If you’re a foodie, there might not be a better time than now to dive into the kitchen action on your screens. There are loads of great shows that you can truly sink your teeth into.

From the dramatic and much-raced about The Bear to documentaries about the world’s top chefs and a gameshow all about cake, we’ve listed the best cooking shows you need to watch right now. Read on if you want something to watch that isn’t just Bake Off or Kitchen Nightmares.

The Bear

Let’s get the big one out of the way: chances are if you’ve been chatting to friends about what your latest TV watch should be, someone will have mentioned The Bear. It’s one of those shows that has been building a profile over time, with the acclaimed first season dropping last year and an equally raved-about second series that’s just dropped.

The premise is pretty simple: Young chef Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) moves back to Chicago after winning awards in the fine dining world to run his late brother’s sandwich shop. Dealing with guilt and a family business that looks like it could go under, Carmy sets about whipping the place into tip-top shape. Along the way, he builds a team of valued chefs like Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) and Marcus (Lionel Boyce.) It might be a comedy-drama, but it’s one of the most stressful shows on TV.

Watch it on: Disney+

Julia

Debuting last year, Julia is a rather different affair to The Bear, celebrating the beloved American chef Julia Child. Best known for introducing many Americans to the art of French cuisine, Julia’s life from being a budding cookbook author to an icon of American TV is told in HBO style.

British audiences have gotten used to Sarah Lancashire as the no-nonsense grizzled police vet Catherine Cawood in Happy Valley, but here she shows a very different side as the larger-than-life Julia. Two stars of the beloved 90s classic sitcom Frasier join her in the cast, with David Hyde Pierce as her husband Paul Child, and Bebe Neuwirth as Avis DeVoto, who helped bring the best selling Mastering the Art of French Cooking to publication. If you love French food and 60s fashion and décor, this is one to check out.

Watch it on: now tv

Chef’s Table

Moving from scripted to real life, Chef’s Table is a docu-series that began on Netflix back in 2015 and is one of the TV shows that professional chefs and people in the restaurant industry praise as an essential watch. Each episode will take you behind the scenes of some of the best restos in the world, as you watch masters of the craft at work.

Unlike many reality cooking shows, it’s not all about the dramatic fast cuts and OTT arguments but more about the real, true-to-life process. Each episode will give you a look at how a certain chef operates, their styles of food and how they go from assembling ingredients to a happy customer paying the bill. It’s been particularly praised for the variety of chefs and cooking it shows, and there have been themed mini spin-offs like “France”, “BBQ” and “Pizza.”

Watch it on: Netflix

The Chef Show

The 2014 film Chef became a small feel-good hit for its story of a down-on-his-luck chef starting a food truck business. Director and star Jon Favreau decided to make a spin-off cooking show inspired by the film, where he’s joined by chef Roy Choi.

Featuring interviews and plenty of cooking, it’s an easygoing show about the simple pleasures of making good, tasty food. Guests have included Robert Downey Jr., who appeared in the film, along with other celebs like Bill Burr, Tom Holland, Gwyneth Paltrow, Seth Rogen, Robert Rodriguez and more. There are big names and clean camerawork, but the focus is still on the food, and you’ll definitely feel hungry after watching a few minutes of an episode.

Watch it on: Netflix

Whites

Whites only aired for one series with six episodes back in 2010, but it’s still a fun and quick watch if you like comedy with your cooking. Johnathan Creek and QI star Alan Davies plays chef Roland White, who once had the makings of a future star of the cuisine world. However, things didn’t go quite as planned, and he is confined to the respectable but not hugely glamorous job of executive chef at the country hotel the White House.

Increasingly detached and uninterested, he assigns a lot of the donkey work to his close friend Bib (Spy’s Darren Boyd), the sous-chef, and manager of the restaurant Caroline (The IT Crowd’s Katherine Parkinson). Their headaches include their incompetent waitress Kiki (Peep Show’s Isy Suttie) and the slightly too ambitious young chef Skoose (Misfits’ Stephen Wight.) You might have seen the “eggless omelette” scene, which has racked up 7.6 million views on Youtube.

Watch it on: Apple TV

Is It Cake?

Every so often, a TV show comes along where you think “Really? Can you stretch a concept into an actual series?” Is It Cake? Is one of them, and the answer is yes, somehow. It does what it says on the tin: guided by SNL comedian Mikey Day, contestants go head to head with celeb judges to determine whether an object is actually that object, or, you guessed it, a lovely bit of cake.

The contestants are the ones actually baking the cake, and making sure it looks as close to say, a suitcase, as possible, while the judges must use the powers of deduction to work out if it’s a sugary treat. Those who prevail can win $5000, and can double it by guessing which stack of cash is real and which is cake. Silly? Yep. Oddly watchable for longer than you’d think? Yep.

Watch it on: Netflix

Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown

Another one that those in the biz point to, Parts Unknown is one of the best shows from the late Anthony Bourdain, and is all about his passions of both cooking and travel. One of the best reasons to watch it is the fact that it often focuses on places and cuisines you wouldn’t immediately think of.

When the show bills itself as “travelling the world”, it means it: there are episodes in lesser talked about boroughs of New York, the best places for Sushi in Toyko, and stops in Congo, Borneo, Beirut, Jamaica, Iran, Paraguay and many other fascinating places. As he often does, Bourdain focuses less on fancy restaurants and lengthy wine lists for cuisine that local people eat every day, wherever he can find it. If you really love food and want to see the vast amount of different cooking styles there are out there, Parts Unknown is one to turn to.

Watch it on: Prime Video
 

Nadiya Bakes

Easily the biggest name to appear on Bake Off, series six winner Nadiya Hussain kickstarted a successful career that included highs like baking the official cake for the Queen’s 90th birthday.

Nadiya Bakes is one of several shows the super baker has starred in and shows you how to make some of her favourite tasty treats. The show is nothing short of mouth-watering, as the cakes and buns that made Bake Off such a big hit are shown in close-up detail, with Nadiya guiding you every step of the way to (hopefully) recreate it at home. Pay close attention to the recipes as you explore some of the best baking around.

Watch it on: Netflix

Boiling Point

This one might be slightly cheating, since Boiling Point isn’t actually out yet- but considering how good the film it’s based on is, we think it’ll be a great watch. The original film was a critical hit when it was released, and similar to The Bear shows the high-intensity chef of being a professional chef.

This new series, created for BBC One, serves as a sequel following the film’s events. Some six months on from that ending, ace chef Carly (Vinette Robinson) is running her own kitchen with her own team, many of which were taken from her previous stint under Andy (Stephen Graham). Still troubled, Andy is recuperating after a heart attack, and we don’t know yet if he’s still working as a pro chef. But the character hasn’t been brought back for no reason, so we’re willing to bet he’ll either be a rival or a guide to his former protégé Carly at some point in the show’s five episodes.

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