Chef is a small budget film a former star chef, Carl Casper (Jon Favreau), who has become complacent at the west coast restaurant where he's head chef, gets a bad review, gets angry and gets himself fired. Carl has a supportive ex-wife, Inez (Sofía Vergara), and a son, Percy (Emjay Anthony), who loves him but Carl kind of neglects because he's too busy.

In his doldrums Inez convinces him to start a food truck and create dishes without the constraints of a restaurant owner over him. He buys a dilapidated truck and with his sous chef Martin (John Leguizamo) and Percy they fix the truck and travel from Miami back to California serving Cubano sandwiches and other dishes based on whatever ingredients he can buy each day on the road. And along the way he and Percy become closer and bond like father and son...

It's a nice feel good film with some great looking food preparation scenes. Favreau wrote and produced and got a lot of stars for small roles, like Scarlett Johansson as a restaurant hostess, Dustin Hoffman as the restaurant owner, Oliver Platt as the food critic, and Robert Downey Jr as Inez's other ex-husband (after Carl).