Directing: B+
Writing: B+
Cinematography: A-
Editing: B+

I’m not even a foodie. I probably have one of the least refined palates around. But, much like my enduringly unconditional love of my hometown of Seattle won’t keep me from also loving it when someone else loves another place where they live, there is real joy in seeing someone engaged with their passion, doing what they love. Everyone has their thing, and few of us get to make that what we do for a living. The documentary Wolfgang, streaming currently on Disney+, leaves me feeling like Wolfgang Puck must be truly one of the luckiest people in the world.

It’s not like that hasn’t come without any price, of course. I’m actually glad director David Gelb makes it a point to mention these prices, but treats them with subtlety, and indicates that the relationships affected are left with continued care for him rather than resentment. His second wife, Barbara Lazaroff, with whom he had his first two children, eventually divorced him but is still listed as the cofounder of the Wolfgang Puck Food Company (now Wolfgang Puck Worldwide). Wolfgang’s intense focus on his restaurants and their expansion came at the expense of time with his children, but one of those first two kids, Byron, is the one of his now-four kids featured as an interviewee in this film. He appears wearing a chef’s jacket, indicated immediately that he followed in his father’s footsteps.

I can’t help but regard Wolfgang as an unusually well-made documentary film, as I tend to be fundamentally disinterested in cooking shows—but, this documentary about who amounts to the first-ever “celebrity chef” had me rapt from start to finish. This guy has a compelling story, having grown up in Austria with an abusive stepfather who told him “real men stay out of the kitchen.” From that perspective, Puck serves as a great role model for children of all genders.

There are moments when Wolfgang the film leans a little heavily into the celebration of the man who started the phenomenon of “celebrity chefs,” of which there are no countless. I’m not sure I’m on board with the insinuation that celebrity is worthwhile for its own sake. But, to Puck’s credit, while he clearly enjoys his unlikely and massive success, judging by this film anyway, he seems surprisingly grounded, a man of great personal and financial wealth who wound up just being a sweet, if still very busy, old man.

Wolfgang is packed with examples of ideas and products he apparently started. A wood stove in an open kitchen in the restaurant. The trendy restaurant location where A-list celebrities gather to see and be seen. A smoked salmon pizza. The “first chef since Chef Boyardee” to take his own dishes and turn them into branded frozen and canned food products. (I happen work for a local chain of natural foods grocery stores that sells his canned soups.) A lot of these examples are things we have long taken for granted, and it’s fascinating to see how what is now omnipresent was once an innnovation.

On the technical side, one of my favorite things about Wolfgang is the cinematography. I’m not sure I have ever seen an otherwise conventionally constructed documentary so well shot, with several scenes featuring smooth tracking shots, sometimes surrounding the subjects. There’s a sequence near the end where we get to see Wolfgang, his current wife, and all of their children gathered for a home cooked dinner, and it is at once a polished, seamless visual and an intimate portrait of family bonding over food.

The fact that I enjoyed this movie so much really says a lot for it, I think. I suspect bona fide foodies would enjoy it even more, as not only is Wolfgang’s life story, detailing his emigration from Austria to Los Angeles, a fascinating one, but you get to see a whole lot of the food he cooks. As a vegetarian, most of the shots of food don’t appeal to me at all. It most assuredly will to others. This is a guy who made it to the top for truly humble beginnings, through persistence and hard work. The American Dream is a pipe dream for most, but this is a guy who somehow managed to embody it.

Overall: B+