TV review: Gwyneth Paltrow gets existential on The Chef Show

Gwyneth Paltrow, the BFF we need

The Chef Show (Netflix)

All of us have at least one widely disliked celebrity we secretly think we'd be friends with in real life. I actually have a few: all of the original Kardashian sisters, Mike Hosking (no politics chat over the barbecue thanks, but love a Peroni and watching the Warriors), but most of all, Gwyneth Paltrow.

In many ways I feel that me and Gwyneth are the perfect match. I would never, ever get sick of hearing about all her questionable lifestyle tips and tricks but I'm also polite and gullible enough that I'd end up fully believing in every single one of them. Who am I to tell anyone where they can and can't put a $500 jade egg (medical note: apparently those eggs actually are quite bad for you so maybe don't)?

Gwyneth Paltrow brings an extra special sparkle to her guest appearance on The Chef Show.

The first episode of Netflix's new cooking series The Chef Show offers a tantalising glimpse of just how funny it would be to hang out with Gwyneth for an afternoon. Everything she says sounds both extremely sarcastic and deeply stoned, like when, halfway through grating an orange for some weird vegetarian stew, she turns to host Jon Favreau and asks: "What is this TV show for?"

It's a good question. Basically The Chef Show seems to exist because Netflix has correctly calculated that people like me will never, ever get sick of watching other people cook, and that actually there doesn't even really need to be any kind of premise or anything to it. Just put cooking on my TV. Please.

Jon Favreau, of course, played a chef in the 2014 movie Chef, a role for which he was mentored by Los Angeles "godfather of food trucks" Roy Choi. And they're at GOOP headquarters making stew with Gwyneth Paltrow because… well, apparently they were in a Spider-Man movie together once.

Gwyneth Paltrow genuinely did not know she was in "Spider-Man: Homecoming" so this adorable interaction from "The Chef Show" is easily my favorite thing on the internet today pic.twitter.com/lc3VlSs1Hp

— Jarett Wieselman (@JarettSays) June 7, 2019

"Spider-Man?" a confused Gwyneth asks when he brings it up. "Yeah, we were in Spider-Man together, remember?" Jon replies. "We weren't in Spider-Man," insists Gwyneth. "You were in Spider-Man," insists Jon. God this is amazing.

"No," Gwyneth doubles down, "I was in Avengers." Jon pretty much has to bring up the IMDb entry on his phone before Gwyneth will accept the fact that yes, she was in a Spider-Man. The whole time she has been chopping an eggplant slower than I have ever seen anyone chop an eggplant in my whole life. It's absolutely mesmerising.

I wish the whole series, or at least this whole episode, was just Gwyneth. Sadly, she's only in it for the first eight minutes – most of the other 22 minutes are Jon and Roy, the apprentice and his master, making cubano sandwiches and talking about the perfect grilled cheese with comedian Bill Burr.

Later in the series there's an episode with Dave Chang, whose own informal, chatty Netflix food series Ugly Delicious is probably the closest reference point for The Chef Show.

"We don't know," Jon replied when Gwyneth asked him what the show was for. "Nobody knows," echoed Roy.