‘My Netflix show honours Anthony Bourdain’: celebrity chef David Chang on Breakfast Lunch and Dinner
- Chrissy Teigen and Seth Rogan are among the celebrities to eat with Chang in his new Netflix series
- He talks about comparisons between his show and Bourdain’s work, and becoming a dad
With its food-travel fusion and trips to parts unknown, Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner host David Chang understands why critics are making comparisons to his late friend and colleague Anthony Bourdain.
“I don’t know how you couldn’t,” says the restaurateur, chef and food personality. “He was a pretty significant person in my life. But, whether we were successful or not, the last thing we would ever want to do is to not be respectful. The whole thing was hard to do, for obvious reasons. But, you know, we tried very hard and we were very aware of trying to make it a different show.”
Perhaps what’s most different about Chang’s new Netflix series is the sweet and occasionally salty chef himself. He owns restaurants, has written cookbooks and now has two Netflix shows. The first, Ugly Delicious, debuted in 2018.
It’s with Waithe – the first black woman to win an Emmy for comedy screenwriting – where things get most interesting. They chat in a no-frills, suburban Los Angeles diner as the conversation turns to their respective lack of representation in mainstream America. Waithe is gay. Chang’s parents immigrated from Korea in the 1960s.
Chang presents an example. “Why should my hot sauce be in an ethnic food aisle, but Tabasco is in a main aisle?”
Even so, in terms of availability and information, this is a golden age of food, Chang says. Consumers, manufacturers and the culinary industry are better informed than ever. But the ripples from climate change could lead to a “different kind of food system,’’ he says.
“We may eat things differently,’’ he says. “My dad used to tell me, ‘When I got an orange once a year, that was the greatest day of my life.’ And we may have to go back to that. And I don’t know what that looks like. But we can’t get whatever we want any more.”
There’s also been personal change for Chang as he and his wife, Grace, became parents with the birth of their son, Hugo.
“It’s definitely, like, you know, everyone says, ‘changes your life,’ and I’m trying to find how to find a better balance,” Chang says. “I’m a work in progress, man. And working a lot is what I know how to do. And I do know that, soon, I’m going to have to learn how not to work so hard.”
