Food and cooking is an art that has gained recognition in the last few years. Maybe it’s because there are more delicious cooking (and chef adjacent) shows; maybe it’s because food is part of every culture and way of living; the kitchen world has gained interest enough to appear more and more in movies and TV shows. We love and respect real chefs (and hope to one day eat in their restaurants), from movies and shows like Jiro Dreams of Sushi, Ugly Delicious, Chef’s Table, Salt Acid Fat Heat, or any of the Anthony Bourdain shows, but this list is about fictional chefs. We hope you’ve already eaten, because we’re going to be talking about delicious, creative, mouth-watering foods, and those who create them, here are the best movies and TV shows about fictional chefs, ranked:
8 Burnt (2015)
Adam Jones (Bradley Cooper) is a former high-class chef looking to get his third Michelin star after finally leaving behind a past of substance abuse. This underdog story tells the chef’s journey, from a prickly obsessive who wants that third star no matter the human cost, to someone who enjoys the work, the company of his work family, and creating good food, while becoming a better person during the process. Burnt has a great cast (Cooper, Sienna Miller, Daniel Brühl, Alicia Vikander, Emma Thompson, Omar Sy, Uma Thurman, and Matthew Rhys). Although, its real star is shooting the ins and outs of a prestige restaurant, and the incredible plates of real-life chef Marcus Wareing.
7 Chocolat (2000)
Vianne Rocher (Juliette Binoche) and her daughter move to a small village in France to open a chocolate shop. As the folks in the town have an old way of thinking, they don’t like their new neighbor opening on Sundays and offering chocolate during lent. But, the chocolate is irresistible, and the whole town starts to change and get a little loose, thanks to Vianne's delicious recipes. Chocolat is a great movie about food, mixing a quirky town with some love, modernity, and sugary treats to show that people who accept all their uniqueness are always happier. In this case, the whole town learns this sweet lesson through chocolate melting, transforming, and combining in delicatessens like hot chocolate with chili powder or cocoa-dusted truffles.
6 The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014)
An Indian family moves to a small town in France and opens a restaurant. The problem? It’s across the street from a Michelin restaurant owned by Madame Mallory (Helen Mirren). Hassan (Manish Dayal) is the Indian chef with incredible talent, who wants to prove his worth to his family, Madame Mallory, and her chef Marguerite (Charlotte Le Bon), who also might be stealing his heart. The Hundred-foot Journey shows the highs and lows of restaurant life, the old French traditions, and the new cooking ideas. And it especially shows how combining all those together, can create something new, delicious, and better, as are the French-Indian fusion dishes in this movie that will make you crave some spicy, curry-infused food.
5 Bob’s Burgers (2011-Present )
Bob’s Burgers is an animated show that follows the life of the Belcher family, in and out of their small restaurant. It's also one of the most consistent shows on TV, always making us chuckle with their adventures and low-stakes stories. As any good chef should do, Bob loves food, and many of the episodes revolve around his burger recipes. It also has some of the best burger-related puns ever, such as “Bohemian Radishy Burger”, “Poutine in the Ritz burger” or our favorite, "Eggers Can’t be Cheesers burger" (with fried egg & cheese). We might never go to Bob’s burgers restaurants, but we’ll try these recipes at home just to do him justice.
4 The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989)
A thief (Michael Gambon) spends his days in the chef's (Richard Bohringer) French restaurant, bullying everyone. His wife (Helen Mirren), fed up with this behavior, starts an affair with one of the regulars (Alan Howard). That’s the plot of this movie, but it’s not the story at all.
Peter Greenaway has never been a conventional director, and this movie is no different. He was a painter and architect before being a director, and you can see it in every frame he shoots. With incredible art direction (every room is in a different color, including the actor's wardrobe, even if seconds before in another room they were wearing something different) this is a sensorial movie, full of opulence, decadence, and gluttony. A feast has never looked so delicious, and sad at the same time. Some said the movie was an anti-Tacher allegory. What’s for sure, is that after being constantly humiliated by the thief, the chef’s revenge is a plate served hot, in a delicious looking (although very off-putting) recipe. The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover isn’t an easy movie to love, but we can guarantee you’ve never seen another one like it.
3 Ratatouille (2007)
Remy (Patton Oswald) is a rat who loves food and dreams of being a great French chef, like many before him. With the help of Alfredo Linguini (Lou Romano), a bumbling garbage boy in one of the best restaurants, he might make his dreams come true. Ratatouille is a love letter to food, cooking, and following your dreams. It’s not only one of the best Pixar movies ever, but also one that shows how creative the food world can be. It also explains how a kitchen might work, the colorful characters that populate them, and how your whole world can be dependent on a good review. He might be a rat, but Remy’s food looks delicious, creative, and unique, and isn’t that what we want from our chefs?
2 Chef (2014)
Carl Caper (Jon Favreau) is a chef working in a famous L.A. restaurant, but he’s jaded and has lost his adventurous cooking spirit. After a bad review and a Twitter fight with the critic, he decides to leave the restaurant behind, get a food truck, and embark on a trip from coast-to-coast, selling Cubano sandwiches with his best friend and his son. Chef is Favreau’s comeback to the indie world, directing one of his best movies. Obsessed with food, he wrote, directed, and acted in this movie, and it keeps showing us incredible dishes being cooked. The movie was a small success, enough to spin off a real cooking show, where Favreau and chef Roi Choi explain how to cook the movie's recipes and many more.
1 The Bear (2022-Present)
Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) is a promising chef who has already worked in some of the best restaurants in the world. When his brother dies, he goes back to Chicago and starts working in their beef sandwich restaurant.
The Bear shows how unglamorous and dangerous a kitchen can be. It also emphasizes how stressful and tense it can be. Carmy, his “cousin”, and the rest of the team prepare every day to open the restaurant as if it’s the start of a war. It’s a great Chicago show, with excellent performances and colorful characters, and it’s a pressure cooker that explodes in an incredible seventh episode. Carmy might cook delicious nouvelle cuisine food, but we would give everything we’ve got for one of those sandwiches.