One Delicious Christmas

Synopsis:  An inn proprietor hires a new chef for the holidays. He’s cute. She’s interested. (Streaming on Max)

What are you looking for in a movie? Good script? Good acting? Good production design? What are you looking for in Christmas movie? Well, don’t expect the first two, but the third should be a given. Lots of X-mas decorations inside and outside– Santas, decorated trees, reindeer statuary, wreaths, and falling snow (real and/or fake). Expect pleasant people (one baddie allowed) and a happy ending. Let’s see if this holiday movie hits its marks…

One Delicious Christmas is a holiday film of the rom-com variety. In contemporary holiday movies, this is all I’m up for; basically, a couple of cute people who fall in love.

I like to leave the true-meaning-of-Christmas movies to nostalgia. For example, in It’s a Wonderful Life, George Bailey finds meaning in avoiding jail. While Rudolph finds meaning in the trans-global delivering of prezzies. So yeah, all my new consumption of holiday movies is about the fantasy of successful dating. Afterall, who doesn’t want someone to cuff with heading into the New Year?

One Delicious Christmas includes the usual suspects… our heroine is a cute woman who works too hard…the love interest is cute, but brash… there is a best friend who lives for the happiness of our heroine. Cue holiday music and a winterscape…

Abby (Vanessa Marano) runs Haven Restaurant and Inn in Vermont, which she inherited from her parents. She is a perfectionist and everyone in her realm loves her because she is the nicest woman in Vermont. The inn is busy, as is the attached restaurant. But Abby is tired because she can’t delegate. Also, it seems that the only inn employee is her best friend, Jen. Maybe she cleans all of the rooms, but we only see Jen at the reception desk, keeping an eagle eye out for Abby. When she walks into the little lobby, Jen snags her, telling Abby to relax, because everything is under control.

It’s almost Thanksgiving and the restaurant is full. Abby charges into the kitchen to rally the troops. Everyone is working at breakneck speed. Now this is interesting to me, because while Vermonters have a good work ethic, they do things in their own time. But Abby’s place is its own bubble of perfection.

Leaving the kitchen, she runs into two of her favorite guests entering the dining room. She escorts the couple to their table while the men basically recite ad copy, for the benefit of anyone within earshot, about the inn and restaurant being the pinnacle of luxury and civilization. We will have to take their word for it.

Since Abby is nearly dying of exhaustion, she has sent out feelers for a partnership. Her new prospective partner is Alexandra Granfield (Katy Maloney), hotel and restaurant investor. We see her conferring on the phone with Abby. Alexandra is skinny and urbane-looking. She gives off Cruella deVil vibes while strutting in front of some building that is supposed to be in NYC. It’s evident that this is merely a commercial property in Ottawa. Before signing off, she tells Abby that she has a temporary replacement for the head chef who is leaving Haven Inn’s restaurant…

The chef, Preston (Alex Mallari Jr.), is a sous chef at one of Alexandra’s restaurants. She describes him as “brilliant and passionate.” Words better used to describe great artists, but okay. Abby says “yes” because he’ll only be there til she can find a new chef after the holidays.

Alexandra informs Abby that Preston is a man who likes to do things his own way. Now Abby is nervous, because while she needs a new head chef pronto, she is extremely anal retentive. Her condition is the result of her mom dying when she was a child and then her dad dropping dead from exhaustion just a few years after she got her MBA from Cornell. Ever since then, Abby has had a morbid fear that someone will try and change the holiday menus. These sacred texts were revealed to Vermonters after years of prayer and toil from her father. Naturally, Abby reveres the menus, intoning that “tradition is important.” In other words, tradition means keeping her father alive by never altering the holiday menus in the slightest. The new chef will have to understand this…

Enter Preston from NYC and into the inn’s lobby. Receptionist/best friend Jen’s eyes light up. She’s spotted a potential love interest for Abby. Abby, who seems to live at the property, is quickly on the scene. She introduces herself, but not before giving Preston an approving look. He’s cute. Good! Two attractive people who should get together for our satisfaction.

When Abby brings Preston to meet the kitchen staff, he tells them how excited he is to work with them and bring some innovation into the kitchen. Abby looks faint. She braces herself against a counter and smiles through gritted teeth, asserting that innovation is great when it results in exactly the same thing the kitchen was doing back when her dad was alive. Sensing that he is dealing with a volatile new employer, Preston speaks soothingly to Abby and offers to stop at her place later, bringing some food over that is off-menu. Abby stifles an attack of hyperventilation and agrees.

Abby actually does have her own place. She probably swore to never leave the house where her dad came up with his holiday menus. Abby is hospitable and Preston is congenial. The chef goes way off the rails, hurtling decades past the meat & potatoes menu, and suggests root vegetable ratatouille and lobster bisque. Abby was right to be worried! But when she inhales the entree’s aroma and takes a dainty sip of bisque, she temporarily loses her faculties and tells Preston he can tinker with the menu a teensy tiny bit.

The next morning Preston shows up six hours before lunch to begin what will be, I guess, an eighteen-hour day. He left New York for this? No, not just this because Abby has taken a break from running around the inn in a panic to teach Preston how to make her special Parker House rolls. Guess who taught her how to knead the dough? Preston responds to her lesson as though he’s never seen or touched bread dough before.

Things seem to be going swimmingly, when later that day, everyone at lunch orders lobster bisque and Parker House rolls. Later, Jen spots Abby and Preston  conversating in the little lobby about meeting up after work. Being Abby’s self-appointed Cupid, she ambles over and practically inserts herself between them, smiling suggestively. I was afraid she was going to hand each of them a condom.

There is fake tension leading up Christmas. Not only will the new Christmas menu be presented, but the investor Alexandra will be there on Christmas Eve, as will Tom Kingsley. He is a very important food critic. No, make that the most important food critic. See, you think you are watching a regular holiday movie, but this is a flick made by the Food Network and they have special contacts. Presenting real-life chef Bobby Flay as Tom Kingsley. Mr. Flay stiffly plays himself. And I wasn’t convinced when, after a bite of pie at the Thanksgiving sitting, he declared himself impressed. But he seems a decent sort…

Alexandra the Investor will obviously be the bad guy in One Delicious Christmas.  But Abby is innocent of all of this while she spends her precious non-work time with Preston. At a get-together at her place, she teaches Preston how to wrap a present.  Preston’s parents were busy physicians, so there was no family time to wrap or open gifts. When the lesson is done, Abby and the chef/neophyte present-wrapper sip hot toddies. She asks why he became a chef. “I guess I owe my love of cooking to my grandmother,” says Preston. It’s not long before Abby one ups him with another story about her dad’s love of the menus he created and the inn itself, even though it ended up working him to death.

It’s almost Christmas now and we see the potential storm clouds of Bobby Flay–I mean, Tom Kingsley’s restaurant review and Alexandra’s new plans for the place. Of course, Alexandra is the last person who respects tradition. We heard her on the phone in Ottawa–I mean, New York City, raving to Preston about  how, under her regime, the menus will need to “go further!” Whatever that means, it can’t be good.

Alas, we want to see Abby and Preston consummate their attraction. Well maybe not as much as receptionist/best friend Jen. Keep in mind, this is a Food Network flick, so we can’t expect any shagging in Preston’s Prancer Suite, but there better be at least a kiss under the mistletoe. Speaking of which…

The holiday decorations are sorely lacking. The inn’s lobby should look like Christmas tchotchkes have been sprayed by a fire hose, hither and yon! Also– and I really hate this– there are no outdoor shots! There is a super close up of the outside of the inn with some fake snow that looks shaken out of a bag. And the “outdoor market” that the characters visit is clearly in a warehouse. (I stand corrected; it’s the ByWard Market in Ottawa.) I mean, how much can some generic winter footage cost? Bobby Flay could just zip outside and get some footage on his phone.

The movie fails on Christmas-y vibes because of cheaping out on production design. Maybe Bobby Flay’s salary cut deeply. But the couple is cute. And it shows us the true meaning of Christmas. Love? Giving? No! In this case, it’s tuning into some of the Food Network’s holiday programming.

Movie Loon’s Movie Review Shortcut:

Grade:  C-

Cut to the Chase:  A good movie? no. An okay holiday movie? Sure.

Humor Highlight:  How Preston is supposed to have a reputation for being demanding and immovable, but he is nothing but considerate and chill to everyone.