9 Food Shows to Watch This Fall

Like pumpkin spice latte season, the start of the fall food TV rush seems to creep up earlier and earlier each year. The last few weeks have already seen the launch of two big shows — Alton Brown’s reboot of his classic series Good Eats and the newest season of the Great British Baking Show, now airing on Netflix in a near-real-time rollout, with episodes arriving stateside just days after their original launch in the U.K. In the coming weeks, several more anticipated food series will make their debuts.

In some ways, this fall TV season will be defined by what’s missing: For the first time in a decade, there will be no new globe-trotting adventures featuring Anthony Bourdain. Bravo’s Top Chef, still the standard bearer of cooking competition shows, is switching things up by returning next year as opposed to later this fall. And, although he has plenty of TV shows in production right now, Gordon Ramsay will not be found shouting his way through any new episodes of his Fox series during the rest of 2019 — and honestly, the guy could probably use a break. But there’s still plenty to look forward to between now and New Year’s Eve, from a celebrity-fronted explainer series to a culinary travel show to a holiday baking bonanza.

Here are the shows we’re most looking forward to this season, listed based on level of excitement.

For a look at the most-anticipated reads and eats this season, see our fall cookbook preview and fall restaurant preview.

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Netlix

Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

Major players: David Chang and friends
Premiere: TBA but likely before the holidays
Watch it on: Netflix
The gist: Some of the best moments in Ugly Delicious — a Netflix culinary docuseries exploring the cultural legacies of David Chang’s favorite dishes — are the scenes where the Momofuku chef bums around the great food cities of the world with his celebrity friends, sampling the local delicacies. The chef and restaurateur’s new Netflix series is dedicated to just that. Each episode of Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner will feature Chang eating the three big meals in an iconic city, accompanied by a famous sidekick. Netflix is keeping mum about the guest list, but considering that Chang runs one of LA’s major celebrity-magnet restaurants, and he’s got one of the greatest famous-people-centric interview podcasts in the game right now, it seems like a given that the chef will coax some of Hollywood’s hottest stars into joining him on his eating excursions.

Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner is being co-produced by Chang’s company, Majordomo Media, as well as Tremolo Productions, the same team that worked on Ugly Delicious. And speaking of Ugly Delicious, another season of that show is in the works for 2020; Chang is also working on a new Hulu talk show with Chrissy Teigen called Family Style, the first of a series Vox Media Studios-produced shows for the streaming network. (Disclosure: Vox Media Studios is part of Eater’s parent company, Vox Media. No Eater staff member is involved in the production of those shows.)

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The World According to Jeff Goldblum

Major player: Jeff Goldblum
Premiere: November 12
Watch it on: Disney+
The gist: Hollywood’s favorite suave weirdo, Jeff Goldblum, will explore his cultural curiosities in this new half-hour National Geographic show, available exclusively on Disney’s new streaming platform when it launches this fall. While not entirely a food show, the first season will feature episodes dedicated to Goldblum learning all about coffee, ice cream, and Korean barbecue. This is not the first time that Goldblum has ventured into the food TV space, either: Last year he filmed a web series for Funny or Die called Cooking With Jeff Goldblum, in which he prepared dishes alongside his famous friends Bryce Dallas Howard and the late Jonathan Gold. In the highly amusing World According to Jeff Goldblum trailer, the actor tells his fans, “This show is a little off the beaten track, and it may be a little surprising, so taste it and enjoy!”

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The Chef Show Volume 2

Major players: Jon Favreau and Roy Choi
Premiere: September 13
Watch it on: Netflix
The gist: Jon Favreau and Roy Choi have both had extremely busy years so far, with the filmmaker helming the Lion King remake and the forthcoming Star Wars series The Mandalorian for Disney, and the chef expanding to Vegas and launching a new show about the LA food scene called Broken Bread. Compared to these other releases, The Chef Show might look like a minor side project, but the first season of the Netflix cooking series was actually one of the best shows of the summer. And now, Choi and Favreau are delivering a second round of episodes featuring long-form recipes and spirited conversations about food and dining with some of Hollywood’s biggest stars.

This time around, Favreau and Choi will be joined by Seth Rogen, Guerrilla Tacos chef Wes Avila, YouTube star Andrew Rea (of “Binging with Babish” fame), Pizzana’s Daniele Uditi, and fellow Netflix star David Chang. While the celebrity dinner scenes are fun, it’s the old-school, no-shortcut cooking sequences with Choi and Favreau that really make this show worth watching.

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NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

Barefoot Contessa: Cook Like a Pro

Major players: Ina Garten
Premiere: October 27
Watch it on: Food Network
The gist: Most Ina fans (and there are a lot of them) fall into one of two camps: those who prefer the backyard party vibes of summertime episodes, and those who like the cozier, off-season feel of her fall and winter extravaganzas, where the skies outside her East Hampton estate are pleasantly gray and roasted root vegetables and hearty braises are often on the menu.

If you fall into the latter camp, you will most certainly want to tune into the new season of Barefoot Contessa: Cook Like a Pro at the end of October. Although the Food Network has not revealed any episode details yet, it wouldn’t be fall at Ina’s house without a few holiday surprises and some fabulous guests (last year, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Emily Blunt stopped by for lunch, nbd). For those keeping track at home, this will be the 17th season of Ina’s hit Food Network series, but the show is just as effortlessly charming as when it debuted back in 2002.

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Food Network/Girl Meets Farm

Girl Meets Farm Season 4

Major player: Molly Yeh
Premiere: September 8
Watch it on: Food Network
The gist: James Beard-nominated blogger-turned-TV host Molly Yeh invites viewers back to her Midwestern farmhouse kitchen for a new batch of comfort food recipe demonstrations. Part of the charm of Girl Meets Farm — a show that specializes in imaginative, well-informed riffs on crowd-pleasing favorites — is that Yeh seamlessly blends elements of her family life into the show. One episode will focus on how her life has changed since becoming a mom, and later in the season, Molly will prepare dishes for Halloween, Oktoberfest, and Friendsgiving parties. Fans can expect even more from Yeh in the near future: Earlier this summer, the Food Network announced that it signed a multi-platform deal with the chef and author where she will make more episodes of Girl Meets Farm and provide original content for the network’s digital endeavors.

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Adam Rose/Netflix

Nailed It! Holiday!

Major players: Nicole Byer, Jacques Torres
Premiere: TBA, likely before Thanksgiving
Watch it on: Netflix
The gist: Netflix’s popular baking series — where cake fails are celebrated along with pastry triumphs — has gotten tighter, funnier, and generally more entertaining over the last year. Part of this has to do with Nicole Byer and Jacques Torres easing into their roles as TV’s best hosting duo, but the production itself gets a little bit daffier with each new season. For this second holiday special, fans can expect an even loopier array of yuletide treats than last year’s sugary spectacular, which included nativity scene cupcakes, arctic critter doughnuts, Christmas light “jangle tangles,” and dreidel cake pops. This will be the fifth season of Nailed It! in two years, and three more international versions are on the way, suggesting that deformed unicorn cakes and questionable-looking pools of chocolate have universal appeal.

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Guy’s Ranch Kitchen/Amazon Prime

Guy’s Ranch Kitchen Season 3

Major player: Guy Fieri and friends
Premiere: September 28
Watch it on: Food Network
The gist: The Food Network’s breeziest cooking show, part of the unexpectedly welcome Fierissance we’re now in, is filmed in Guy’s actual backyard with an ever-changing array of Flavortown all-stars. For this new season, Fieri will be joined by previous guests and familiar Food Network faces like Marc Murphy, Aarti Sequeira, and Carl Ruiz, as well as several newcomers to the ranch, including Amanda Freitag, Traci Des Jardins, and Antonia Lofaso. As always, Guy will do all the delegating and tasting, but none of the actual cooking, a formula that works oddly well for this series. Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives continues to be the Food Network’s juggernaut, commanding dozens of hours of the network’s TV schedule each week, but Guy’s Ranch Kitchen is arguably the more entertaining and informative series from America’s favorite spiky-haired chef.

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Netflix

Sugar Rush Christmas

Premiere: TBA, likely before Thanksgiving
Major players: Adriano Zumbo and Candace Nelson
Watch it on: Netflix
The gist: Netflix’s under-the-radar cooking competition returns for a holiday-themed third season where, as always, four pairs of bakers compete against each other for a $10,000 prize. LA cupcake maven Candace Nelson and Australian pastry virtuoso Adriano Zumbo judge all three rounds of baking — cupcakes, “confections,” and cakes — along with a rotating cast of guest stars. The conceit here is that contestants are given a bank of time at the beginning of the competition, and can strategically race through the first couple rounds in the hope they’ll squeeze through and have even more time for the elaborate, themed-cake-building finale. While Sugar Rush lacks the irreverent humor of its Netflix sibling Nailed It!, the show has a lot of satisfying baking action and a generally energetic visual style. This could be a good one to watch with the whole family as you’re waiting for that big holiday meal to wrap up.

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ABC/Great American Baking Show

The Great American Baking Show Season 5

Major players: Paul Hollywood, Sherry Yard, Anthony Adams, Emma Bunton
Premiere: December
Watch it on: ABC
The gist: Although the show has been plagued by cast changes and the unfortunate cancellation of an entire season due to sexual misconduct charges against former judge Johnny Iuzzini, the American remake of the Great British Bake Off marches onward. Like last season, these new episodes will be hosted by the perfectly charming duo of ex-Spice Girl Emma Bunton and former NFL star Anthony Adams, plus Bake Off fixture Paul Hollywood and renowned pastry chef Sherry Yard. ABC announced the forthcoming season with a hypnotic cake-decorating video that was more impressive than anything that’s been featured on the Great American Baking Show so far.

While GABS lacks the charm of its U.K. inspiration — a common problem with remakes — the mechanics and overall storytelling are nearly identical, making it a solid choice for cooking competition fans who’ve already blasted through all of the original.

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Also of note: As usual, the Food Network is leaning into the holidays with a handful of limited series, including Halloween Cake-Off (September 23), Halloween Wars (September 29), Haunted Gingerbread Showdown (October 6), Halloween Baking Championship (September 23), Ultimate Thanksgiving Challenge (November 3), Holiday Baking Championship (November 4), and Christmas Cookie Challenge (November 4). The Cooking Channel, meanwhile, will kick off new seasons of Carnival Eats on September 15 and The Best Thing I Ever Ate on October 28. And, although there hasn’t been any update on this project in seven months, Netflix did promise that a Japan-themed mini-season of Queer Eye was on its way in 2019, so we might see the Fab Five land in Tokyo by year’s end.

Andrea D’Aquino is an illustrator and author based in New York City.
Listen to Greg Morabito discuss the season’s most exciting new TV shows on Eater’s Digest: