A Taste of Hunger

This review comes with a stern warning: eat beforehand or have a meal on hand as the credits roll. A Taste of Hunger is a delicious Danish film that gets the stomach rumbling in the opening five minutes. Much like its US predecessor Chef (2014), and the recent TV hit The Bear (2022), it tantalises the senses by taking us on quite a fulfilling journey. 

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Katrine Greis-Rosenthal play married couple Carsten and Maggie, the respective chef and business manager of their high-stakes restaurant Malus. When a Michelin inspector unexpectedly arrives one night, they become hell-bent on being awarded the highest level of recognition in their industry – even if that means neglecting and hurting people along the way, including each other.

While on a surface level, it may seem like this is just a shallow tale of two people driven by power, reputation and their hunger for perfection, it becomes clearer that this is more of an unravelling of a fractured marriage than anything else. The film is non-linear, breaking the story up into chapters: Sweet. Sour. Salt. Fat. Heat. We witness the disintegration of Carsten and Maggie’s passion and love for one another, and how their subsequent actions have damning consequences on their personal and professional lives.

A Taste of Hunger is an exquisitely shot film. Director Christoffer Boe utilises a colour palette of deep rich reds, greens and blues. The close-ups of the assembling and disassembling of food would make even Gordon Ramsay’s mouth water, and Coster-Waldau and Greis-Rosenthal’s chemistry – or in some parts, lack thereof – is palpable. Coster-Waldau is fantastic in his role as a chef who can’t quite seem to take off the chef’s hat at any time. Greis-Rosenthal is enigmatic on screen as a woman torn between love, lust and power. 

While the film is strong in some areas, in other parts, it leaves a sour taste. The non-linear format does feel unnecessary. The chapter breakdown works well, but a chronological collapse of Carsten and Maggie’s relationship would have had a stronger effect, rather than wasting time trying to place where we were in the timeline. The ending, also, loses momentum and falls flat. Issues tend to resolve themselves, which unfortunately suggests a drop-off in writing. In this case, it is disheartening considering how strong the first two-thirds of this film is. 

In saying this though, A Taste of Hunger is highly recommended if you’re a fan of foodie films, or romance dramas, or you just want to see Jaime Lannister in a chef’s apron, drinking and ageing like a fine wine. 

A Taste of Hunger
In cinemas now
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