The Best Food Documentary Shows to Stream Right Now

It wasn't all that long ago that popular food television was mostly relegated to a single channel. The Food Network was a specialized offering, serving up various food-based competitions and cooking shows. This wasn't an enterprise yet — not the way it would be in the coming years. But before long, with the help of personalities like Gordon Ramsay, Anthony Bourdain, Alton Brown, Rachael Ray, and many more, the "food show" took off. Now, every streaming service has its own take on the travel food show or the cooking or baking competition.

To help you on your search for your next culinary series to devour, we've separated the wheat from the chaff and put together a list of the best food documentary series that you can stream right now. If you're looking for the best food competition shows to stream right now, you can find that list here.

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Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown

Look, this is a no-brainer. Parts Unknown is the best food show of all time. There are many imitators, but there's nothing like this. The CNN series changed the game, as Anthony Bourdain, the famed chef, author, and traveler, took the idea of a travel food show and created something deeper and more meaningful. Across 12 seasons, Bourdain didn't just sample local cuisines; he interrogated food as a cultural artifact, as a way to track community and history, and as a look into what it means for human beings to experience other cultures on our plates. Parts Unknown is the best food show, no doubt, but its greatest achievement is making viewers more curious (and hopefully more welcoming and loving) about other cultures and the way people live.

Ugly Delicious

Ugly Delicious shares some DNA with Parts Unknown. It's a show largely focused on the cultural aspects of food, and it's anchored by a big personality — in this case, Momofuko founder David Chang. Chang's Netflix series is curious and prickly, always looking to challenge commonly held beliefs about certain foods. Ugly Delicious, with its themed episodes focusing on certain dishes or styles of cooking, will literally change your perspective on foods you thought you knew everything about.

Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives

Not every food documentary series has to boast an overly critical angle. Sometimes all you want is to see a guy with spiked blonde hair eat some delicious looking food, and that's exactly what Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives delivers. For over 40 seasons (seriously), Guy Fieri has traveled across the country looking for comfort food, no matter the form it takes. Brisket burgers, mac and cheese, chicken wings, burgers topped with peanut butter — if you've ever considered eating something at 2 a.m. after a night out with friends, Fieri has probably chowed down on it on his Food Network show. Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives is as charming as they come and will leave you feeling very hungry.

Somebody Feed Phil

Somebody Feed Phil features a similarly low-stakes vibe, as Phil Rosenthal, the creator of the long-running sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, travels around the globe trying all sorts of different cuisines and recipes. The show isn't reinventing the wheel, but what makes this one work is Rosenthal's genuine enthusiasm. He clearly has a love for food, and his energetic, wide-eyed approach to everything is infectious and heartwarming.

Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy

Few places have their cultural identity tied to food quite like Italy. On this CNN series, Academy Award-nominated actor Stanley Tucci travels all across Italy to find the best dishes the country has to offer. Whether he's tasting rigatoni in Rome, making pizzoccheri in Milan, or sampling the unique grapes of Sicily, Tucci brings his natural charisma to a food show that's wonderfully researched, offering a complete picture of a nation often defined by food.

Chef's Table

If you had to describe Chef's Table in one word (and coincidentally, that's part of my job here), it would be intimate. Chef's Table is a loving, detailed, affectionate look at the lives and dishes of various chefs. Each episode is focused on a specific chef, diving deep into their life to explore how their passions and motivations outside of the kitchen influence the food they put on the table at home and in their restaurants. Few shows out there are as beautifully rendered as Chef's Table.

High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America

As you can probably tell from the title, High on the Hog has a specific story to tell. Food writer Stephen Satterfield, who hosts the series, dispels a number of myths about what food is considered African American, exploring how African cuisine influenced all aspects of American food as America was founded in slavery and oppression. The moving series packs a lot into each episode and will leave you thinking about the complicated clash of food and identity in America.

Salt Fat Acid Heat

Part travelogue, part instructional cooking show, Salt Fat Acid Heat sees Samin Nosrat building on her 2017 book of the same name, in which she proposes that there are four elements integral to any good cooking: you guessed it, it's salt, fat, acid, and heat. Across four episodes, Nosrat travels to various countries to see how each location uses these specific elements in their cuisines, creating a show that's approachable if you have any motivation to get yourself into the kitchen, while also being a true cultural learning experience.

Nadiya's Time to Eat

This list doesn't contain many instructional cooking shows, because most of them are, quite frankly, either dull or overly complicated. That's not the case with Nadiya's Time to Eat. Nadiya Hussain, whose remarkable charm and energy drive the series, is interested in cooking in a way that's realistic to families today. She embraces shortcuts in the kitchen, does away with the shame about using canned or pre-made ingredients if they save time, and delivers delicious, gorgeous recipes that most of us could tackle on our own. This kind of wholesome, real cooking show is a delight to watch.

Rotten

Of course, not all of the food industry is wholesome, and Netflix's Rotten digs deep into the darker side of where our food comes from and what it means for our planet and the people living on it. Across two seasons and 12 episodes, the docuseries investigates the food underworld, exposing how some of our everyday foods like sugar, chocolate, peanut butter, and milk all have devastating impacts in terms of food waste, violent political conflict, and the environment. This is an eye-opening series, and a must-watch for anyone who cares about how the food we eat gets to our plates.