The best food shows on Netflix are so all consuming, some days, they take your life.

You know - like that Sunday you binged your way through all of Chef's Table, but found that your appetite for the best food shows out there still wasn't sated? Are you now craving more lingering shots of langoustine and earnest interviews with shell-shocked sous-chefs? If you love food as much as we do, then the answer to both of those questions is probably yes.

And if you love consuming endless amounts of media as much as we do, then rifling through your Netflix library to choose what to watch as you're eating dinner can cause unnecessary stress. By the time you eventually give up and decide to watch an episode of The Office that you've already seen 4 times, your once-piping hot attempt at cacio e pepe will have become a cold and congealed mass. Don't let that happen again.

Instead, take our advice and whack on something from our following list of the best food shows, films, and documentaries on Netflix. Just make sure you've got some snacks on hand though, because these are going to make you hungry...

21 of the best food shows and movies on Netflix

1. Always Be My Maybe

Starring Ali Wong, Randall Park and… Keanu Reeves, this earnest and endearing rom com is set in the world of restaurants, family squabbles over the dinner table and frenetic fine-dining kitchens. Wong plays a highly successful (yet highly strung) chef who eventually learns to re-discover the reason she started cooking in the first place thanks to rekindling a connection with her childhood sweetheart. It's more about love than it is about food. But, then again, it's one of the best food shows as it's about love. So, it's actually very much about food. Which we love.

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2. Street Food

From the same team that brought you Chef's Table, this deep dive into some of the world's most dedicated and delicious street food vendors is an excellent example of how it's not just fine-dining stalwarts that deserves the accolades in food media. That being said, you'll still find some Michelin starred cooking here courtesy of Thai chef Jay Fai and her crab omelettes. A food docu-series without any pretensions, Street Food is moreish and ideal for binging on when you're not too hungry. After all, it's one of the best food shows in existence and guaranteed to make you at the very least want a bowl of noodles.

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3. The Chef Show

If you enjoyed the film Chef – you'll love The Chef Show. If you haven't seen Chef – watch that right now. Then come back and watch The Chef Show. Jon Favreau and Roy Choi joined by a spate of celebrity guests like Gwenyth Paltrow, Bill Burr, Robert Rodriguez and more. Be warned though: you'll be craving a grilled cheese almost immediately after a viewing. See – you'll never have to Google best food shows again.

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4. Flavorful Origins

This series is an excellent means of learning a hell of a lot about Chaoshan cuisine. Each episode focuses on a specific ingredient that is often used in regional Chaoshan cooking, exploring where the ingredients come from, what they're used for, and highlighting the fascinating stories of the people behind the cuisine's creation. Watch Flavorful Origins and you'll come out far better educated on everything from tofu cakes to brine. Not only is it one of the best food shows, but it's also one of the most educational.

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5. Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat

Samin Nosrat is both a queen of the kitchen, and our hearts. It's rare to see a host succeed in transferring so much sheer joy over to a food programme; however, Samin provides that enthusiasm in spades. Not content at merely being pleasant to watch, the show sees Nosrat do a deep dive into the very basic elements that makes food delicious alongside oodles of detailed info. While it's obviously one of our picks for the best food shows on Netflix, it's also a definite contender for best show overall.

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6. The Final Table

From Hell's Kitchen to The Great British Menu, cooking competitions can vary in terms of both their intensity and entertainment value. The Final Table is pretty valuable in both those regards. The comp pits 12 pairs of chefs from around the world against each other as they prepare national dishes from a number of nations – each episode placing a focus on a specific country's cuisine. It's high drama, high action, and the levels of the chef are extremely high skill. The Final Table is a nice reminder that cooking competitions can be truly captivating.

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7. The Great British Bake Off

The Great British Bake Off is a lovely mum's hug of a programme. It's likely that anyone even vaguely interested follows it religiously, but have you ever gone back and binge-watched the first few series? If not, you really should. Every season from the get-go provides all the thrills, spills and soggy bottoms you could ever want from reality television. You'll get to relive the Mary Berry years in their prime and, well, GBBO's just so overwhelmingly pleasant, isn't it?

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8. Somebody Feed Phil

The beauty of this Netflix food and travel show is that it could, quite literally, have been done by absolutely anyone. It just so happens that its host is "Everybody Loves Raymond" creator Phil Rosenthal. And, to be fair to the man, he does a pretty great job. Rosenthal travels the globe to take in the local cuisine and culture of cities like Bangkok, Dublin, Copenhagen and more. While Rosenthal's passion for food shines through, we're still bitter that we didn't get the call from Netflix instead. Could Foodism eating around London be one of the best food shows ever? You betcha.

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9. The Trip

Yes, The Trip is 90% just Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon doing impressions of other British comics but the other 10% (which consists of drinking great wine and eating great food) makes it some of the most pleasant food-adjacent viewing going. We'd kill to be at the dinner table with these two.

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10. Ugly Delicious

Ugly Delicious is an eight-part series that follows chef David Chang – of Momofuku fame – as he explores what different types of food mean to different cultures. It's one of the best food shows going. Using the lens of food to instigate a deep-dive into his own upbringing, Chang navigates everything from the complicated culinary issues surrounding cultural appropriation to the convenience of the Domino's pizza delivery service. A must-watch for anyone who's even been criticised for something smelling funky in their packed lunch.

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11. For Grace

For Grace is about good food. But, more importantly, it's about the people who make it. Following Curtis Duffy as he builds up his restaurant, Grace, from concept to reality, 'For Grace' provides an intimate portrait on the costs of ambition. As Duffy's familial relationships are thrown to the wayside in the name of fine-dining, the documentary offers a sobering insight into what it takes to achieve success in the cut-throat world of restaurant kitchens.

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12. Nailed It

We commend Nailed It for being one of the few cookery competitions where we genuinely reckon we'd have a chance at winning. It's a show where three amateur bakers take a crack at re-creating edible masterpieces for a $10,000 prize. Often to pretty varying degrees of success. And, by varying, we generally mean minimal. Most of the deplorable cakey creations would make Mary Berry white as a sheet. And it's wildly entertaining. Describing itself as "part reality contest, part hot mess", the only thing you really need to know about Nailed It is that it's a whole lot of fun.

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13. The Search for General Tso

You've probably heard of General Tso's Chicken. You've probably even eaten some General Tso's Chicken. But what exactly is General Tso's Chicken? This documentary attempts to find that out through its investigation into the history of the Chinese-American fast food staple. Tracking the dish's origins from China's Hunan province to modern day California, this documentary's food-based focal point is its main strength. It covers everything from the influx of Chinese immigrants in America to debates surrounding around the dish's integral ingredients, all through interviews with the very people responsible for what we call Chinese food today.

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14. Deep Fried Masters

Oh, America. Never change. This cookery show is quite possibly the most American food program in existence. It involves three deep fry experts rocking up to various fairs across the great American landscape to uncover the nation's next great 'Deep Fried Master'. The Great British Bake-Off this is not. But one of the best food shows on Netflix it is. Each episode features eight competitors in a three-round challenge as the judging panel of state fair legends pick the winner based on the quality of their deep-fried Frankenstein's monster. You can practically feel your arteries clogging (and appetite shamefully whetting) as a plate of deep-fried cheeseburgers is declared a "masterpiece".

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15. Cooked

Acclaimed food writer, Michael Pollan's Cooked is a lovely little series about how cooking has shaped the world we live in. Each episode is tied together thematically by an element, as Pollan studies the influence that 'Fire', 'Water', 'Air', and 'Earth' have had on how we eat. If you want to watch one of the best food shows with an intellectual spins that extols the joys of cooking, and its ability to help bridge personal connections between people, give Cooked a go.

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16. Samurai Gourmet

A far cry from programmes with shouting chefs and cash prizes, 'Samurai Gourmet' is likely the most relaxing food-based TV series in existence. For one, it's entirely fictional and devoid of the tropes commonly associated with “reality” television. Set – and produced – in Japan, the plot revolves around the travels of a retired salesman named Takeshi as he slowly rediscovers his passion for food and life. And...that's about it. Focussed less on the actual food and more about the emotions associated with eating a meal in a certain time and place, 'Samurai Gourmet' is light, wholesome, and will leave you hungry for more.

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17. King Georges

Now, Georges Perrier isn't actually a King. But he is a royally interesting man. Perrier hustles, bustles, sweats, and shouts his way through the entirety of this documentary about the once-famous French restaurateur's doomed fight to keep his Philadelphia restaurant, Le Bec-Fin open. While his explosions in the kitchen underline the industry's more antiquated and toxic elements, Perrier's passion is what prevents him from becoming a wholly malignant figure. He swears because he cares and he shouts because that's the only way he knows how to run a kitchen. King Georges is a fascinating insight into how restaurateurs of a different generation have (or rather, haven't) adapted to the modern food landscape.

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18. Todo Sobre El Asado

If there's one thing that Argentina has rightfully become known for in the food sphere, it's the country's passionate adoration and treatment of meat. Todo Sobre El Asado, an examination into Argentina's barbecue scene and culture, is an absolute love letter to the stuff. It's got meat bursting at the seams. There's coals, cows, and churrasco littered throughout this quirky Spanish language documentary. The title quite literally translates to 'All About The Barbecue'. Vegans and vegetarians look away now...

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19. Rotten

One of the harsh realities for those of us who love food is that the way we often get our pleasant tasting produce can be a pretty unpleasant process for most of those involved. Rotten travels deep into the heart of the food supply chain to reveal some of the unsavoury truths about where our food actually comes from. It's eye-opening and, at times, difficult to watch. But that's what makes it such essential viewing and one of the best food shows for those skeptical about the way that food processing works.

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20. Jiro Dreams of Sushi

If you haven't seen Jiro Dreams of Sushi: go and watch it now. Seriously. What are you waiting for? A profile of sushi master Jiro Ono, it's practically become required viewing for anyone who considers themselves a foodie. And it's not hard to see why. The documentary is an emotional insight into the dedication required to truly achieve perfection. Jiro is a true artist, and, even if you hate sushi, you'll be hard-pressed not to be entranced by the man's craftsmanship and consequently pained by the strain that his obsession puts on his relationship with even his closest family members.

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21. The Mind of a Chef

We started this selection off with a bit of David Chang, so we thought it'd only be fitting that we also end it with a bit of David Chang. Think of this as a delicious David Chang Netflix sandwich, if you will. 'The Mind of a Chef' is a series that follows the creative processes of various celebrity chefs to exact what fuels their culinary artistry. The first season is dedicated to Chang, though each consequent season provides a different renowned chef, including April Bloomfield and Ludo Lefebvre, as subject. Every episode is only around 20 minutes long, making The Mind of a Chef an easy programme to binge over the weekend and one of the best food shows to watch when you're crippled by a hangover.

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