Jon Favreau Has a Tasty Idea: A 'Chef'-Themed Restaurant

If you were one of the many moviegoers who wished they could sample some Cuban sandwiches, sizzling beignets, and slabs of brisket along with Jon Favreau’s road-tripping cook in the summer sleeper hit Chef, then your stomach may soon be in luck. The writer-director-actor says he’s trying to open a restaurant in L.A. that would serve some of the film’s scrumptious cuisine.

Favreau told Yahoo Movies the news in West Hollywood on Tuesday at a promotional event for the DVD and Blu-ray release of Chef, a comedy about a high-end cook who starts a food truck when his career implodes. Favreau was hosting a Cuban sandwich cooking demo with co-star Emjay Anthony and celebrity chef Roy Choi, who would be his partner in the new eatery (which we assume will be called El Jefe after the film’s food truck). “I love sharing the food with people, so that they could see that food really is as good as it looks,” said Favreau about the restaurant. “It’s not the wisest business venture, but for me it’s a way to let the movie live on and connect with the fans.”

Choi, a food truck innovator who launched the Kogi Korean BBQ taco truck and will soon have his own reality show on CNN, was a consultant and producer on Chef. He sounded equally enthused about the new vittles venture. “We want to turn this into a real restaurant,” said Choi. “When people got out [of screenings], they wanted that thing to be real.”

Favreau mentioned that fans of Chef have already been cooking along with the film (currently available on-demand), and more will have the chance when the film hits DVD and Blu-ray on Sept. 30. Does that mean the new restaurant will one day host an eat-along screening of the movie with accompanying courses? Both Favreau and Choi liked the idea; they could control the portions that way. Otherwise, as Choi laughed, “I don’t know man, you might explode.”