Chef's Table

Occasionally very interesting and mostly looks nice but as a documentary it comes out as uneven, indulgent, meandering and often exquisitely up-itself.

S1

This show transforms the way you see food!

the gaze of this show is occasionally uncomfortable. otherwise interesting

I like some of this a lot, there are interesting windows into the lives and relationships of some very dedicated people

Reminds me that we must stop turning chefs into monks/philosophers/artists/celebrities.

S1: A mildly entertaining, mildly interesting documentary series. Provides no particularly deep insight into anything, which could be considered a fatal flaw, but it meanders along nicely as it divides its attention between the chefs, their stories, their food and their environments. Too much time is spent on praising the subjects and too many clichés are repeated episode after episode ("he/she is passionate about making delicious food", no shit), but it passes the time nicely.

The cinematography is one-of-a-kind for this kind of show. I'm not generally a cooking show person, but it's done very well here. It gets into the culture of the locale through the food, which I enjoy. On the flip side, it can be insanely indulgent.

Some of this is quite good. Some of it is just plain silly.

The cinematography on this show is absolutely stunning. What I enjoyed the most about the second season though was its involvement with chefs who were so engrained within the food of their home culture and what that meant to them. In this way, the show became more than about the food they were cooking, it became about how these cultures came to life in their dishes.