Food on Film:

10 Delicious Movies and TV Series to Spark Your Appetite

BY ELIZABETH CHORNEY-BOOTH

Restaurants can be dramatic places. Get together a group of intensely passionate people, the glamour of a beautiful dining room, gorgeous dishes that act as edible works of art, and the high stakes narrative of keeping a business afloat or earning a Michelin star and you’ve got a recipe (pun intended) for cinematic gold. But even with all that, truly great TV shows and movies about food are relatively few and far between, which is even more surprising given how much time most of us have spent either eating at or working in restaurants.

There are plenty of movies and shows that take place in restaurants — think of all the tales of comedic romance set in diners and pizza joints — but there’s a difference between movies that use restaurants or home cooking as a convenient backdrop and those that truly capture either the experience of cooking and eating or the culture, stresses, and joys of running a restaurant. Those latter categories are hard to pull off well, especially without the benefit of smell and taste.

The following movies and shows about food and restaurants all create actual pangs of hunger or make you feel like you’re sitting in a restaurant rather than on your living room couch.

The Bear (2022 to present)

The tale of a Michelin-level chef who returns to his family’s Chicago sandwich shop after the death of his older brother, The Bear has set the bar in terms of restaurant industry drama. The show’s second (and most recent) season, which sees protagonist Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto turning his humble sandwich stop into a full-scale contemporary restaurant, has caused many a real-life chef to fall into a state of panic, while also featuring some of the most compelling and heartfelt culinary moments ever depicted on television.

The Menu (2022)

The Menu doesn’t so much celebrate Michelin-starred restaurants as it lampoons them, and viciously so. Starring Ralph Fiennes as a diabolical chef who creates an unforgettable menu for an elite group of diners, the film starts off as being about a Noma-like fine dining restaurant, but quickly reveals itself to be a very (very) dark comedy. Not for the faint of heart, The Menu should nudge us all towards taking our fine dining reservations just a little less seriously.

Big Night (1996)

A film that tugs at both the stomach and the heartstrings, Big Night tells the story of an ill-fated restaurant run by Italian-American brothers Primo and Secondi, played to perfection by Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub. It’s a sweet story of immigration and identity, but the movie’s real stars are plate after plate of incredible Italian food. The show-stopper timpano, a dramatic dome of pasta, cheese, meatballs, and eggs, looks so good you’ll find yourself googling recipes with the pipe dream of attempting to make one yourself.

Tampopo (1985)

If this Japanese “ramen Western” doesn’t make you hungry for a steaming hot bowl of noodle soup, nothing will. Tampopo follows the story of namesake protagonist, a fledgeling ramen restaurateur who aims to make the perfect bowl with the help of two mysterious truckers named Goro and Gun (a combination of names that should sound familiar to patrons of the Concorde Group’s downtown Calgary ramen restaurant). Along the way, irreverent and occasionally naughty food-related vignettes are cut into the main story for a wacky meditation on the pleasures of food.

Chef’s Table (2015-2022)

The world of food-related documentary TV is wide: you’ve got your various Anthony Bourdain series (which grew to be more about travel and culture than food), you’ve got various David Chang projects, Stanley Tucci’s journey through Italy, and then, of course, a whole world of instructional and competition shows. The gold standard, though, has got to be documentarian David Gelb’s Chef’s Table, a stunningly serious Netflix series that follows some of the restaurant industry’s most illustrious chefs, including Michelin rock stars like Massimo Bottura and Grant Achatz. The chefs’ stories are compelling, but the photography of some of the world’s most outstanding dishes really seals the deal for this series. Gelb’s previous project, the full-length documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2011) is also a foodie must-see.

Eat Drink Man Woman (1994)

Director Ang Lee’s 1994 film about a widowed chef and his three adult daughters all living together in Taipei starts with a lengthy cooking montage that could have happily gone on for the entirety of the film’s two-hour run; watching Lung Sihung’s character go through the motions of preparing an opulent multi-course Sunday night dinner for his daughters is a true treat. The food in this film — the most complicated and ornate Chinese dishes imaginable — is an absolute feast for the eyes, and all that cooking and eating acts as a stand-in, and eventually a conduit, for communication between the main characters, who are all in a state of emotional upheaval. Sharing food is about sharing humanity, which this subtle film conveys with sensitivity and humour.

Ratatouille (2007)

A film about a rat pulling the strings in a French kitchen? It may not be particularly appetizing, but when you make it a cute, animated rat voiced by comedian Patton Oswalt, Pixar’s kitchen drama goes from gross to charming. This film will be many kids’ introduction to the culinary arts and while it may get your kids interested in eating their veggies when presented in the form of a well-prepared ratatouille, inspiring children to delve into the world of gourmet restaurants can be an expensive proposition. Be warned!

Chef (2014)

Not to be confused with the the spinoff TV series of the same name (which is cute, but not essential), Jon Favreau’s food movie takes full advantage of the mid 2010’s food truck craze. It’s a downon-his-luck chef redemption story, but Favreau’s obvious obsession with food and cooking and the help of co-producer and food truck superstar Roy Choi puts the food front and centre, adding some flavour to an otherwise standard feelgood comedy.

The Trip (2010)

This lightly fictionalized TV show that was also condensed into a movie stars British actors Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon as exaggerated versions of themselves as they eat their way across northern England so that the Coogan character can write a magazine article. Stops at restaurants like the Inn at Whitewell and L’Enclume allow for both hilarious and awkward conversation to flow between the two leads while viewers get the benefit of riding along for some extraordinary meals. The formula worked so well that Coogan and Brydon repeated it for additional Trip series and films, taking them to restaurants in Italy, Spain, and Greece.

Always Be My Maybe (2019)

For the most part, Ali Wong and Randall Park’s romantic comedy on Netflix uses Wong’s character’s job as a celebrity chef as a device to push the narrative forward, but this movie moves into “foodie classic” via a single scene that involves the most pretentious restaurant imaginable and Keanu Reeves. It’s a loving but mercilessly mocking take on restaurant culture that’s right up there with The Menu when it comes to taking a healthy poke at modern fine dining.