The characters played by Kang Ha-neul and Go Min-si have very different takes on fine dining.
Viewers of the k-drama Tastefully Yours may not initially like the character Han Beom-woo. He’s kind of obnoxious. He’s inconsiderate and pretentious, all qualities he comes by naturally. It’s the way he was raised. His family runs a food empire and they are so competitive, he’s encouraged to compete with his own brother.
Beom-soo, played by Kang Ha-neul, works for the family business, but his real obsession is with his restaurant Motto. His brother (Bae Na-ra) also has a restaurant and whichever brother first earns three gold stars for his own restaurant will be chosen to run the family corporation. Both brothers are working hard to make that happen. But Beom-woo can’t do it alone.
Complicating his efforts is Motto’s celebrity chef, Jang Young-hye, played by Hong Hwa-yeon (Buried Hearts, True to Love, Mental Coach Jegal). Young-hye is not as invested in the restaurant’s ranking as Beom-woo so she’s more casual about deadlines, which concerns him. There’s a dish he wants to put on the menu that he’s waiting for her to make. When someone posts a photo of a similar looking dish online, he goes all the way to Jeonju to see the dish for himself. Beom-woo is about to get the recipe for transforming his life.
Go Min-si’s character runs a restaurant in Jeonju that Kang Ha-neul’s character wants to buy.
The photo-posting restaurant turns out to be pretty obscure. It’s not just hard to find, it seems to be a failure, at least in terms of making enough money to pay the rent. The homey restaurant is run by Mo Yeon-joo, played by Go Min-si (Sweet Home, Love Alarm and Youth of May) . Yeon-joo loves to cook for the sake of cooking, rather than for any restaurant ranking. After tasting her farm-to-table fare, Beom-soo is impressed. He offers to acquire her restaurant for his family’s company, but Yeon-joo is not selling. Still, there is something about the flavor of her food that appeals to Beom-woo’s senses.
While these characters have different takes on fine dining, he’s quick to recognize that she’s a gifted chef. His plan for Motto’s success may not work without the right chef to help create gold star worthy recipes. Yeon-joo may be just the right chef.
Kang Ha-neul also appears in three films this year, Yadang: The Snitch, Streaming and Wall to Wall. The actor starred in the dramas Squid Game 2, Curtain Call, The Kidnapping Day and When The Camellia Blooms.
Tastefully Yours is directed by Park Dan-hee, who directed Weak Hero Class 1. The drama airs on Netflix.
