Chefs

An exploration of the universe of French cuisine universe. Dark, cruel, proposing a nice gallery of characters, fragmente of stories, family problems, rivalries, revenge, apparences, lies and a fair - to dramatic - perspective about life in kitchen, about cooking, shadows of past. A chef, a young man, promissing in cooking art, clashes and conflicts,A restaurant and the intense fight to have it. Some romance and death in various manners. And, sure, the way to understant the other understanding yourself.

Clovis Cornillac and Hugo Becker are the basic pillars of this well crafted drama.

It is a trip without not clear destination. And, sure, it works just well, but ignoring to create a real connection between characters and viewer. You feel be outside Result is decent . Few nice scenes, some good acting but a circle, the same.

I've been cooking almost all my life, including a stint in a continental kitchen as a sous chef so I know what's what in a commercial kitchen - which, to be honest, is a dangerous dirty thankless profession. I began watching "Chefs" when my spouse and I first started subscribing to MHZ but after viewing a few episodes, I found it too dreary to continue - very dark storyline in a dark kitchen and alleyways with the occasional pack of German shepherds in attack mode and brutal beating scenes. Once in awhile after a shift, the personnel go up on the roof to view the Seine, but they are all smokers so how can they with their impaired taste buds be judges of fine food prep? And anyway, there are just too many cooks in the kitchen and hardly any customers in the front of the house to justify all the employees who are there "because they need paychecks," according to the elderly dish washing guy. When a rookie cook squirts yuzu on a tiny array of paper thin zucchini coiled up in the middle of a big plate, the head chef (very surly and drunk most of the time) proclaims it a masterpiece, like no one on earth ever before thought of using citrus juice as a flavoring. I had to laugh when a female manager, dolled up in a royal blue sheath, demands tweezers to rearrange one leaf of parsley (or is it sorrel?) before letting the plate be taken away to a diner. The French is hard to decipher in this series and I'm tired of seeing dead people popping up everywhere like muses (a plot device I've seen in numerous other French TV shows). I'm disappointed because a series about the tribulations of commercial cooks should be more, shall I say, appetizing.

Chefs is one of my favorite series of all time with tremendous dialog, unique plot twists, passionate actors, caring characters, and an interesting setting with the tone of a noir classic. Add villains you love to hate for entertainment galore! I was so hooked that I watched some episodes two to three times. I'm glad the MHz channel on TV Plus aired this French treasure with English subtitles!

A very silly story, with a waste of actors, time, etc. The plot seems improbable, the main character, also the director, seemed self-obsessed and it really doesn't help the series. There seemed to be less of a love for food, with more attention paid to competition for the sake of it, with a ridiculous amount of smoking. How can people who smoke this much actually taste anything? Made the whole story implausible to be. Add in the over-the-top Japanese-cliched produce grocer, and the whole thing just seems a farce. The series would also be more enjoyable with one or two genuinely likeable characters.

I watched Chefs through the first season knowing a second season was available. I loved it. The storylines were intriguing and the mixture of professional super-chef's work and personal lives made me binge watch into Season Two. Conflicts were great, but after a few episodes, none had been resolved satisfactorily for the viewer. I had had hope for the downward spiral to at least have some ups to go with the downs, but there never were ups. I found there wasn't one major character I liked well enough to care what happened to them and stopped watching. If you can take two seasons of gastronomic knife fighting, the series is well made and for you. If you look for some humanity in at least one, a hero of sorts, you may be as disappointed as I was halfway through the second season.