The Restaurant

The plots and subplots are great, the character development is great, the acting is great, the depiction of the periods are excellent, the social connotations spot on. Someone called this "a Swedish Downton Abbey". Pretty close. Totally worth the time. First season free with Amazon Prime. At the end of it I was more than willing to pay for a Sundance subscription just to keep watching, so beware :)

I have been glued for 4 days so far. My husband and I have owned 4 restaurants, so, a lot of this hits very close to home. However, I would have been hooked even if we didn't.

Great characters, costumes, scripts, history and human drama. . Thanks to all involved to bring this to our screens.

Just binged watched seasons 1, 2, and 3. Loved the entire series. Great cast, writing, acting. Such a wonderful love story, too. Really enjoyed watching the history of post war through civil rights and protest era. Watching fashions change over time was spot on, too. Loved loved loved this series!!!!

This series starts with the end of WWII in Sweden, We meet a family of two brothers, a sister and mother who run the formal restaurant and follow them and others thru divorces, betrayals, triumphs and scandals involving a cast of characters not quite as large as "Downton Abbey" but equally as engaging.

The cinematography beautifullly captures the vintage post WWII era similar to "The Godfather II" with very careful framing, lighting and camera movement. The production quality as well as acting is on par with any top notch Masterpiece Theatre production. It's plotting isn't as crass as "Dallas" but it's very much a family drama with triangulation conflicts every which way you can imagine. The pacing is a tad slow and languid but that gives you time to admire the sets, costumes and lighting as well as marvel at where they got all the 1950's era cars they pack the streets with during outdoor scenes.

I'm astonished I'm writing the first review of this show on this site. One month of Sundance Now is only 5 bucks and it's the best money you'll spend to watch this series. This is a very high quality show I'm going to regret finishing. I pray it goes to season 3.

I have not finished this series, but one thing I do not appreciate about it is that after 25+ years, the characters look EXACTLY the same as they did in the beggining.... they never age..... not even a little.