An entry in the Chef's Table franchise, this 2020 documentary series steps away from fine-dining kitchens to follow the pitmasters who treat barbecue as a craft worth a lifetime of study.

What is Chef's Table: BBQ about?

Each episode of "Chef's Table: BBQ" follows a different barbecue cook, moving between the United States, Australia and Mexico to show how widely the tradition of cooking over live fire can vary from one place to the next. Rather than treating barbecue as a single technique, the series frames it as a family of regional practices, each shaped by local wood, climate and history. Interviews with the pitmasters themselves carry most of the storytelling, letting them describe the discipline, the setbacks and the years spent refining a method before anyone outside their community took notice.

About the cast

The series carries no on-camera cast in the conventional sense; instead it centers working pitmasters as its subjects, letting their voices and routines drive each episode. David Gelb directs, bringing an unhurried, close-up visual style to the smoke and fire of outdoor cooking.

Context & significance

"Chef's Table: BBQ" carries the Emmy-nomination recognition of a documentary format built around treating cooking as a subject for serious visual storytelling rather than competition. Structuring each episode around a single pitmaster gives the barbecue tradition the same unhurried, close-up attention usually reserved for other culinary documentaries, following its subjects across three countries to show how much a regional wood fire and a stretch of climate can shape a technique passed down for generations.

Watching Chef's Table: BBQ on Ktime

K-Time carries "Chef's Table: BBQ" for viewers who want to watch with a Farsi-language interface built for the Iranian diaspora. Streaming starts once a viewer logs into a K-Time account; no separate download or disc is required, and the page itself remains free to browse before watching.