7 Netflix Shows to Make Your Mouth Water
Take a culinary journey around the world without jet lag—Netflix proves it’s possible. Because if you love food and drink as much as we do, Netflix has plenty of documentaries to make your mouth water. Here are our delicacy picks.
A Tale of Two Kitchens
Top Mexican chef Gabriela Cámera opens restaurant Cala in San Francisco, a copy of her successful restaurant Contramar in Mexico City. A bold plan, because many American restaurants employ Mexicans, but they don’t earn much respect or recognition from it, the chef observes. On the other hand, tacos and enchiladas are hugely popular in the States. With her restaurants, Gabriela wants to ‘break down walls between people and groups’.
Ugly Delicious
‘I just reached the point where I am ok cooking ugly food’, says David Chang. This American-Korean chef is unknown in the Netherlands, but according to Netflix, he’s a celebrity. In his documentary series, he searches for the origins of good, really good, incredibly delicious food, and along the way brings all kinds of cultural insights to the screen. Episode 1: pizza. Sit back, watch and eat.
Street Food
When backpacking through Asia, you hope to stumble upon one: a little food stall where you eat unforgettable noodles or curry while sitting on slightly too-low stools at a tiny table that leaves you with a hernia. The documentary series Street Food has found the best food stalls, so for the next few years you’ll definitely be standing in line for hours for Jai Fay’s crab omelet in Bangkok (the first street-food restaurant with a Michelin star), Goshi’s okonomiyaki in Osaka and the gudeg (jackfruit with palm sugar and coconut milk) made by centenarian Mbah Lindu in Yogyakarta.
Somebody Feed Phil
Phil flies all over the world to eat delicious food everywhere. That’s the summary of Somebody Feed Phil. And that hungry Phil is a television producer, among other things, of Everybody Loves Raymond. Wide-eyed, he marvels at meat markets, rice fields and restaurants.
The Chef Show
Knife skills, tossing pans and moving efficiently in a small kitchen: actor Jon Favreau learned it all from chef Roy Choi while preparing for his role in the film Chef. Film finished, cooking lessons over. Jon was disappointed, so he came up with the cooking show The Chef Show. In the kitchen with Roy, he welcomes celebrities such as Gwyneth Palthrow, they make the perfect toasted sandwich (in a pan, not in a sandwich maker) and cook rice with—there he is again—David Chang. At times it seems as if the show was filmed with an iPhone, but that makes it wonderfully relaxed and spontaneous.
Cooked
Didn’t read the book? Just watch the film. That certainly applies to Cooked, the screen adaptation of Michael Pollan’s book. In the four chapters—air, water, earth and fire—the food journalist delves deeply into pretty much every aspect of food. Culture, economics, politics and science all make an appearance. Very interesting, with beautiful images and philosophical insights, made by Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney.
The Mind of a Chef
No article about food films is complete without Anthony Bourdain. Because nobody lets you enjoy their culinary travels quite like he does. Unfortunately, No Reservations and Parts Unknown are off Netflix again for the time being, so we’ll have to make do with The Mind of a Chef. In it, Bourdain tastes classic dishes with David Chang (see: Ugly Delicious) and experiments with them to create something completely different.
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