Replacing Chef Chico is about a Filipino restaurant called Hain. It’s famous for its Filipino dishes. Loyal customers flock to this place to savor its degustation menu, while others just want to be seen dining in such a trendy place owned by a good-looking chef named Chico (played by Sam Milby).
Much of the show’s drama happens in the kitchen where Chef Chico rules with an iron fist. He’s our poor man’s version of the Devil Wears Prada, though he’s actually the scion of a rich and illustrious family. Yet he says the F-word more often than a ghetto kid in New York does. I can count on the fingers of one hand the scenes where he doesn’t say the word. Thankfully, Chef Chico figures in a car accident which leaves him in a coma for two months. Convert those months into episodes, and it’s roughly three to four of episodes of not having Chef Chico around.
Meanwhile, his rich father who has bankrolled Hain sends a consultant to fix the restaurant’s problems. It’s been steadily drowning in red ink, and it hasn’t made the Ten Best Asian Restaurants list for a while. Piolo Pascual plays Raymond, the consultant, and he selects sous-chef Ella (Alessandra De Rossi) to take over as head chef, while Chef Rico recovers from his injuries. Of course, the male sous- chefs are chagrined to be passed over. Chef Ella is compelled to prove her prowess as Hain’s new kitchen goddess.
Kitchen politics is put on pause when familiar guest actors playing the customers get some screen time. The diners also have their own respective issues to resolve, and Hain seems to be the ideal venue for that. It’s like The Love Boat set in a restaurant but without a lovable bar tender. The guest list includes a terminally ill socialite (played by Gina Alajar) who wants to have a lavish last supper. She’s bent on disobeying her doctors by ordering all the dishes she has been banned from eating. Another episode features a confrontation between a man’s mistress and his wife during dinner. In the final episode, the restaurant is used as the setting for a gay wedding.
The storylines of the customers has so much potential, but as written, filmed, and acted, they look and feel flat and anticlimactic. Viewers aren’t given a chance to know the guest characters that well to feel any empathy.
The scripts direly lack witty quips or bon mots that could have made the show more entertaining
The scripts direly lack witty quips or bon mots that could have made the show more entertaining. In contrast, the South Koreans and Thais have mastered the art of writing clever dialog by injecting irony and sarcasm. This brings me to recall a recent K-drama about a retired ballerina who now owns a ballet school. When asked how she feels when she hangs up her tutu and ballet slippers for good, she replies, “I ate an entire box of pizza for the first time in years!”
We laud the creators for highlighting Filipino dishes even if the series seldom feels authentic. This has long been a universal problem of our homegrown productions. It’s especially so for movies that revolve around a particular industry, be it advertising agency or – heaven help us—a daily broadsheet (John Lloyd Cruz gives up his career in dentistry to be a lifestyle reporter!). And there was Vilma Santos cast as a temperamental architect, and any actor presiding over a board meeting. All those films rang false.
The show does find some of its footing by the sixth episode, when the restaurant plays host to two young influencers who happen to be romantically involved. They gain enormous fame by projecting a romantic image to legions of followers. The one realistic scene happens when the girlfriend shares a yosi break with Chef Ella and the receptionist outside the kitchen. The three ladies look natural and genuine as they do small talk. Emoting takes a backseat to just friendly chitchat, for once.
What also makes the sixth episode feel like the Seventh Day is Alessandra De Rossi’s performance. It’s her show from Day One, and she makes the most of it . She underplays, but the performance is spiced with nuances. Her two leading men have much less screen time in this episode, which is also a relief. Viewers get a respite from Sam Milby’s overcooked acting and Piolo Pascual‘s bloody rare raw performance. Pascual’s star power is wasted in an underwritten role, and he’s mostly seen scribbling on his notebook while observing everyone work in the kitchen. Since his every movement looks calculated and so rehearsed, he becomes an annoying presence by the second episode.
Paulo Angeles plays an intern in the kitchen, and he has a lark playing the entitled millennial to the hilt. The rest of the cast have enough talent to bring their stereotype characters to life. But don’t expect them to be memorable.
Replacing Chef Chico is by no means a disaster. It’s watchable especially for viewers who need a little distraction while working from home and whose cups may have runneth over Can’t Buy Me Love. It’s just that I’ve been told that Chef Chico is carbon-copy of K-drama. With K-dramas being so well-written and acted (these K-pop stars can play lawyers so convincingly!), Replacing Chef Chico has big shoes to fill.
Director Dan Villegas moves things at a fast clip when he’s showing the chefs in action in the kitchen. He even uses classical music to impart a Grand Budapest Hotel vibe, though this somewhat dilutes the series’ advocacy to promote Philippine culture. The script’s gratuitous use of English expletives also waters down the local flavor. Perhaps the writers felt the cuss words would be their ticket to Netflix streaming heaven. Well, it seemed to have worked, but if they want a second season for this show, they’ll have to use a lot more patis.
