“Love on the Menu” aired on February 23, 2019 on the Hallmark Channel. It stars Autumn Reeser as Maggie Young and Kavan Smith as Hank Daniels. Struggling restaurateur and chef Hank makes a deal with Maggie, a frozen food executive who hopes to create a frozen food line bearing his name and recipes. He will provide the recipes she wants if she can help save his restaurant from permanent closure.
In a nutshell
I really like Autumn Reeser and Kavan Smith. I also really like the Hallmark movies that are set in kitchens (don’t know why, but that’s a whole sub-genre that I can always get behind). Put those together? Hallmark gold!
Plot
The plot was a standard restaurant-plot as far as Hallmark is concerned. Struggling restaurant needs help and finds it- but will they succeed? Where this one wins though, is the writing was not typical and was at a higher standard than normal. It was written by Kavan Smith, the actor who played Hank, and given he’s in a LOT of Hallmark movies, he knows what they are looking for but also knows where he can push the status quo and give viewers something interesting – and he did.
Actors
Autumn Reeser is ALWAYS a pleasure to watch. She has been in several Hallmark projects including the very popular Christmas movie, “A Bramble House Christmas” in 2017. Kavan Smith is a Hallmark staple – he is on “When Calls the Heart” which is entering its sixth season. Additionally, as stated already, he has been in many Hallmark feature movies over the years. Autumn Reeser is one single degree away from Kris Polaha, having co-starred with him in the short-lived TV series “Valentine” for which Kris Polaha was the leading man.
Chemistry
AR and KS definitely had great chemistry together. AR also had great chemistry with Barbara Niven, who normally plays a sweet motherly nurturing type but was cast against type as Maggie’s overbearing boss in this movie. I had my doubts that the lovely Ms. Niven could pull off antagonistic, but she did!
Feelgoods
Lots of feelgoods in this one – the cooking was fun to watch, the relationships building throughout the movie were nice, and it was just a feelgood movie from beginning to end.
Tropes
Not too many. Business in trouble, yes. Evil boss, yes. Cute kid – well, it was a teenager, but yes. Cooking scenes? Aplenty! But that’s really it.
Did I Hear/See That Right?
I could never quite understand why Maggie’s boss sent her in to work as a manager to overhaul the restaurant. I get the fact that they wanted the restaurant to be successful so that their frozen food line would be successful, but Hank was already writing books, I’m sure he still would have been a “sought after” representative of the frozen food line even without the storefront.
Re-watchability
Definitely one to watch again! Dialogue was well written, chemistry was great, overall story was great. This was a good one.
The Ranking
So where does it fit in the rankings? Well, I realized today as I wrote up this post that I was going the scores all wrong – I was giving CREDIT for the “Did I Hear That Right?” when technically movies should be deducted for plotholes or unrealistic things taking place. So I updated my spreadsheet AGAIN to make that category REDUCE the overall points. The more ridiculous the movie, the more points get deducted (I’m looking at you “Christmas in Graceland”). Because of this change, the movies in the middle of the pack shifted a bit.
- Winter Love Story (air date: January 19) – 685 pts – weighted score: 115.8 (81.2%)
- Mystery 101 (air date: January 27 (HMM)) – 454 pts – weighted score: 94.2 (80.5%)
- Love on the Menu (air date: February 23) – 642 pts – weighted score: 113.8 (79.9%)
- Love, Romance & Chocolate (air date: February 16) – 627 pts – weighted score: 110.2 (77.3%)
- The Story of Us (air date: February 9) – 605 pts – weighted score: 101.3 (71.1%)
- Ruby Herring: Silent Witness (air date: January 20 (HMM)) – 357 pts – weighted score: 79.5 (67.9%)
- One Winter Proposal (air date: January 12) – 535 pts – weighted score: 95.8 (67.2%)
- Valentine in the Vineyard (air date: February 2) – 503 pts – weighted score: 89.5 (62.8%)
- Snowcoming (air date: January 26) – 485 pts – weighted score: 87.3 (61.2%)
- The Winter Castle (air date: January 5) – 475 pts – weighted score: 85.9 (60.2%)
- A Winter Princess (air date: January 18) – 380 pts – weighted score: 70.5 (49.5%)
To see where this movie lands in my entire ranking of Hallmark movies, visit my Hallmark Movie Rankings page!
What did you think of “Love on the Menu”?
