Television has a terrible habit of handling our food. Cookery shows have long folded homeliness into coquettishness, chefs would rather be masters, even baking seems off. Is there any way we can leave it to cool?

There is no difference between cooking and pursuing Buddhas path, says Jeong Kwan. Now, thats more like it. Following a beatific Zen nun sequestered away in the Chunjinam Hermitage in the tree-covered mountains of Korea, the opening episode of Chefs Table (Netflix), now in its third series, offers itself as a kind of spiritual palate cleanser. You wont eat at Kwans unless you have embarked fully on the road to spiritual enlightenment, which still makes it an easier booking than Noma.

This is a refreshing change of pace for documentary maker David Gelbs show, a departure from the celebrity chefs and Michelin stars that recalls both the tranquil obsession of his early study, Jiro Dreams of Sushi.

Not that Kwan would abide anything as indulgent as raw fish. A nun who serves temple food (mind-calming and all-but-unadorned vegetarian meals) to monks and Korean students of cuisine (and, on occasion, to New Yorks restaurant critics at the invitation of celebrity chef, ric Ripert), if Kwan stands out among Gelbs sumptuously shot portraits its because she offers us a philosophy rather than a menu.

She envisions a world united through healthy and happy food and sees past, present and future harmoniously entwined in the act of cooking. If that makes a fetish of Kwans serenity, so be it she is filmed in quiet contemplation as frequently as in food preparation and you get the sense that Gelb, Ripert and food critic Jeff Gordinier worship her because she represents a blissful escape from industry, acceleration and ego, to a higher-plane routine: eat, pray, love.

Even with this gentle start, its easy to binge on Chefs Table; I sat down to watch one episode and stopped, barely satiated, after three. The Oedipal aggression of Russias crusader Vladimir Mukhin and the quirky passions of Los Angeleno cheese and carb-merchant Nancy Silverton make Kwan seem even more ascetic, with her elegantly unfurling lotus tea and shitake mushrooms bursting open like lilies. But it is heartening to see her erupt, occasionally, with earthly pleasure. Soy makes me excited just thinking about it, she beams, and her hand leaps to her heart. Ill have what shes having.

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Chef's Table review: sit down for one episode, binge on three - Irish Times