Chef’s Table (2015-) is beloved for its beautiful visuals, sound design, and engaging narratives. Personally, my favorite element of the show is how the featured chefs and interviewees on the show sit down and decide to narrate their life stories to a camera, of their own volition. For an example, see this preview from season 1, in which Italian chef Massimo Bottura volunteers to tell the story of his famous tortellini dish:

Chef’s Table obviously has interviewers, but the show makes a conscious decision to cut their presence out of the final product. The final product is slick and well produced, but those creative decisions can elide real editorial trade-offs. For example, the mildly controversial portrayal of chef Francis Mallman in season 1, whose commitment to the craft of drinking wine in the wilderness and cooking food over an open fire is tacitly accepted as more important than his commitment to his six children. Or the decisions that led season 3 to feature more white chefs cooking Asian-inspired food than Asian chefs cooking Asian food. There are smaller editorial decisions too no doubt; choices about what to ask interviewees, about who to interview, about what to include and what to cut. But the show is produced such that the people making those decisions are completely hidden from the viewer.

High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America (2021) is another recent Netflix production. Like Chef’s Table, it features globe-trotting interviews with a series of different chefs. Unlike Chef’s Table, it opens with the following monologue from host Stephen Satterfield:

I think a lot about food. How it connects us through time, across geography, from generation to generation. It tells stories about where we are, where we’ve been, where we’re going. The truth is, a lot of American food has its roots in African American food, traditions, and ingenuity. I’m Stephen Satterfield. I’m a food writer who studied as a chef and worked as a sommelier for over a decade, and I’m on a journey to discover the stories of African American food and meet the new generation preserving our history.

The contrast is apparent immediately. High on the Hog is presented through the lens of Satterfield’s personal journey as he traces the history of African American food in the United States, starting in Benin and ending in Texas. He isn’t an overwhelming presence, generally letting his interviewees speak from themselves and often adding only light commentary (“That’s good”, he’s seen saying in the same opening sequence), but it’s apparent nonetheless that High on the Hog has a human in the loop, directing the outcome of the series. Viewers couldn’t confuse it for a purely neutral portrayal of its subjects because Satterfield’s intent to use the series as a way to explore the history and future of African American food is made clear within seconds of the start of the series.

Satterfield’s role, and the production of High on the Hog more generally, reminds me a lot of Anthony Bourdain, another food TV great. Bourdain was widely acclaimed for bringing his perspective on to the series he created and hosted, with a focus on bringing attention to ordinary people in places left behind by the rest of the world:

Bourdain said of his crowning legacy, Parts Unknown, “Some shows are agenda-driven.” That agenda was at once banal and radical: “Show regular people doing everyday things.” The locations tipped viewers off to his politics. Bourdain visited Gaza, Iran, Cuba, Congo, Vietnam, Namibia, Libya, and Colombia. US locations featured West Virginia, Montana, and Cleveland. It was a roll call of neocon enemies and neoliberal abandonment. Bourdain used food to oppose the Washington consensus.

Both series have a focus on great food, but what really elevates them is a sense of purpose that’s brought to the front by narrators and hosts who strive to actually give their work a voice. Chef’s Table does have some overarching themes that come out if you watch it closely; the show has a conservationist streak, highlighting both chefs who are working to make environmentally friendly food as well as chefs trying to preserve or enhance existing culinary traditions. The idea Satterfield describes of “[meeting] the new generation preserving our history”, is actually a strong theme in both High on the Hog and Chef’s Table. But no one would tell you that’s what Chef’s Table is “about”, and I suspect plenty of viewers would miss it altogether.

I’m not here to say Chef’s Table is strictly worse than High on the Hog or Parts Unknown. As someone who’s seen nearly every Chef’s Table episode I hope I have better judgment than that. But I am happy to compare how those series made me feel; Chef’s Table has always left me feeling full and satisfied, like a good meal from a favorite restaurant. But High on the Hog was challenging in a way that Chef’s Table never was, and I came away feeling not just satisfied but like my perspective shifted and I’d learned something. The use, or lack, of voice isn’t the only difference between the two series, but I do think it’s a key element if you’re trying to distinguish them.