Food flick “Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent” opens May 19 in Atlanta

Chef Jeremiah Tower is the subject of a new documentary. The film opens in Atlanta on May 19. / The Orchard

Credit: Ligaya Figueras

Credit: Ligaya Figueras

Chef Jeremiah Tower is the subject of a new documentary. The film opens in Atlanta on May 19. / The Orchard

Star Wars fans waited with expectancy for May 4 to arrive. On May 19, food lovers get their turn. That's when culinary flick "Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent" comes to Atlanta. The documentary will be shown at Midtown Arts Cinema, located at 931 Monroe Drive in the Midtown Promenade Center.

The film explores the rise and fall of chef Jeremiah Tower, a controversial figure in American gastronomy and one of the country’s first celebrity chefs. Tower rose to prominence in the early 1970s at Chez Panisse in Berkeley where he became a leading figure in the California cuisine movement. After leaving Alice Waters’ famed restaurant, he went on to launch his own Stars Restaurant in San Francisco, then suddenly disappeared from the culinary scene for nearly two decades only to remerge in 2014 as the executive chef at New York City’s famed Tavern on the Green.

A production from the same team behind “Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown” and “The Mind of a Chef,” the documentary features interviews with contemporary culinary celebs Anthony Bourdain, Mario Batali, Wolfgang Puck, Martha Stewart, Jonathan Waxman – and even Tower himself – as it makes an argument that Tower deserves a more enduring place in the annals of American culinary history.

Watch the trailer here: