Top cooking shows for foodies | The Week

Virgilio Martinez plating food, season three Chef's Table.

Chef's Table is 'the most handsomely filmed culinary show there has ever been'

(Image credit: Alamy / Rene Funk / Netflix / Everett Collection)

By Irenie Forshaw, The Week UK

published October 14, 2024

Whether you're looking for culinary inspiration or just like marvelling at intricate plates of food, there's something addictive about cooking shows. The following series span everything from deep dives into Korean food culture to behind-the-scenes kitchen tours with the planet's top chefs.

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat

This "sweet, vibrant cooking show" follows Samin Nosrat in her pursuit of flavour-packed dishes, said Emma Specter in Vogue. The Iranian-American chef and bestselling cookbook author explores the four elements of excellent cooking: salt, fat, acid and heat. Watching her travel the world from Kami-kamagari island in Japan to Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula to collect as much knowledge as she can is "an adventure in itself".

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"Chef's Table" is "the ultimate in food porn and the most handsomely filmed culinary show there has ever been", said Michael Hogan in The Telegraph. Each episode takes viewers to meet a world-renowned chef, delving into their life stories and inspiration behind their cooking. There's plenty of "drool-inducing cinematic close-up" shots of their dishes, too – most of them are more akin to a "work of art" than a plate of food.

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This beloved British baking competition has been running for over a decade but in its 15th season, it's still a "pleasure to welcome a dozen fresh bakers to the tent", all of them "sunny and comradely and kind", said Jack Seale in The Guardian. Getting to know them is a "delight". Alison Hammond is also back presenting the show for a second year; "effortlessly friendly and just naughty enough" she is "clearly a natural".

In Rick Stein's latest BBC food show, the chef and restaurateur is seen "zipping around" the UK to sample the nation's favourite food, said Carol Midgely in The Times. In Cumbria, he meets farmer James Rebanks and his Herdwick sheep, one of which Stein eats in a hotpot before declaring it "world-class". Despite having had open-heart surgery and nearing 80, in this 15-episode series Stein "clearly still has a lot of energy in the tank".

"A whopping 20 series in, 'MasterChef', by now, is cooking on gas," said Nick Duerden on the i news site. Each season brings in another group of "plucky individuals" to sweat away in front of the stove under the watchful eyes of John Torode and Gregg Wallace. In short, the iconic show is "one of the reasons that British TV is currently and forever obsessed with cookery programmes". Who knew that baba ganoush "prettily arranged on a homemade plate" could "elicit so very many goosebumps"?

"A TikTok meme that became a fiendishly addictive TV game show", "Is it Cake?" sees top bakers disguising desserts as an array of everyday objects in an effort to "dupe" celebrity judges, said Hogan in The Telegraph. Viewers find out whether the cake is real only when host Mikey Day "cuts them in half with a samurai sword". It's "bizarre, brainless fun" that's all but guaranteed to have you "shouting at the TV screen".

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Irenie Forshaw is a features writer at The Week, covering arts, culture and travel. She began her career in journalism at Leeds University, where she wrote for the student newspaper, The Gryphon, before working at The Guardian and The New Statesman Group. Irenie then became a senior writer at Elite Traveler, where she oversaw The Experts column.