Bon Appetit, Your Majesty

Bon Appétit, Your Majesty – When Mediocrity Goes Viral

The best way to watch this drama? Grab some food, put it on 1.75x speed, and just let it run.. The show has no real substance. The writers clearly got lazy and decided a proper story was optional; instead, it’s basically a long food showcase where dishes get more screen time than the actual characters.

Yes, the title hints at food, but the description also promised "romance, fantasy, comedy", Did it deliver? Let’s see:

Fantasy– Oh yes, time travel! The lead goes back to the past. I guess that’s *all it takes* to count as fantasy these days.
Comedy – Original jokes? Forget it. Just recycled gags from every older drama of the same genre you’ve ever seen. Classic.
Romance – Romance, they call it? There’s no buildup, no real conversations, barely any screen time together, and suddenly the ML falls for her just from tasting her food, forcing himself on her, while the FL randomly decides she likes him too. As if that weren’t enough, the leads have non-existent chemistry. They simply look like two good-looking people sharing the screen, nothing more. And after all this, the creators expect us to believe they’re in love. It’s utterly absurd

Now to acting.
Yoona’s performance was fine but predictable. She’s been playing the same rom-com roles for years, merely swapping the setting and profession. Nothing new, nothing surprising—just another comfort-zone performance from her, which, as usual, turned out to be average.

Chaemin shows good potential, but his acting here was wildly overhyped. He was mostly good throughout the run, but not the miracle the internet made him out to be. Honestly, most of the buzz seems driven by his looks rather than his actual acting, and that’s just how it works in K-drama land.

Also wanted to add this: Park Sung-hoon being dropped turned out to be a good thing—this weak script didn’t deserve an actor of his caliber. It was better suited for a rookie like Chaemin (who played his part well👍,still I believe his performance was exggerated by the audience), especially since it was the food, not the cast, that carried the show.

As for the central storyline—there wasn’t one to begin with. By the last four episodes, it felt like the writer finally as well as suddenly realized, “Oops, we don't have a plot,” and started throwing in whatever came to mind just to force a happy ending. The result? A drama with no sensible closure. The creators practically mocked the audience, with, “Let’s throw the dumbest stuff at them as we known they’ll swallow it,” and, unsurprisingly, audience did.

Conclusion: This is easily the most overhyped drama of the year—mediocrity at its finest. A one-time watch if you have nothing else lined up. With a 80-Minute episodes dragged out by endless food shots , average acting and no solid story, it’s not something anyone would revisit.

Read More

over hyped

wah-wah-wah my mommy died so now i'm going to mistreat women and humiliate them in the name of revenge by making them my personal entertainers and also send them abroad as comfort women 👎👎🥴🥴

this is such an insult to the actual victims of the actual king, like how on earth is this justified?

Ji-young seemed too calm for someone who's working under a ruthless king, Mok-ju'd character was just reduced into a jealous side character without any explanation as to why she did what she did, even in her death she didn't regret her decision. And don't even get me started with Im Song-jae, like where was the character development? are we just supposed to forget everything he did because he died? like sure Maybe I'm being overdramatic but this was awful.

It just seems like people have forgotten how to make time travel historical dramas ever since Scarlet Heart Ryeo

Read More

Mouthwatering food (and king) but bland storytelling

Another eclipse, another timeslip, another lady earning the chance to meet and fall in love with the most eligible bachelor in the Joseon Dynasty. Bon Appétit, Your Majesty spruced up this genre by serving appetizing royal cuisine beaming with flavor to a hot and delicious tyrant king.

Lee Chae Min plays the tyrant King Yi Heon with smugness and intimidation. However, he shows his playful side if the dishes tickle his taste buds as he is a self-proclaimed food connoisseur. No doubt, Chae Min is this year's rising star, stealing everyone's hearts with his face card, romantic gestures and comedic timings. Romcom actors are not given enough credit with their work. Balancing swooning gestures with punch lines is no easy feat especially if you want it to come across as natural and not cheesy.

Yeon Ji Yeong (played by Yoona) is the lucky chef who gets to meet and serve Western fusion Korean cuisine to King Yi Heon after opening a mysterious book during the eclipse. Her sunny and hopeful disposition is infectious and that eventually rubbed off to our tyrant king. He fell in love with the foods as well as the cook herself.

After a heated negotiation between King Yi Heon and a Ming envoy, Ji Yeong once again ends up on a cooking battle but this time the stakes are higher and she is up against the Ming cooks. I certainly enjoyed the cook-off and all the interesting ingredients and twists they used in the dishes. The story and chemical reactions behind the cuisine made the dishes themselves more appetizing and mouth-watering. The show highlights all the meticuluos planning put into cooking and the importance of each ingredient to make a meal flavorful. This made me realize how fortunate I am that I live in the times where condiments and pre-prepared mixtures are ubiquitous so I can make an easy and tasty meal in a short amount of time.

With all the interesting bits about cooking, how come this show ended up tasting bland and dull? The answer is it has too much contrasting flavors. The cooking battles and the tyrant king's search for truth feels unrelated that these two themes ended up telling two entirely different stories. If only they picked a lane and focused on the royal cuisine more and the tyrant king being a picky eater, maybe I would be sold on the story it's telling.

Most, if not all, supporting characters are one dimensional. A bit of backstory would help me grow fond and sympathize with the cast especially the villains. The finale was dull and unsatisfying because the once formidable foes ended up admitting defeat and dying in the blink of an eye. It was too easy and fast that we didn't get to celebrate their downfall.

Overall, Bon Appetit, Your Majest offers delicious dishes and yummy king 😋 but that's enough to mask the missing ingredient which is story cohesion. Still, this is a decent watch if you're an avid fan of mukbang with lots of much needed close-up on Chae Min's lips and funny, creative animations of taste sensation.

Read More

Cookery, Radishes, and a King No One Should Date

From the start, this drama promised a feast: palace intrigue, time travel, food as centrepiece, and a spirited FL tossed into the past to cook with whatever she could find. For someone who binges cookery shows, the premise was irresistible. But a flimsy script and an unbalanced mix of kitchen theatrics and limp romance soon dulled the flavour. By the end, it felt less like a banquet and more like a reheated takeaway.

Romance was supposed to be on the menu, but it never made it out of the kitchen. Across twelve episodes, the leads had less chemistry than vinegar and milk. Then came Episode 11: after a shocking revelation, the king, in a fit of rage, nearly kills his own grandmother, stopped only by a sudden “I love you” from the FL. Dropped in without warning, it didn’t feel like passion; it felt like a clumsy patch on a gaping wound. Because really, if you’re prepared to slaughter your grandmother in front of the court, you’re not a brooding romantic lead. You’re a tyrant, and no pantry-stocked declaration of love can disguise that.

By episode 12, the king strolls into 2025 in designer clothes, and when the FL quite sensibly asks how, he shrugs: “It’s a secret.” That’s the narrative equivalent of slapping a bow on a plot hole. If I’d been swept up, maybe I’d let it slide. But here, it exposed how thin the scaffolding really was. And that final kiss? I’ve felt more spark peeling the lid off a yoghurt pot.

The Ming envoys didn’t help. From Episode 6, four whole episodes of stilted Chinese and tedious diplomacy drained all momentum. The drama never recovered.

And here’s the rub: this isn’t pure fantasy. The king is based on Yeonsangun, remembered for purges, executions, and seizing women for his pleasure grounds. With that baggage, turning him into a romantic lead is risky at best, distasteful at worst. And yes, it’s fiction, the whole time-travel device is meant to be fantasy, and it could just as well fling our FL into prehistory and still count as make-believe. But once that fantasy leans on real people and real atrocities, the “it’s only fiction” defence collapses. If it’s truly make-believe, why borrow the names of those who actually lived—and committed horrors that can’t be rewritten?

There were still highlights worth savouring: the two cooks, both genuinely charming; the eccentric inventor crash-landing into the palace like a Joseon-era Leonardo da Vinci; the concubine, played with such conviction her villainy felt sharp rather than cartoonish; and a dowager queen carried by strong acting. Yet these bright spots only threw the imbalance into sharper relief—because beyond the FL and her bumbling sidekick, the women are painted almost entirely as schemers or burdens. It’s a tired formula, and female characters deserve more than endless shades of wickedness.

So yes, squint and you might enjoy it as light entertainment. With a stronger script, one that didn’t brush off time-travel with a lazy “it’s a secret,” or drop the entire kitchen panel from the past into 2025 like rabbits pulled from a magician’s hat, this drama could have soared. Imagine how much fresher, and far less controversial it might have been if the ML had been a fictional nobleman rather than a historical tyrant. At least then the story could have avoided its baggage, and maybe even given us a FL who loved her man as much as her radishes.

Read More

Very Flawed

It’s a shame; the story could have been nice if it weren’t for the many flaws it has.
Even if it was a web novel adaptation- a drama is a different format, some events that may look fine in the web novel will look out of place in the drama format. were there even screenwriters? its their job to adjust things to fit the drama format.
and Even though it’s a fantasy, it should still make sense and be coherent.

Let me mention the flaws or annoyances i noticed:
- The show is called The Tyrant’s Chef, they shouldve shown some acts of tyranny at the beginning to introduce him.
- after some denial FL realised she is actually in joseon (ep1) but she kept denying it later on
- Queen Dowager's grey gache (wig): seriously? without being too strict on historical accuracy because she wouldnt wear it - especially not at all times... there were only black ones because they symbolized youth among other things, why would she wear grey? to look even older?
- why did they force facial hair on kitchen men? it looked so fake on some of them
- i felt kinda disoriented seeing some actors i'd seen before doing very similar and memorable roles: Park Joon Myun as a court lady in "under the queens umbrella", and Jung Kyu Soo in "the face reader".
- even though FL was in joseon she kept using french and english words until the end when explaining dishes, i felt she was talking to us the viewers not her listeners.
- some cheesy romance and the generic falling together thing.
woahhh episode 9 was a big downgrade
- even after FL was proven innocent the prince mother kept stalling and doubting her risking her son's life - FL made a magical dish- with just a spoon the king felt energy flowing and the dying prince was back to life.
- i did like the reaction to the good FL dishes and found them funny when they showed them once in a while, but they showed them TOO much in the ming competition that i didnt like them anymore.
- right when things feel peaceful what do historical dramas use to make you anxious? poison ✔️ (generic)
- in episode 11 the king's grandma regained her LONG lost sanity after eating a chocolate 😂 LOL
- In episode 12, the FL was being defended beside the king, and then, out of nowhere, she was on his uncle’s horse on the other side🤷🏼‍♂️
- FL side of love was rushed at the end.
- the way she talked to the king was inconsistent, sometimes so bold and sometimes too shy even in similar situations.
- since she knew the history she could've told him about people plotting against him but she never did.
- an explanation on how the king time traveled is missing.

The acting in general was excellent, FL was alright but sometimes not convincing, the ML was amazing 👏🏼

Read More

Normaly an expensive feast created by quality.

Not strange if one says that "looks a bit like Mr. Queen".The use of 'michelin chef' terms; seems to have a place in many Korean dramas and variety shows these days, and it's boring, knowing the truth of the status isn't achieved by simply attaching it to a character's label.

With a heavy heart, this drama is very different from some culinary dramas I have watched, I would call it a forced airing for this one. Not all historical tragedies can be used as "what if" scenarios when writing a script, as some could bring a potential risk to sentiments of certain groups. Furthermore, the haphazard addition of certain aspects seem like an attempt to sway public opinion.

This is very dangerous considering the negative impact of rewriting history, especially through fiction, if not done carefully, although personally I liked the depth of the male lead's character.

Hope that future dramas like this, would be written and produced with more natural dialogue and scenes, also good prepromotion so they don't come off as tacky and obvious.

As a most cook said "don't waste good ingredients"

Read More

If I were the king, this plot would be chained up in the dungeon !

If this drama were a dish, it would be a beautiful Choco lava cake...beautiful on the outside, but sadly missing that melty, gooey centre. Imagine the disappointment...
On paper, the concept was a straight-up feast for a food centric romcom. A modern Michelin-star chef is tossed into ancient Joseon, cooking for royals, with time travel. What I didn't expect was for it to be bogged down by adding the plot at the last minute.

Let’s start with the plot or honestly, the garnish that tried really hard to look important. Political scheming, treason, secret agendas… Except most of it never actually landed. The conspiracy gets teased in the first 2 episodes, then disappears into the background for the majority of the drama, only to be awkwardly pulled back near the finale. You could remove all the palace intrigue, dead-parent mysteries and sabotage nonsense and the cooking scenes would still work perfectly.

Pacing is another tricky ingredient which they failed to master. The drama devotes several episodes to a single cooking competition that could have cut short if they really wanted to accommodate and address the palace politics .
Also, the FL traveling from the future and knowing what’s going to happen but still waiting until swords are drawn felt completely absurd. I get that she doesn’t remember the exact dates of events, but she knows who the culprits are and could have easily warned the King. One counter argument is that the King might not have believed her, thinking she was joking but after several episodes, he clearly does start trusting her. It’s as if everyone...the FL and the writers included forgot they introduced a tragic backstory at the start, because it goes completely unaddressed in the middle episodes.

I need someone to sit and explain the why's to me... Why as in not why we needed those subplots but why as in , why weren't they addressed as a part of the drama from the start and only like a finale afterthought. When the drama tries to get serious, it trips over its own feet… and the moment it goes whimsical, oh look they suddenly remember there’s a tragic backstory lurking somewhere.

And I refuse to talk about the ending because the drama didn't bother explaining either!

Where the drama truly shines is in the kitchen. The food sequences are glorious and very realistic with sizzling pans, carefully plated dishes, exaggerated reactions that somehow make you drool and cinematic close-ups. It is bound to make you hungry. No complaints here.

Coming to the romance, it is slow-burn, awkward and sweet at the start, but in my humble opinion, it never fully blooms. Till the end, I thought FL wasn't in love with the King. They had fragmented chemistry, but it wasn't convincing enough. Though I didn't mind it much considering that it didn’t hog the spotlight and let the main plot, ‘Food,’ take the stage.

Acting-wise, the leads do more than the script really deserves. LCM as the ML, brings the king’s charisma effortlessly. His portrayal is solid and he nails both the goofy and the emotional moments. Yoona as FL Yeon Ji Yeong was also good especially in the cooking scenes. The supporting cast had some good names that were underutilised, like Kang Han Na as Kang Mok Ju.

Production was very polished and grand. The money was well spent on the elaborate sets and costumes. Plus, the cooking scenes and the setup looked really authentic as well. I also like the concept behind the title of every episode. A lot of thought was put into aesthetics, but I wish they had spent as much care on the writing to do overall justice.

Overall, this could have been a perfect light-hearted historical slice-of-life drama if only it hadn’t tried to juggle a dozen unnecessary subplots. Last few episodes felt like a different drama. I did enjoy the cooking aspect, but the rest of everything was mediocre.
Will I recommend it? No. It's not even a small commitment. Every episode is 1 hour+.

Thank you for reading my review! <3 I hope you enjoyed/enjoy the show more than I did!

Read More

Why add plot when you clearly do not want to have a plot?

Nor you need the plot to be perfectly honest. I am genuinely confused about what happened and what this drama wanted to be. It claims to be a fantasy rom-com, but it feels like a cooking slice of life. It sets the plot as this epic love story that defies time with political schemes in the background… but delivers a cooking slice of life. So why not just… be a cooking slice of life and not cosplay as something else?

The whole drama is a sandwich. Episode 1-3 and 10-12 have a plot, episodes 4-9 have cooking and close to no plot. Anyone willing to explain to me how I am supposed to care about all the events happening at the end, when they were never developed and existed only in my memory from the first few episodes? I’m honestly annoyed, because I actually love the slice of life genre, and I love historical rom-coms with fun set up and some political schemes. But I was expecting a plot, and got disappointed when I did not get it. And since I was not expecting a slice of life cooking comedy, I kept waiting for the plot to happen, and ended up not quite enjoying it either.

This could have been just a slice of life cooking comedy - 8 episodes, remove Kang Mok Ju and Prince Je San from the story completely since they were useless. Also, remove the whole backstory of the king's mother - useless. Serious political schemes? Useless. Male lead being tyrant for like 2 hours of the screentime? Useless. Basically, remove the crumbs of the plot we’ve got, and I will love it.

The cooking? Amazing. The bond between the cooks? Awesome and fun to watch. Making meals more than just food, but rather an emotional experience that connects people and makes them remember their happy memories? Beautiful. The visuals - breathtaking. I even enjoyed the romance, which was mild and cute, a nice backdrop to the cooking itself. And if the drama was that, and only that, it would be an easy 8.5 out of 10.

Then we have the issue of the casting. Acting wise everyone did a good job, but it’s obvious Lee Chae Min was to some extent miscast. I know it was a last minute decision, and he aced the role itself. But when you put him in the context of the other actors, his presence makes no sense - he is simply too young. All the main characters are supposed to be more or less of a similar age, and so are the actors. And then we have this 2000s baby. I want to be clear that I do think he did a great job acting wise though.

As for the romance - outside of the set up it was great. Loved the fluff, loved the initial banter. I loved the growing trust and actually decent communication. In the context of the set up? Flat. I don’t know, I’m just confused and want to ask the writer: why? I liked their relationship, I do think they like each other. Did I feel love? No. Ji Yeong felt mildly interested. I did not feel that deep bond that can change the trajectory of the future, that would make their souls crushed if they end up separated. It gave me more - you are my type, let’s see where it will lead us.

Production wise - beautiful. I was in awe with all the cooking scenes, still giggling when I remember the editing of the reactions when characters were testing female lead’s dishes.

Overall, I would be fine with no plot, just good vibes and cooking, if they did not set up an actual plot that also seems interesting and would have exciting conflicts. But now I’m just confused about what was the goal and what the writer and director wanted to deliver with this project.

Read More

overhyped

Bon Appétit, Your Majesty – 6/10

At first, the drama felt a bit silly but in a cute and funny way. By Ep 2, I got intrigued with the cooking methods, and from Ep 3–10 I really enjoyed the kitchen dynamics, the bond between the cooks, and the rivalry with Chef Ming. The cooking parts were definitely the highlight.

What didn’t work for me was the romance. I didn’t feel any chemistry between the leads, and the king lacked presence, he didn’t have king presence at all. more like CEO. The female lead also didn’t carry the “main character” vibe, similar to her role in King the Land.

Eps 11–12 took a serious turn with deaths and fights, but i was bored af. I almost dropped it. The king’s breakdown was meant to be emotional, but it just came off unintentionally funny.

Overall, I first rated it 8/10, but after the last two episodes, I settled on 6/10. The ending, where all the cooks appeared in modern time, was the most enjoyable part. Overhyped just like QOT & LR, but still a decent watch if you enjoy food-centric stories.

Read More