David Gelb’s Chef Table will return for its fifth season on September 28, after a brief detour into the sugary world of pastry. In past seasons, the show has featured largely, if not entirely, familiar names from the upper echelons of fine dining and mostly male, Euro-centric lineups. The fifth and sixth seasons’ rosters, which Netflix has announced in tandem, serve as a sort of corrective.
Kicking things off is Cristina Martinez of South Philly Barbacoa, who with her husband, Ben Miller, is also an activist for undocumented immigrants; Bo Songvisava of Bangkok’s Bo.Lan; Musa Dağdeviren of Istanbul’s Çiya Sofrasi and other restaurants, who was once profiled by The Idiot author Elif Batuman; and Albert Adrià of Barcelona.
The sixth season will feature Mashama Bailey, the chef of Savannah, Georgia’s the Grey and the show’s first black chef; the southern chef Sean Brock; Asma Khan, of London’s Darjeeling Express; and Dario Cecchini, the Italian butcher.
