'Chef's Table: Legends' on Netflix goes behind the line with culinary geniuses
Corrections & Clarifications: An earlier version of this article gave an incorrect date for the premiere of "Chef's Table: Legends" on Netflix.
Watching a cooking show on TV is kind of like watching golf on TV: Doing the thing is more fun than watching the thing.
And yet I watch both, and with both things the original defense was that I was trying to improve. This is ridiculous, of course — the only way you really get better at something is to practice it yourself, though watching the pros perform at least shows you how it ought to be done. Yet I still can’t dice an onion or hit a driver, so there goes that theory.
All this came to mind while I watched all four episodes of “Chef’s Table: Legends,” coming to Netflix on Monday, April 28. A 10th anniversary celebration, it’s just what it sounds like — episodes of the long-running series devoted to culinary legends. Real ones: José Andrés, Thomas Keller, Jamie Oliver and Alice Waters.
It's fun to watch genius chefs like José Andrés at work
I have argued, speciously, that Tiger Woods is what made golf worth watching. That is not entirely true, as the 2025 Masters proved. So I won’t make the same argument there, though it’s tempting. If you’re going to watch a cooking show, why not devote it to the lives and food of some of the most famous and culturally important chefs of the last 50 years or so?
It’s basically my Tiger Woods theory of golf TV applied to food. And it works. If you watch cooking shows, you probably know who all four of the chefs are. Big names are a big draw. (Although, as I learned with golf, you don’t have to have the biggest names. It just doesn’t hurt.)
Basically, it’s fun to watch genius at work.
And what are Andrés, Keller, Oliver and Waters if not culinary geniuses, albeit of different types? Each has in some way revolutionized the way food is sourced, served and eaten, and used their celebrity for good.
Chefs like Jamie Oliver and Thomas Keller struggled early on
Oliver made great food out of ordinary ingredients and along the way did things like reinvent how English schools served lunch. Waters, who used to feed fellow revolutionaries involved in the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley, all but created the farm-to-table movement. Andrés, of course, is a real hero, feeding the world in times of crisis and is at the same time the most audacious chef of the bunch, a fascinating dichotomy. Keller, at least on the surface, seems to be more about the food, oh but what food it is — his restaurants have seven Michelin stars between them.
All of them, with the possible exception of Andrés, have experienced professional setbacks, but soldiered on (his challenges appear to be how to balance all of the aspects of his professional life).
All of these shows inevitably have a bit of a “Behind the Music” vibe (look it up, I promise you will not be sorry). But watching them do their thing, create dishes, run the lines in restaurants, plate a dish that looks like a delicious meal or a science project, depending, all in sumptuously shot segments, is addictive.
Their stories provide the garnish. It’s probably meant to be the other way around, that the soul of the thing is what drives them, why they do what they do, all that. And while that is of course important and usually interesting, it’s what they put on the plate that has made them rich and famous and, in the description of the title, legends.
What is 'Chef's Table'
If you’ve never seen “Chef’s Table,” it’s a series of documentary shorts created by David Gelb, who directed the brilliant “Jiro Dreams of Sushi.” It delves into the lives of chefs, much like the “Legends” episodes do. They’re all gorgeous to look at, mouth-watering food that you will never be able to afford making you think maybe you should get a job that pays enough that you could.
But it’s the personality of the chefs that sells the shows — or doesn’t. (I recommend the Grant Achatz episode. He makes food that looks like modern art, and developed Stage 4 cancer of the tongue. He’s also a great voice in the episode about Keller, his mentor.)
Andrés and Oliver have the most outsized personalities among the “Legends” group, which in no way diminishes the contributions of Keller and Waters, whose food speaks for itself. And maybe the food should just speak for itself. Maybe the sight of Andrés puffing on a cigar the size of a baseball bat shouldn’t matter.
But no matter how interesting their lives and food, no matter how humanitarian their causes, this is, in the end, reality TV. Or par for the course, you might say.
How to watch 'Chef's Table: Legends'
Streaming on Netflix Monday, April 28.
Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Media commentary with a side of snark? Sign up for The Watchlist newsletter with Bill Goodykoontz.