Jon Favreau has had an interesting career. He started out as a bit-part actor (he played Eric the Clown on an early episode of Seinfeld), quickly graduated to directing, and after a few low-budget films, found himself directing the ‘Iron Man’ trilogy. It was a lot more money, but a lot more producers, and as a result, less control. Carl Casper (Favreau’s character in ‘Chef’) was a very well-regarded chef so he took a position as head chef at a trendy restaurant. As more people started going, the owner wanted more consistency with the menu, and as a result Casper had less control over the food he wanted to serve. So he opens up a food truck instead. He took less money to feed his passion. Much like directing this film! Parallels!!

In all honesty, that’s the entire film. Nothing will happen that would really surprise anyone in the audience. But with several charming performances, zippy direction, and an abundance of food porn, ‘Chef’ proves to be an entertaining, if light, two hours.