Being a food writer has its perks.

I’ve eaten some wonderful meals in places I never would have gotten into otherwise.

But there are some restaurants I long for yet will never, even with my CultureMap cred, dine at. And that’s because they don’t exist.

I speak of those fictional eateries whose food entices from the small screen, restaurants that exist only on TV, yet whose menus and chefs beguile to such an extent that you can almost smell the aromas wafting from the screen.

If you google favorite TV restaurants you’ll get hits for places where you really wouldn’t want to eat. Friend’s Central Perk? Please, they offered nothing but muffins and coffee. Buffy’s Double Meat Palace? Um, no, even diehard Vampire Slayer fans couldn’t stomach what went into the burgers there.

Television shows are sorely lacking in enticing eateries. Even though sitcom characters often lounge about in diners and coffee shops, viewers are seldom treated to gorgeous food shots and delectable descriptions of the menu.

Where are the small screen versions of Primo and Secondo’s Paradise restaurant from the film Big Night? One of the best foodie films ever, by the way. (As Tony Shalhoub says: To eat good food is to be close to God.) Why can’t we have TV show that praises flavor above friends?

Finding the one

But there is a Holy Grail of TV restaurants. It’s called Le Chateau Anglais and it exists in the imaginary BBC world in the rolling countryside of England. It’s a beautiful chateau with sunny windows, fine china and white tablecloths were the chef produces the most amazing French cuisine.

Bad news: The show is out of production so the only way to see it is to buy the three-season DVD set from BBC or Amazon.

Chef! was a Lenny Henry sitcom produced from 1993 to 1996. I absolutely cannot explain why it’s taken a foodie like me so long to find it but at least now, thanks to my pal Fran in Austin, I have the DVDs in my hot little hands.

It is, first and foremost, hysterically funny. Henry is a tyrannical chef in the vein of Gordon Ramsay, who suffers the slings of salt-requesting diners, an inept kitchen staff and a demanding wife. As chef Gareth Blackstock he cooks superb French cuisine, surpassed only by his banter.

He calls his toque a “culinary condom,” refers to waiters as morons and berates his staff with lines such as “So please go away... and please re-arrange the contents of this plate so that someone in the latest stages of malnutrition will at least take a passing interest in it.”

It’s all fodder for a foodie sitcom, but the magic comes from the food itself.

How can you not be passionate about a TV show that waxes poetic over unpasteurized cheese?

Probably the best episode is season one’s "The Big Cheese" The famous chef Albert Roux makes a guest appearance as himself and Blackstock spares no expense to create the perfect lunch for him. He spends his day off perfecting a salmon and dill mousse that will make you drool and want to reach into the screen for a taste.

But the pièce de résistance on the menu is real English Stilton cheese. Unpasteurized (illegal) cheese. As the chef says, cow and bug in perfect harmony.

“If a small proportion of my customers drop dead from eating real Stilton well, they died in a good cause and happy,” he explains, “What more can we expect?”

A man after my own heart.

Of course the episode ends with Roux wanting to get connected to the “dealer” for the illegal cheese. Yes, it’s that good.

Lip smacking foodie fun.

As for dining at Le Chateau Anglais, I guess the closest I’ll come will be heading back to Lake Conroe and Chez Roux, where Roux actually creates dishes the fictional chef Blackstock would drool over. Oh, and I’ve never heard Roux berate a salt-requesting patron.

See what happens when a customer at Chef! asks for salt: