Whether you are looking to tempt your tastebuds by watching scrumptious dishes, or you want to try a new delish recipe, you must watch the best PBS cooking shows in Japan! If you are a binge-watcher who loves to hang around food, PBS offers a string of the most entertaining cooking shows.
Before the mushrooming of streaming platforms like Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, Bravo, and others, PBS was the network cooking shows lovers preferred. The Public Broadcasting Service commonly referred to as PBS is an American free-to-air TV network that is known for providing educational content, including fan-favorite cooking shows.
From the classics like The French Chef and Baking with Julia to the recent smash hit The Great British Bake Off, there is an impressive lineup of PBS great cooking shows. However, much like other streaming services, PBS’s content library is geo-restricted and accessible within America only. To watch PBS in Japan, you will need a reliable VPN service like ExpressVPN.
Let’s move ahead and explore the best PBS cooking shows in Japan available to stream right now.
What are the Best PBS Cooking Shows to Watch in Japan?
PBS has one of the most wide-ranging libraries of food and cooking shows with thousands of episodes available to stream. From nostalgic to new, here are the 15 best PBS cooking shows to watch in Japan in 2023:
America’s Test Kitchen books (2000– )
Genre: Documentary
Director: Herb Sevush
Creator: –
Cast: Christopher Kimball, Dan Souza, Julia Collin Davison, Erin McMurrer, Bridget Lancaster
No of Seasons: 22 seasons
America’s Test Kitchen books is a cooking show that displays many experiments done with cooking products by participants. The series shows participants’ unique techniques, as they confront different culinary challenges that come their way.
Hosts Bridget Lancaster and Julia Collin Davison test the Kitchen cooks to prepare America’s favourite recipes.
The French Chef (1962–1973)
Genre: Short, Family, Documentary
Director: David Atwood, Russell Morash
Creator: Julia Child
Cast: Julia Child
No of Seasons: 10 seasons
Even though the show has the name The French Chef, it is an American TV cooking show. The series was hosted and created by Julia Child. It was an immensely popular cooking show that was aired for 206 episodes in total. The purpose of the show series was to convince the American people to try and cook French cuisine at home.
The French Chef is one of the best old PBS cooking shows to date.
A Chef’s Life (2013–2018)
Genre: Reality-TV
Director: Cynthia Hill
Creator: Vivian Howard
Cast: Vivian Howard, Ben Knight, Sheri Castle
No of Seasons: 5 seasons
A Chef’s Life is a cooking show and documentary series led by Vivian Howard. The series’ first season has 13 episodes that are half-hour long. Vivian and her spouse, Ben Knight, live and own a business in Kinston, NC.
They run the ‘Chef and the Farmer,’ a small farm-to-table restaurant. The show explores modern and traditional, both applications of typical Southern ingredients via the work and life of the series’ narrator and host, Vivian Howard.
If you are into Reality Tv, there are some of the best reality shows on Netflix.
Cook’s Country From America’s Test Kitchen (2008– )
Genre: Documentary
Director: Herb Sevush, Jan Maliszewski
Creator: –
Cast: Bridget Lancaster, Christopher Kimball, Julia Collin Davison, Adam Ried, Jack Bishop
No of Seasons: 15 seasons
The series Cook’s Country From America’s Test Kitchen discovers some of the best American cuisine and chefs through comprehensive kitchen testing. Also check out the top cooking shows available on Hulu.
Family Ingredients (2016- )
Genre: Documentary
Director: Ty Sanga
Creator: Ty Sanga
Cast: Ed Kenney, Noriko Aka, Pham Thi Thai Ha, Raymond Le, Andrew Le
No of Seasons: 2 seasons
Family Ingredients is a travel cooking documentary series. The show celebrates and honors the multicultural culinary history and cooking traditions of Hawaii. If you watch this show it will feel just like visiting your old friends.
Throughout the series, you will get to see and meet interesting locals and learn a lot about the culture and food.
I’ll Have What Phil’s Having (2015- )
Genre: Documentary
Director: John Bedolis
Creator: –
Cast: Phil Rosenthal, Martin Short, Lily Rosenthal, Ray Romano, Monica Horan
No of Seasons: 1 season
In I’LL HAVE WHAT PHIL’S HAVING, Phil Rosenthal sets off on a journey keeping his eyes on both kitchens on and off practices. On his journey, he meets many people who are keeping the old traditions alive and making new ones on their way.
The audience travels along with him as he goes from Hong Kong to Barcelona, Paris to Tokyo, and from 3-star restaurants to a Los Angeles small bakery. You may also like to watch the cooking skills of Chef Daniele on Best in Dough.
The Great British Baking Show (2010- )
Genre: Reality-TV
Director: Scott Tankard, Andy Devonshire, Jeanette Goulbourn
Creator: –
Cast: Paul Hollywood, Mary Berry, Noel Fielding, Sandi Toksvig, Sue Perkins
No of Seasons: 13 seasons
A selected number of Britain’s home bakers get assembled for a British baking contest. Every week a new theme is given for the competition, mostly the distinctive quality type of tasks that the competitors have to bake such as cakes, pastries, cookies, etc.
To complete the given tasks a specific time duration is set to finish the challenges, and their finished products are assessed by respected and expert judges. The great British baking show is among the best cooking shows on PBS.
Baking with Julia (1996–2001)
Genre: Talk-show
Director: –
Creator: –
Cast: Nancy Silverton, Julia Child
No of Seasons: –
Julia Child displays her indispensable techniques, time-saving tips, and scrupulously tested recipes, together with many of the country’s most wonderful pastry bakers and chefs, that portray home baking in a very satisfying form.
Every episode there is a new pastry baker or chef featured who demonstrates their professional techniques you can even perform in your home’s kitchen. Also check out Food Network if you are a food lover.
Meals Ready to Eat (2017- )
Genre: Documentary
Director: Kyle Hausmann-Stokes
Creator: August Dannehl, Kyle Hausmann-Stokes
Cast: August Dannehl, Holly Jivin, Neal Fraser, Matt Seigel, Tim Hollingsworth
IMDb Rating: -/10
No of Seasons: 1 season
The “Meals Ready to Eat” crew travels from one coast to another, going abroad to explore the food culture and the gourmet culinary preparations of the old military community. Retired Navy soldiers, food aficionados, and host August Dannehl go to check out the lively food operations of the military groups.
The Migrant Kitchen (2016- )
Genre: Documentary
Director: Nathan Sage, Antonio Diaz, Ben Hunter
Creator: –
Cast: Jennifer Reichardt, Wes Avila
No of Seasons: 4 seasons
“The Migrant Kitchen” is a documentary series, exploring America’s flourishing food scenes through the sights of new generation chefs. The cooking series falls in the PBS great cooking shows category.
Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street (2017- )
Genre: Documentary
Director: Jan Maliszewski
Creator: –
Cast: Christopher Kimball, Erika Bruce, Matthew Card, Erika Bruce, Catherine Smart
No of Seasons: 6 seasons
Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Magazine editors go on a search for techniques and different ingredients over the world that can completely change your home cooking style by making bigger, bolder cuisines in lesser time and effort.
The group travels to Mexico, Thailand, Peru, and London. Join them on their cooking quest to remodel the way of cooking and eating in America.
Jamie Oliver Together (2021)
Genre: –
Director: Niall Downing, Felipe Herrera
Creator: –
Cast: Jamie Oliver
IMDb Rating: -/10
No of Seasons: –
Chef Jamie Oliver takes the opportunity and brings home cooking to a new level. In the times when the dining table is considered a restaurant for spending more time with family and friends, it is the right time to do this. This 4-part cooking series is the optimum guide on how to bring people together by laying over a table full of achievable and delicious food.
Kevin Belton’s Cookin’ Louisiana (2021- )
Genre: –
Director: Terri Landry
Creator: –
Cast: Wanda Rivers, Kevin Belton
IMDb Rating: -/10
No of Seasons: 1 season
This cooking series is so inspiring for the chef inside you that it will make you want some of Louisiana’s favorites like Étouffée, Stuffed Crab, Gumbo, and Louisiana Oyster Stew. Chef and host Belton keep things simple and his recipes simpler. The idea of making the skill of fine cooking look non-intimidating, but interesting many fine dining dishes are prepared.
Lidia’s Kitchen (2013- )
Genre: Talk-show
Director: –
Creator: –
Cast: Lidia Bastianich, Lorenzo Manuali, Erminia Motika, Olivia Bastianich, Julia Manuali
No of Seasons: 9 seasons
Lidia’s Kitchen is a typical culinary masterclass hosted by the beloved chef and author Lidia Bastianich. In this show series, Lidia’s love for teaching and giving cooking classes is evident. She describes the proper techniques that are required to prepare foods and classic or new Italian recipes.
Also guiding the audience through related tips on how to purchase and store your cooking ingredients. This show falls on the list of the best PBS cooking shows in Italy.
Simply Ming (2003- )
Genre: Documentary
Director: Michael Schear, Laurie Donnelly
Creator: Ming Tsai
Cast: Ming Tsai, Rick Bayless, Henry Tsai, Jamie Bissonnette, Joanne Chang
No of Seasons: 13 seasons
In this cooking show, chef Ming Tsai hosts different guests on his show. During the show episode, they just talk and interact as they would in real life. Host and guest help each other in making food. There are many great techniques being told as well as experiences.
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Conclusion
So, binge-watchers, that was our recommendation list of the best PBS cooking shows in JapanS that you can stream to fulfill your appetite for watching reality-based cooking shows. If you can’t get enough of the savory content, PBS has a perfect platter of food-related content to offer.
So, grab your recipe books, fill in your buckets of munchies and start watching best PBS cooking shows in Japan in 2023 which includes some of the most hit cooking shows ever. And don’t forget to subscribe to ExpressVPN if you are looking to stream PBS in Japan due to the geo-restrictions of the streaming platform.
However, if you ever get bored you can always cancel your PBS subscription.
Happy watching!