What a view | Actor Jon Favreau and Korean-American Roy Choi cook up a storm on The Chef Show
Guest stars on the Netflix series include Gwyneth Paltrow, Robert Downey Jnr and David Chang among others
There’s something inherently satisfying about watching other people cook – doubly so if Korean-American chef Roy Choi is at the stove.
Seoul-born Choi, the pre-eminent taco-slinger of the “gourmet food-truck movement”, and much else besides, is an unflappably genial presence in the kitchen, be it wheeled or welded to the floor, proving that screaming middle-aged white men being abusive to their staff aren’t essential ingredients for a successful cooking show.
The Chef Show (Netflix) is, fundamentally, what it says on the tin: a show about a chef. But it’s also an absorbing, feel-good half hour or so in which Choi bounces off his co-host, Jon Favreau. In 2014, Favreau, a movie director and actor, released Chef , a fictional film inspired by the growing popularity of food trucks; Choi, by then well known in Los Angeles for his Korean-Mexican taco truck, was enlisted as consultant for the cooking scenes, and so what would become the Choi-Favreau double act was born.
Favreau, in fact, does most of the bouncing in The Chef Show, pinballing between grill and chopping board and still sounding in awe of Choi’s skills with a skillet, and whatever else is to hand. The self-effacing chef, meanwhile, is a natural at delivering the most succinct and appropriate lines. “Cooking is one of the most Zen things,” says the blender-bashing bachelor of philosophy. “You have to be present in the moment.” As Favreau scoops cream onto a bowl of berries, Choi poetically instructs him to approach the task: “Like you’re putting a cloud on top of a mountain.”
