User reviews

Over the past decade, comedies about chefs and cooks have become more common in the movies and the Hallmark Channel has created a few. In this one, we have another Hallmark romcom about a brittle, driven professional and a casual, inventive, uncertain genius -- but this time, it's the guy who's the brittle, unhappy professional and the gal who's casual and so forth.

Well, hallelujah for that. Danielle Panabaker is awfully cute and able to project her vulnerability very well. Shawn Roberts offers a fine two-toned performance: control freak in the restaurant and barefoot in the country. Apparently no one bothered to talk with the script writer, because the dialogue makes reference to Miss Panabaker as being controlling.

Well, occasionally, some subversion needs to go on to keep things fresh. Ron Oliver has gotten enough shots to make it visually clear that this takes place in San Francisco, the leads are good and the talking about food is intelligent. The result is more than good enough.

'Recipe for Love' (2014)

Opening thoughts: 2014's 'Recipe for Love' did sound very charming even if the plot synopsis was nothing earth shattering. My Hallmark film completest quest (which has gradually overtime included Lifetime and UPTV), that is still ongoing with no intent to stop just yet, has been a very uneven endeavour but an interesting one with some real winners. Have liked Danielle Panabaker, Shawn Roberts and Pascale Hutton in other things as well, Hutton being the most familiar name.

Was a bit mixed personally on the premise. Really liked the setting and Hallmark have done food-related films very well many times, where there is a lot of fun, charm and relatability when done well. Everything with the ghost-writing sounded less appealing, and had potential to be mean spirited. On the most part, 'Recipe for Love' does a nice job with its premise while not entirely escaping the traps and is luckily closer to being one of the better 2014 Hallmark films rather than one of the worst.

Bad things: 'Recipe for Love' isn't perfect. Some of the initial banter was a little over-heated and hostile. For me, it took a while for me to warm to Roberts' character, seeming a little stiff and cold initially and the ghost-writing angle was not always handled very well due to making Roberts' character too cruel and Panabaker's bordering on naive.

Personally did find the ending on the too convenient side and too easily wrapped up, even for a story where it was easy knowing what was going to happen.

Good things: The film is compensated though by the performances. Panabaker is radiant and very charming and perky. Once he relaxed, Roberts is subtly charismatic and easy going, with witty, genuine chemistry with Panabaker. Most of the dialogue between the two was witty and amusing. Hutton is similarly very engaging and has one of the more easier to like characters and Karen Holness has fun without hamming it up too much as a character that could have been easy to overact. The characters are cliched and while some of the flaws are overdone the emotions and traits fitted the situations and much of what happens is light hearted and relatable.

While the direction is not innovative, 'Recipe for Love' is one of those films that doesn't require that. It still shows a nice understanding and control of the material and the character interaction doesn't come over as static.

Production values are well crafted and never look cheap, the scenery is especially nice. Hallmark tend to over-score their films, the music here fits nicely and doesn't come over as constant or too loud. Certainly not to the extent where you can't hear the dialogue. The dialogue here is suitably light-hearted and playful, while also having the right amount of seriousness without being melodramatic. The story makes great use of the setting, which has great nostalgic value, and while unoriginal and formulaic it is also lively and has a light and warm heart.

Closing thoughts: Overall, pretty good.

7/10.

I hate cookery programs!

But I love programs about food and artists and chefs (who are, after all, artists in their own, er, kitchen).

If you've read any of my other reviews - which you probably haven't - you might wonder how I can score this 7 whereas other more, arguably, 'worthy' and ambitious movies score much lower.

It's by Hallmark so you know what you're getting. It has no pretence. It sets out to do what it says on the tin and it does exactly that. There's no subterfuge. It doesn't try to be clever, misleading or something it's not. It's an enjoyable rom com and if that's what you want to watch, watch this - it won't leave you disappointed.

Food. and love. and a story about trust, self definition, courage, decisions, self confidence and dreams and the team spirit. sure, romanticism. but in useful manner presented, with few inspired spices and good actors. and, more important, with a simple plot. charming, seductive, real nice. so, a reasonable modern fairy tale version.

Okay hallmark movie plays the same formula bad boy chef meets sweet girl the girl changes and happily ever after.

An attractive, altogether edible food taster is tasked to ghost write for a muscular boorish celebrity chef whose strident alpha demeanor belies a sensitive side. Watching this prototypically telegenic couple fall in love served up a surprisingly digestible romance. Flavourfully garnished with two appealing leads, cutesy chat, touchy feely schmaltz, and the perfect amount of cheese! Zesty, rather than stodgy, this eminently snackable foodie romance won't leave a bad taste in your mouth! Frothier than a cappuccino, sweeter than mom's pumpkin pie, Recipe for love, while undeniably a familiar dish, is, for me, one of the more appetizing Hallmark confections. This 'chalk and cheese couple who inevitably become cheese & cheese lovers won't immediately have you reaching for the pepto bismol!

It's a Hallmark movie! Uh-oh! But fortunately, it's not one of the boring ones. Danielle Panabaker & Shawn Roberts' chemistry was off the charts. And I've never thought that slimy traitor Albert Wesker has a romantic bone in his body. LOL. Sorry, couldn't stop myself from making this joke. Well, back to the movie. The story line was ordinary and there was no plot twists. It was simple, yet effective in its delivery. The characters are very relatable, unlike most Hallmark movies characters. The plot offers a love story in which love life was intertwined with work, but in the end, putting the main character on a crossroad. Will Killer Frost choose to be with Albert Wesker or will she choose to pursue her destiny? LMAO. Sorry again, couldn't help myself from making another joke.

This movie is about a "Bad Boy" celebrity chef and the woman who is tasked with managing him and ghostwriting his new cookbook.

Slow, but kind of fascinating. Pretty romantic. Worth watching. James Welch Henderson, Arkansas. 1/26/2021

What a way to turn someone's life around! This was a very good movie with some smart script. And the cutie actress (Danielle Panabaker) did an excellent job on her part. This is not a typical Hallmark movie, but Hallmark Movies & Mysteries (HMM) happens to play slightly better movies. It's not included with the Hallmark channel's package on DirecTV, so you have to pay extra to get HMM. This movie is worth watching! Enjoy it!

Lauren Hennesey (Danielle Panabaker) has been critiquing food since she was a girl writing about her school cafeteria. She takes a job ghost writing for demanding San Francisco TV chef Dexter Durant (Shawn Roberts) to pay for her French cooking school. He refuses to put his recipes in a cookbook and initially, the two of them clash.

This is a functional Hallmark romance. They even have the Ghost scene. The two leads are photogenic. It has nothing special. It's not bigger than one expects and it follows the standard formula. The movie does need a bigger love competitor. That is the one failure in following the formula. Mostly, it won't excel beyond the countless other TV romances.

I really enjoyed this movie. The chemistry between the two leads was amazing. I loved the development of the romance due to a common interest. I find that many of the Hallmark romantic movies have characters back stories and story lines that are too unrealistic and contrived (falling in love in days, not seeing the obvious situations in front of them, the overacting, the unbelievable dialogue, etc.) This movie was not like that at all, which was refreshing. I felt invested with the characters; which kept me rooting for them, not only for their romance but also for their career success (which is what a movie is supposed to do).

Lauren becomes the ghost writer for famous tv chef Dexter, in order to attend culinary school at Le Cordon Blue like Julia Childs.

Both are perfectionists, but he thinks she makes science fair projects in the kitchen not real food and she thinks his show is too alpha male and not for the home cook.

Enter Gio Scapolini...handsome and appreciative chef to be the competition.

"Ghost writing is 25% writing and 75% babysitting."-Lauren.

"Food testers are like trained monkeys. They keep doing the same thing over and over again until they drop dead."-Dex.

Dexter ends up being a little Jekyll and Hyde like and in the verge of loosing his top spot on the food network. As Lauren works on his cookbook, she also helps him work on his network spot and his public image. She ends up getting to the bottom of his childhood trauma with his father.

I hate fake personas and men who behave like little boys and not men. There were some beautiful moments in this culinary romance...but there was a lot to overcome.

This is a watch and delete for me.

Bad boy chef needs a ghostwriter to help with a cookbook. Of course romance ensues and we find out the bad boy chef may not be all that bad.

Good acting, writing and production makes this film stand out among the usual formulaic romance movies that plague this time of year. Referring to it as a romcom is somewhat deceiving as it's not particularly funny, just mildly amusing. However, the actors have great chemistry, the plots are believable and if you're an adult viewers you will enjoy that it is devoid of the sophomoric nonsense of most "romance" holiday flicks. the film is deceptively multi-layered as there are great backstories, well done character development and plenty of underlying plots that make the film better than most. I highly recommend.

Yes I know, it's Hallmark and you take Hallmark rom coms at face value so you don't hold the same criticism to your 5 year old's crayon drawing as you would to a Picasso. And I know people do that arrogantly, whether it's paintings or food or anything else. You know the 'experts' I'm talking about. We all know one, or maybe even are one ourselves. We are an expert in a field and we can't get away from criticizing everyone even if they are not in the same field so the criticism is unwarranted. The thing is, Dexter Durant is a persona, like Ramsay or any other celeb chef and he is a real person underneath, so he's human. And that's good. Actually bearable to watch. Because it's not that I cook for a living and critique every movie with food or cooking in it to a professional standard. It's Hallmark. It's a cheap rom com. It's not a contender for a James Beard Award or a Pulitzer or a Golden Globe. And we know even movies like Titanic or Star Wars end up with a 5 page list of 'goofs' which are not just oversight in shooting a scene but blatant ignorance of details like putting a Rolex in a WW2 movie. Blatant. And whether you are a Golden Globe contender or a cheesy Hallmark rom com, you should at least research a bit of the subject of your story. So when I can take the rest of the movie at face value, ie. the 2 main characters are kinda cute, and have some kind of chemistry, one big thing like a professional chef mispronouncing the word bruschetta is like someone assembling a gorgeous fruit salad but not washing and sorting through the strawberries and one bite of mold ruins the entire salad. The rest of the salad is tainted. The rest of the movie is tainted. So if you, unlike me, can get past those embarrassing errors, then feel free to watch this in its light as a cheap cheesy rom com. I couldn't do it. So if those kinds of big details bother you then this isn't the movie for you. And yes I know there are goofs out there, unless you are looking for them and are an expert in world war 2 fighter planes and can pick out a gaffe like the 'oh that fighter plane in the movie was from September 1943 and the movie was set in 1942, big disappointment'. No realistically that shouldn't leave a bad taste in your mouth,. If you spend an entire movie looking for quark sized errors, then what a waste of watching a movie, unless your profession is film critic lol. Which is fine. But all reviews should be prefaced with that information. Kind of like when you review a restaurant dinner. Your critique of a sushi dinner if you've never eaten anything but boxed mac and cheese is not going to be as useful as that of someone who has vast experience with Japanese food. As far as cooking rom coms go, not the worst I've seen. But not the best either/

Dexter's car is parked in his "reserved" parking spot at the studio, but that same parking spot is marked as a wheel chair spot on the asphalt

This movie about professional Chefs seemed fun and well researched until an entire scene about an Italian appetizer, bruschetta, became the buzz word and theme for our opposite attract chefs. In Italian words written with "ch" are pronounced "k" not "sh". Certainly, we would expect these Chefs to know how to pronounce this popular appetizer, but they don't and I am immediately bounced out of the movie and our suspended belief. No jumping back in again. Hope someone got fired for that huge mistake!

7.7 stars.

Hallmark, UP, Family have tried stories like this several times and I think this one succeeds where many have failed. This is a tale of a woman who writes a blog is hired to create a cookbook for a celebrity chef. The chef is moody and impatient - the usual stereotype for the lot of them (Gordon Ramsay and Bobby Flay come to mind). This woman is very reluctant to work with him and write the cookbook, but she has no choice, and it turns out she's perfect for this particular job. She's pretty, young, intelligent, witty - she can stand her ground. But the really great aspect of her character is that she wins him over with her tender charm and penchant for perfection. Although she is not necessarily qualified to be his sidekick, so to speak, she meshes very well with him, and navigates around his flimsy demands like a pro. He is a man of many talents and can be agreeable when he chooses. His true colors surface and we see he is full of "childhood family insecurity" that he implies is why he is who he is. She helps him "embrace it" and in the end this is a gratifying and entertaining experience.