The public and critical success of The Bear (Disney+) showed it again recently: the kitchens of a restaurant constitute an arena of choice for series. The professional hierarchies and the balance of power within the brigades provide material for innumerable dramatic tensions while the gunshots naturally bring sudden adrenaline rushes to the story. The Chef takes these ingredients to concoct a delicious mini-series.
If it follows a film of the same name, directed by Phil Barantini in 2022, you don’t need to have seen the latter to enjoy the four episodes produced by the BBC and served in France by Canal+. Eight months after the heart attack of star chef Andy Jones (the brilliant Stephen Graham), his former assistant Carly (Vinette Robinson) stepped up and recruited the old team to open a new address: Point North. Unfortunately, despite Carly’s creative talent, the restaurant is struggling to find profitability and is desperately looking for investors. Chronically understaffed, the brigade comes close to disaster every evening.
Resilience and humanity
More than the culinary prowess, it is the intimate dramas that dominate the plot. Between two high-energy services, filmed with a hand-held camera in breathtaking sequence shots, The Chef follows the trajectories of each person, hit by various ordeals: illness, addictions, mental disorders, harassment, economic difficulties…
If the scenario sometimes tends to veer too much into melodrama, it highlights the resilience and poignant humanity of the characters, like Carly, torn between her mother who is losing her mind and the frenetic rhythm of the restaurant, or of the pastry chef Emily (Hannah Walters), the mother figure of the team who, by dint of supporting everyone, threatens to collapse herself. We are so attached to this large family, driven by the taste for a job well done and by a beautiful brotherhood, that we hope to find it again one day for a new season.