Ugly delicious

David Chang

I expected Ugly Delicious (Netflix, available now) to be an hour of imperfect potatoes and pockmarked pears whipped into delicious gourmet meals to prove, when it comes to food, looks aren’t everything. But this new series from chef David Chang is anything but ugly.

Flanked by foodie friends, Chang instead delves into iconic international dishes, each tweaked by top chefs from every part of the globe. First up is pizza. As the group chows down on slices at the famous Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn, it looks so good you can almost smell the mozzarella. Owner Mark Iacono, who pulls in two-hour queues from across the city, claims his is the best recipe in the world.

But Chang and co have more research to do - heading to pizza’s birthplace of Naples, where a strict trade body stamps approval only on those restaurants whipping up the right dough, at the right thickness, before adding the right toppings. “When we were making pizzas you were still fighting the Indians,” quips the Naples Pizza Association chief, with just a hint of menace.

We also meet a Domino’s franchise manager, who takes Chang through the exacting processes that allow the takeaway joint to serve up billions of slices around the world. And chef Franco Pepe, the Italian rebel who shunned the Naples guidelines to create his own unique ‘Neapolitan’.

Be it traditional, deconstructed or scattered with sashimi in Tokyo, pizza stirs up passions everywhere. And watching Chang tuck into yet another slice, cheese dripping from his chin, you can see why.