Television series

The Galloping Gourmet

Name: The Galloping Gourmet
Genre: Food
Released: 1968
Cast: Graham Kerr

Comedy
Light-hearted
Dip in and out

The Galloping Gourmet is pure 1960s joy: a cooking show hosted by the charismatic Graham Kerr, who literally gallops onstage and vaults over chairs while wielding wine glasses. It's a masterclass in on-camera personality wrapped around butter-heavy French techniques and theatrical flair. For anyone who loves food, charm, and television that remembers fun is the point.

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy cooking shows as an excuse for showmanship, and you find a host swanning over a dinner table, glass of wine in hand, more entertaining than the food itself.

Skip it if you want practical kitchen lessons, since the recipes lean heavily on butter, cream and fat, and the cooking is secondary to the performance.

What it asks of you: Half an hour at a stretch, brisk and frothy, with little to hold onto beyond the next flourish; it rewards a relaxed evening rather than close attention.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Dinner in America2020

A wild, chaotic indie film about food, desire, and two people falling into each other over a backyard barbecue. It captures that same sense of eating and drinking as an act of rebellion and intimacy that Kerr brought to every episode.

But It's deliberately crude and anarchic in tone. The story is thin and deliberately strange. It's absolutely not about the food.

Ratatouille2007

A love letter to French cooking and the philosophy that anyone can create magic in a kitchen. It's got Kerr's same energy: the idea that cooking is about joy, generosity, and not taking yourself too seriously even when you care enormously.

But It's an animated family film. The story is slight by design. Some viewers find the messaging saccharine.

Downton Abbey2010

A period drama that treats food and its preparation with reverence and, crucially, humor. The servants' hall scenes show cooking as ritual, craft, and a place where real life happens. Same decade-spanning appetite for the good life.

But It's a sprawling ensemble drama. You'll need to commit to many hours and many plot threads. It's far less about food than Kerr, just adjacent to it.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Galloping Gourmet

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Eating Raoul1982

Both films argue that cooking and eating are never just about nourishment—they're about power, identity, and what you're willing to do for pleasure.

A darkly comic cult film about a prudish couple who turn murder into a side business. It's food cinema as satire and transgression—the opposite register from Kerr, but it shares his belief that eating is theatrical, social, and tied to desire and survival.

But It's grotesque and deliberately trashy. The humor is mean-spirited. If you like food shows because they're aspirational and safe, this will alienate you completely.

Babette's Feast1987

A Danish film about a French chef who prepares one extraordinary meal for a small religious community. It's meditative and profound about cooking as an act of grace. Kerr would recognize the eros of butter and wine here, even if the tone is hushed.

But It's slow and deliberately sparse until the final act. The philosophy might feel heavy-handed. It's the opposite of Kerr's showmanship.

The Bear2022

A series about a fine-dining kitchen that's both brutal and deeply human. It reminds you that cooking at scale is about precision, passion, and managing chaos. The food looks extraordinary.

But It's often agonizing to watch. The protagonist is self-destructive and the kitchen is a pressure cooker. It celebrates cooking but shows its cost in ways Kerr never did.

Salt Fat Acid Heat2018

Samin Nosrat makes cooking science feel like an act of liberation. She's joyful and generous in the way Kerr was, teaching that understanding food means you can improvise freely and stop being afraid.

But It's more educational than entertaining. Some episodes feel like school. The production is handmade and casual, which some find charming and others find underbaked.

Kung Fu Hustle2004

Both celebrate the kitchen (or a place like it) as the soul of life, where art and appetite and human connection happen simultaneously. Both use spectacle to make the everyday luminous.

A Stephen Chow action-comedy where the hero hides out in a tenement building full of kung fu masters, and the landlady runs a noodle restaurant that's the spiritual center of everything. It has Kerr's joy and showmanship but in a completely different medium and register—pure cinema, pure movement.

But It's a martial arts comedy that happens to have food in it, not a food story. If you want cooking content, you're watching the wrong film. It's also anarchically silly.