Pie, oh, pie! Fire up the first trailer for Chef's Table: Pizza
Pizza. It's gooey and doughlicious. It's art and self-expression. It's... a slice of life.
America's beloved, always-in-style dish gets its moment in the sun(-ripened tomatoes) in a new season of the Netflix culinary docuseries Chef's Table. Premiering Sept. 7, Chef's Table: Pizza will transport you all over the country and a few places around the globe to bring you a half-dozen different yet essential takes on the perfect pie. Netflix will release the first trailer for the six-episode season later this morning, but EW can whet your appetite for the upcoming season right now. Your tour begins in Phoenix with Chris Bianco (Pizzeria Bianco), who elevated the pizza game in the United States, who is referred to in this series as "the "Coltrane of pizza," and who almost had to give up his pie-making passion due to his asthma.
You'll also meet: third-generation pizzamaker Franco Pepe in Caiazzo, Italy (Pepe in Grani), who has "dough in his DNA" and has reinvented the margherita; Sarah Minnick of Portland, Ore., (Lovely's Fifty Fifty), who garnishes her acclaimed creations with farmer's market-supplied edible flowers and summer produce; Gabriel Bonci of Rome (Bonci Pizzarium), who has revolutionized Roman-style pies and has been referred to as "the Michelangelo of pizza"; Ann Kim of Minneapolis (Pizzeria Lola), an Ivy League-educated actress-turned-pizzamaker who calls her renowned creations "loud, bold, and spicy"; and Yoshihiro Imai of Kyoto (Monk), lauded for his farm-fresh pies involving mackerel and shiitake mushrooms.
Maybe the answer is obvious, but let's ask anyway: After focusing batches of episodes on France (2016), pastry (2018), and BBQ (2020), why did the Chef's Table producers decide to serve up a season solely of pizza?
"The idea of being able to go deep into pizza and to explore all these amazing people that have made pizza their lives, it's almost like exploring how our lives could have turned out in a dream scenario where we were making pizza every day," exec producer Brian McGinn says. "That's no. 1. No. 2 is: pizza is sort of the ultimate canvas. You roll out some dough and then whatever you put on top and how you make it, that can be a perfect way of expressing who you are. And in a lot of ways, that's what Chef's Table is about — people finding their voices, finding a way to express themselves, to express their cultures. It was exciting for us to take this seemingly simple food item that we eat all the time that everyone loves and to really go deeper into it and to get into the emotion of it and what it means to amazing artisans all over the world."
While all pieces of the pie are certainly worth exploring, is there a particular oven that McGinn is extra-eager for viewers to peek inside? "I'm so excited for people to see Ann Kim's episode, where she talks about putting kimchi on a pizza, because I love those moments that almost feel sacrilegious," he says. "Like, 'Oh my gosh, how could someone put kimchi on a pizza? That seems like it doesn't go at all!' And I've had that kimchi pizza — and it's amazing."
Netflix's longest-running culinary series, Chef's Table launched in 2015. Its most recent season, Chef's Table: BBQ, was released in fall 2020. The streamer is stocking its pantry full of food-related programming for the fall, including the returns of The Great British Baking Show, Nailed It!, and Somebody Feed Phil, along with the premieres of Drink Masters, Snack Vs. Chef, and Cook at All Costs.
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