Chef's Table (Netflix series) : Interesting take on cooking shows. Could be wonderful for some people

There are a ton of cooking shows out there. So many in-fact that I believe most of them get old pretty fast. I mean, there is an entire network that exists purely for this reason. Therefore, I think it is a bit understandable how it might be a little bit difficult to make an impact in this industry and to do anything original.

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What sets Chef's Table apart from other cooking shows is that they focus on the individual person (the chef in question)'s life far more than they do the food they are creating. Most of the people they focus on are relatively unknown (I am sure they are famous somewhere, but I don't know who they are) and from the 2 episodes I watched normally their upbringing is quite humble. Both seemed to be lower to middle-class families.

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The first one I watched was about Mashama Bailey, a woman who came from modest roots, but due to the hard-working nature of her parents was able to go to college only to end up doing what a lot of people in college do: Study just whatever despite the fact that they have no real interest in the career that said degree is meant to be preparing them for. She ends up doing a job that she doesn't really like immediately after college and gets fired.... As it turns out losing that job was one of the best things that ever happened to her because it "kicked her in the butt" to go in the culinary trade.

While I can get behind these stories I feel as though the directors of these things are kind of trying to paint a more tragic story than might actually be the case. I suppose good TV needs some sensationalism but I kind of found myself getting a bit bored as they created one tragic trial after the other. It all ends well because Mashama ended up studying in France and later landing a job where she was a partner back in her birth state of Georgia - and ended up right back where she wanted to be.

Overall, i think this show is worth a look but I was a little disappointed and got bored with the constant build up of the"please feel sorry for these people!" narrative they were pushing. I suppose this could be a plus for some people and I can admire the attempt at taking a different direction in a market that is saturated with every nuance of cooking that can be imagined.

I don't think I will watch this show anymore, but for anyone out there that wants to see a chef show with a different spin than is expected for the most part, this could be for you. I found it to be a little too focused on tragedy for my taste and each hour-long episode could have easily been 30 minutes- that probably would have fixed it for me.

on a scale of "Urgh!" to "Wowsers!" I give Chef's Table a rating of....

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