Culinary legends united in Napa Valley May 1 to celebrate about 10 years of the Netflix series “Chef’s Table.” Topics of conversation ranged from everything including their personal inspirations, the dishes that put them on the map, and how they feel about corndogs. Chefs Thomas Keller, Jamie Oliver and Alice Waters were joined by David Gelb, the creator of “Chef’s Table” for an evening of clips, conversation and fine dining as part of the Reel Taste Film Awards, hosted by The Culinary Institute of America at Copia with the Napa Valley Film Festival.
All three chefs appear on the new season of “Chef’s Table: Legends,” now streaming on Netflix. Clips of the series were interspersed with a Q&A and the evening was topped off with a multi-course menu inspired by some of the chef’s most well-known dishes. At the end of the conversation, the chefs were jokingly asked if they ever have a craving for something as basic as a corndog. Waters, credited with beginning the farm-to-table movement, had to ask the other chefs for clarification on what a corndog is. After explaining it to her, the British Oliver admitted, “I didn’t know they existed until about five years ago. I’ll have to cook one up.” This prompted to Gelb joke, “I’m looking forward to the elevated corndog in the next season of ‘Chef’s Table.’”
In discussing the people and foods that inspired them, Oliver talked about growing up with parents who ran a pub and restaurant and appreciating food at an early age. He had a childhood friend who only ate jam sandwiches and at one point, Oliver offered him a taste of his salmon sandwich. Though the friend was suspicious, Oliver said, “He put it in his mouth and his face completely changed. He had this reaction to it being sour and soft and silky. So I knew at a very young age that food had this power – and once you had something good, it’s hard to go back.”
Keller, whose restaurants include Napa Valley’s French Laundry, spoke on how it was a negative dining experience that actually helped form him. “The first time I walked into a fine-dining French restaurant, I was made to feel very uncomfortable,” he noted. “I thought, Why is that? The food is important, but it’s even more important to give people a sense of comfort. It’s very simple to make people happy, and that’s what we try to do.”
Even before Waters spoke, the other guests frequently paid tribute to her influence, starting the farm-to-table movement and advocating for preparing food in season. Oliver revealed that as a teenager he came across a cookbook by “this foreigner from America” and spending hours with it. “I’m dyslexic so words have always been my enemy,” said Oliver before joking,” And Alice’s book didn’t have pictures.” But he made a point to really study it, and it changed his whole perspective. “I thought, how can people talk about food like this? There must be more than just craft and process.”
Waters spoke about how her junior year of college, she took a year off to go to France. “It was an awakening to me,” she noted. “As an adult, I had never been a farmer’s market. I had never tasted things like this.” Instead of trying to create a flashy new dishes, Waters concentrated on finding the freshest produce from farmers she got to know personally.
Waters went on to open her restaurant Chez Panisse, and recalled the time she served a skeptical José Andrés the simple dessert of two dates – only for him to declare it a revelation. Said Waters, “And that is what I was looking for.”
