movement at Chez Panisse over 50 years ago. Oliver has been on our TVs for a couple of decades now and is best known for pushing school systems to serve their students healthier meals.
Keller, of course, is the owner/executive chef of not one, but two Michelin 3-star restaurants: The French Laundry in California’s Napa Valley and Per Se in New York City. The episode’s director, Clay Jeter, lovingly watches Keller as he selects tiny leaves for a dinner he’s serving at The French Laundry. We see him operate in the kitchens of both his restaurants, giving gentle instruction and encouragement to the people who work for him.
What we find out during the hourlong profile of Keller is that, after studying French cuisine overseas, he came back to the US in the 1980s and bounced around, arrogantly believing that his way was the way the places where he worked should go. By the time he bought The French Laundry in 1994, though, he realized that not only does he need to be more of a collaborator, he also wanted to make fine dining less stuffy and more approachable. On example of that are his coronets, where he plops caviar or tartare on top of a savory “cone”.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Chef’s Table has been on Netflix for a number of years now, and this season is comparable to all of the previous seasons.
Our Take: Most people who decide to sit down for an episode of Chef’s Table know what they’re in for: A mostly positive profile of a great chef that goes into that person’s life, culinary influences, and the path they took to the point where they’re now considered one of the best in their respective specialties. In the case of this Legends season, the chefs aren’t just legends in their specialties, but at the top of the pyramid of the entire culinary world.
Can the show be hagiographic at times, and a bit pretentious at others? Sure. Sweeping declarations about the important role chefs, restaurants and food play in people’s lives aren’t exactly confined to episodes of The Bear; you listen to the supporting interviews done for the Keller episode, and you think he might have solved world peace.
But the episodes’ directors and the show’s producers do make sure they provide a complete picture of the episode’s featured chef, which is why we heard about Keller’s career struggles or, in the Alice Waters episode, the backlash against her after a 60 Minutes profile showed her as possibly out of touch.
As always, there are loving and longing shots of the chefs’ signature dishes, but they definitely take a back seat to the lives of the chefs themselves, which is why Chef’s Table continues to be one of Netflix’s best cooking shows.
Sex and Skin: Lots of great food porn, but that’s about it.
Parting Shot: Keller is shown grilling at home, and we hear him say, “When somebody tells you that you have influenced them… that’s why I do what I do.”
Sleeper Star: Grant Achatz, who trained under Keller, is interviewed for this episode. He was profiled on Chef’s Table way back in 2016, but given how many health issues he’s had over the past nine years, he might be a good person to return to.
Most Pilot-y Line: The story about Per Se’s opening compresses the timeframe a bit; it opened 10 years after Keller bought The French Laundry. So the fact that he temporarily closed that restaurant to have the staff train the people at Per Se was slightly less risky than the show makes it seem.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Chef’s Table: Legends continues the series’ tradition of digging into the lives of the chefs who make the food that is featured in each episode.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.