12 Food Documentaries On Netflix, Ranked From Worst To Best

If enjoying a meal at a restaurant or following a recipe from a new cookbook piques your curiosity, leaving you wondering about the inspiration behind your favorite dishes, you might be the type of person who would enjoy jumping into a documentary about the culinary landscape. Thoughtful documentary films and series that give insight into the careers of world-renowned chefs and explore some of the planet's most popular dishes abound on Netflix, giving foodies the chance to venture outside of their hometown dining establishments without leaving the comfort of their couch.

From deep dives into how specific ingredients can make or break dishes, to the impact of industrial farming on cooking, these movies and shows can help you expand your palate, plan your next culinary vacation, or simply give you a closer look at the wide, wonderful world of cooking. We've rounded up 12 food series and movies available on Netflix and zeroed in why some docs landed with more audiences than others.

Chef David Chang's passion for food extends beyond his restaurant empire, but when it comes to his limited Netflix series "Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner," viewers feel that it doesn't live up to its potential. No shade to Chang as, spoiler alert, he will appear in this article again with a significantly higher ranking for another project, but the four-episode series feels more like a show about Chang palling around with celebrities in interesting places than his culinary knowledge, with viewers calling it self-indulgent and painful to watch. While "Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner" may draw comparisons to "Parts Unknown," it doesn't seem to be as universally beloved as the Anthony Bourdain series.

The Chrissy Teigen episode filmed in Marrakesh, for example, was deemed "cringeworthy" in one IMDb review; several other viewers bumped up against the Seth Rogen episode set in the actor's hometown of Vancouver. Another reviewer called the series a "misfire," stating that the show seems to be trying to do too much at once by including a travel element, cooking knowledge, and celebrity interviews into each 40-minute episode. The sentiment was echoed in other reviews, and many highlighted that they expected more from Chang.

Chef Roy Choi and actor and director Jon Favreau worked together on the 2014 movie "Chef." In the feature film, Favreau played a chef who, after going viral for snapping at a food critic, leaves the restaurant world for the food truck world. Choi coached Favreau to make sure his cooking skills looked as authentic and refined as possible in the movie — and as far as we're concerned, Favreau's character in "Chef" is one of the best fictional chefs of all time. The duo reunited in 2019 for "The Chef Show," where throughout the two-season run, they cooked with celebrity friends and highlighted beloved foods with famous chefs.

Though the show was billed as a lighthearted celebration of the culinary world, viewers found it to be both and even cheesy at times. In the premiere episode, for example, they take on pepperpot, a stewed meat dish with ties to the Caribbean. Favreau and Choi cooked it with Gwyneth Paltrow, who played Pepper Potts in several Marvel movies. While the wordplay is cute, some Reddit users said it wasn't authentic and the recipe seemed "boring." Others pointed out that the hosts didn't feel genuinely connected to their subject matter, pointing out that it felt less like a cooking show and more like a talk show.

It's clear to anyone who has watched the docuseries "Somebody Feed Phil" that its host, Phil Rosenthal, loves food. The Emmy winner, who created and was the showrunner for the hit sitcom "Everybody Loves Raymond," takes viewers around the world on his Netflix show, sampling local delicacies and sightseeing with glee. He introduces his audience to cooking experts, friends, and family around the world, making tortillas in Mexico City, trying haggis in Edinburgh, dancing at Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, and delivering meals with dabbawalas in Mumbai.

At the heart of "Somebody Feel Phil" is Rosenthal's unbridled joy and enthusiasm for food and experiences; it's hard to imagine Rosenthal not liking something. But apparently, that type of joy can be grating for some people. While the show has an average 8.3 out of 10 stars on IMDd, those that don't care for Rosenthal are blunt, calling his interactions "superficial" and opining that the show doesn't seem to research its locations deeply, focusing instead on tired clichés.

Lima is considered to be one of the top food destinations in the world, with the Peruvian city often called the culinary capital of South America. And while the 10-course tasting menu at Mayta and the Japanese fusion experience at Maido have garnered both restaurants spots on the World's 50 Best Restaurants list for multiple years, Central helped put Lima on the culinary map, earning a place on the list every year starting in 2013, and eventually making it to the number one spot in 2023. "Virgilio" follows Central's chef Virgilio Martínez as he learned more about ingredients native to Peru, educating himself on his country's history and culture along the way and ultimately becoming so inspired that he revamped Central's menu from traditional fare to a tasting menu that pays homage to Peru's landscape and gastronomy.

Partially filmed during the COVID-19 pandemic, the documentary also showcases the difficulties the restaurant industry faced as the world shut down, with Central temporarily switching to a delivery service. IMDb reviews praise the subject matter, but some found that the film left something to be desired. As one viewer wrote, "Interviews were rather flat and interesting visuals were few and far between."

New York Times best-selling author Michael Pollan has written prolifically on the subject of food, looking at how food makes it into supermarkets in "The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals," advocating for incorporating more plants into diets through "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto," and distilling food wisdom into simple concepts in "Food Rules: An Eater's Manual." In "Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation," Pollan took to the kitchen to learn to grill, boil, bake, and ferment from experts, and the book was translated into a Netflix limited series in 2016. 

Each episode looks at one element in particular and how it's used in cooking, from fire in barbecuing, water in pot cooking, air through baking bread, and earth through fermentation. While fans of Pollan's writing seemed keen on the docuseries in their IMDb reviews, others found it "smug" and called the premise "out of touch with reality," arguing that while the episodes were framed around the four elements, the connections were tenuous at best. Over on Reddit, viewers acknowledged that the series does cover compelling subjects, including but not limited to fire hunting in Australia, the overall presentation of the material could've gone further. "It's a bit lacking in science. A bit lightweight, I'd like it to be a bit more geeky," one wrote.

If you're looking for a quick and heartwarming food documentary, "A Tale of Two Kitchens" will take you on a short and sweet ride that celebrates the people behind the scenes of the restaurant industry. As Chef Gabriela Cámara balances her San Francisco restaurant Cala and the Mexico City institution Contramar, the 2019 film introduces you to the staff working at the restaurant, whose pride in their work is front and center. In the case of Cala's staff, it also highlights the immigrant experience in American professional kitchens. 

One 10/10 IMDb review shared that they assumed Cámara would be the primary focus of the documentary, but were instead pleasantly surprised to find that it was mainly about her employees, calling it a "selfless" project. Others similarly loved it, calling it excellent and wishing that it were longer. However, it wasn't everyone's cup of tea. As one IMDb user wrote, "It's so generic and never really takes any risks."

Contramar and its sister restaurants are still going strong in Mexico, but Cala has been shuttered for several years. Luckily for those wishing to try Cámara's creations in the United States, Cantina Contramar opened on March 28 in Las Vegas at the Fontainebleau. Patrons should not expect your typical Vegas hotel eatery. As Cámara told Food & Wine, "It had to feel and taste Mexican, even though you're in a casino in Nevada."

The majority of the documentaries featured in this article look at the positive aspects of the culinary world, introducing viewers to new ingredients and speaking candidly with chefs about their professional journeys. But the reality is that there's also a darker side to the food ecosphere, and "Poisoned: The Dirty Truth About Your Food" doesn't hold back in that regard. The 2023 documentary film looks at the quality of food in the United States, showing the intersection between politics and what we eat, from what the Food and Drug Administration oversees to the effects of foodborne illnesses on the general public.

The doc has a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, but all viewers are not as gung-ho on the topic, giving it an average 6.8 out of 10 stars rating on IMDb. As one Reddit user put it, "This documentary was good, but it repeated the same message several times and I had to fast forward parts of it." Others found issues not with the documentary's premise, but rather the reality that for most Americans, growing your own food is not a realistic solution, and sharing that ultimately, people will continue to purchase the bulk of their food from industrial farms via grocery stores regardless of potential health risks. The film addresses the problems, but doesn't provide reasonable alternatives, viewers say.

As much an exploration of history and cultural impact as a food documentary, "High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America" takes a deep look at the origins of African American cuisine, moving from African roots all the way to major U.S. cities. In the two-season Netflix docuseries, chefs speak with host Stephen Satterfield about how ingredients have been reimagined and repurposed into deep culinary traditions.

In the first season, Satterfield speaks to influential members of the culinary world like chef BJ Dennis, who is working to preserve Gullah cooking traditions in Southern cuisine — specifically in the South Carolina Lowcountry region — through advocacy and education. Season 2 tackles historical movements like the Great Migration and how Southern cooking made its way, and ultimately adapted to, Midwestern cities like Chicago. From the Civil Rights Movement to free breakfast programs, Satterfield explores how Black chefs and home cooks have impacted their communities and the culture around them through food. The series has garnered a Peabody Award for Best Documentary, as well as two NAACP Image Awards for Outstanding Documentary in Television.

While the Rotten Tomatoes critics score sits at 100%, the audience score is at 87%; the IMDb rating is 7.7 out of 10 stars.  While some Reddit users praised the series — especially for the way it approaches "heavy" and difficult topics — it evidently fell short for other viewers. As one Reddit user wrote, "I think the most significant problem for a program that aims to explore the cultural impact of food, was that there was just a massive failure to actually explain the food!"

"Love, Charlie: The Rise and Fall of Chef Charlie Trotter" is an examination of the high price that excellence can cost, telling the story of Chicago restaurateur Charlie Trotter, whose self-taught culinary skills took him to greatness before his untimely death. Trotter focused on quality ingredients, striving towards giving diners balanced meals that didn't feel overindulgent, and is widely considered to be an inspiration for the protagonist of "The Bear," an Emmy-winning show about a talented young chef who converts his brother's sandwich shop into a culinary darling, mixing comedy and drama in the high-stakes world of restaurant kitchens.

Trotter died in 2013 at 54 from a stroke caused by high blood pressure, with contemporaries simultaneously praising his skills and acknowledging Trotter's difficult temperament. "A lot of the very things that made Charlie a great chef and allowed him to operate at the level of excellence he did for so many years, also made him a lot of enemies. That served him well on the way up, but it didn't after," Anthony Bourdain said at the time. The documentary film, which also includes interviews with renowned chefs like Wolfgang Puck, Emeril Lagasse, and Reginald Watkins, a saucier who was Trotter's first hire at his namesake restaurant, has a 90% critics score and a 99% viewers score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Now several seasons in, "Chef's Table" takes viewers into the world of exemplary chefs, showcasing not just their talent in the kitchen, but how their worldviews define their lives as a whole. The Emmy-nominated series has 18,000 ratings on IMDb, where viewers give it an average 8.5 out of 10 stars. The highest-rated episode, the premiere episode of Season 2, looks at James Beard Award winner Grant Achatz, who was diagnosed with tongue cancer just as his Chicago restaurant, Alinea, was gaining serious momentum in the culinary world. Other standout episodes follow chefs like Ángel León, whose Michelin-starred cooking focuses on sustainable seafood, and Buddhist nun Jeong Kwan, who cooks with a bold spirituality and respect for ingredients.

"Chef's Table" also has multiple spin-offs: "Chef's Table: France," "Chef's Table: BBQ," "Chef's Table: Pizza," "Chef's Table: Noodles," and "Chef's Table: Legends." The France spin-off focuses on renowned French chefs, and the legends spin-off looks at titans like José Andrés and Thomas Keller, while the three cuisine spin-offs look at some of the best cooks making those specific items, from pasta makers to pitmasters. There is also a pastry-specific "Chef's Table" spin-off which follows superstars in the dessert world.

Based on Samin Nosrat's 2017 cookbook by the same name, "Salt Fat Acid Heat" looks at those four specific elements and explores how they can make or break a dish. Each episode is devoted to one particular item, thoroughly analyzing olive oil and cheese in Italy in the fat episode, and exploring saltwater, soy sauce, and miso in the salt episode via Nosrat's trip to Japan. Acid transports the viewer to Mexico's Yucatán peninsula for a look at salsas and citrus fruit, before the final episode on heat takes Nosrat back home to California where she cooks with her mother. 

The 2018 series has a 100% average score on Rotten Tomatoes, and a number of IMDb viewers called it "informative" and "entertaining." One went so far as to write, "A love letter to the things that make food good." When "Salt Fat Acid Heat" premiered in 2018, Nosrat told The Takeout that she hoped the show inspired audiences to get in the kitchen. "I would like you to get off your butt and go cook something, whether it's chicken or making a vinaigrette for the first time, or you know, making a pot of beans," she said. "Because maybe you're a pretty good home cook, but you always use canned beans."

Hosted by celebrity chef David Chang, founder of the Momofuku restaurant group, "Ugly Delicious" takes a deep dive into popular dishes, exploring their history and cultural impact. From the first episode in Season 1, where Chang traveled to Naples to explore the authenticity of Italian pizza and subsequently worked a shift at a Domino's, to what constitutes school food in both the United States and Japan in the Season 2 opener, the show isn't afraid to ask hard questions about the culinary world.

There are also episodes that look at barbecue, from KBBQ to Texan and North Carolinian styles, and the impact of tacos around the world and how that ties into immigrant identities. The two-season docuseries has a whopping average Rotten Tomatoes score of 100%, with a 2018 review from The New Yorker calling it "lavishly produced, rigorously researched, and almost confrontationally weird," highlighting how much the show focused on the impact of food and what that means to the people who make it and eat it. We'd argue that the second season of "Ugly Delicious" is even better than the first, thanks in part to the episode about steak, where the show ties together complicated topics like privilege, economics, gender, and more, all around the subject of beef.

The documentary movies and series featured in this article are all currently available to stream on Netflix in the United States. The ranking was determined through a combination of the ratings on sites like IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes, critical reception, award nominations and wins, overall legacy, as well as viewer insight on social media sites like Reddit.