Famed San Francisco chef Jeremiah Tower was, arguably, America's first celebrity chef, cooking in an era when food began to figure more and more on television, and presiding over Stars, one of the first bustling, high-profile American brasseries. It was a restaurant that created conventions we take for granted today you could order a burger and a glass of champagne at the bar, and this was not something that existed in "fine dining" before and Tower presided over the dining room like a royal welcoming his guests.
Directed by Lydia Tenaglia and featuring multiple stars of the American culinary universe including Mario Batali, Anthony Bourdain, Martha Stewart, and Ruth Reichl, Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent tells the story of Tower's rise to local fame, and concludes with the recent comeback that almost was, Tower's short-lived return to the kitchen as executive chef at New York's Tavern on the Green in 2015. (Whether or not we get to hear him call Michael Bauer a troll on camera remains to be seen.)
Also, it sounds like Tower gets to set the record straight anew, as he did with his 2003 memoir California Dish, about whose food actually made Chez Panisse famous. As you can hear in the trailer above, he wants everyone to know that the first Chez Panisse cookbook was basically all his menus, and Alice Waters passed them off as her own.
Previously: Chef Jeremiah Tower Calls Critic Michael Bauer A 'Troll'