Metacritic-Rezensionen

The film is loose and genuine and makes great use of place.

If the Favreau-written “Swingers” concerned itself with the pursuit of meaningful romance and the Favreau-directed “Made” tackled the pursuit of a better living, then the slight if continually amusing Chef is clearly his paean to rekindling one’s passions, whether as an artist, a husband or a father.

He’s great as a celebrity chef who’s forced to re-examine his priorities in this extremely funny and big-hearted comedy that Favreau also wrote.

The final destination is entirely predictable — right down to the deus ex machina reappearance of an erstwhile antagonist — but the trip itself is never less than pleasant, and often extremely funny.

The easygoing comedy keeps a familiar story going despite minor plot hiccups.

It may not be for all tastes, but there’s genuine value in a feel-good film that works this well without making viewers feel bad first.

By its later scenes, Chef only finds respite from its bland qualities through the scrumptious-looking dishes constantly on display. As self-indulgent vanity projects go, this one's pretty innocuous, if only because it's always easy on the eyes.

Chef is so charmingly middlebrow that it's exactly the cinematic comfort food it mocks: Favreau has made not a game-changing meal to remember, but a perfect chocolate lava cake.

Jon Favreau's film comes off as flippant in its view of independent labor as a universally liberating experience for an artist and businessman.

While the more down-to-earth Chef does offer some fascinating autobiographical dimensions, the film is also an overlong, unfunny, largely insufferable bore.