If you had to cook to save yourself, what would you make?
That’s the prompt presented to Ji-young, a decorated chef and the protagonist of the new K-drama “Bon Appétit, Your Majesty.”
After accidentally time traveling to 16th-century Korea, Ji-young (played by Lim Yoon-a, of the wildly popular K-pop group, Girls’ Generation), must cook for a tyrant king, Yi Heon (Lee Chae-min), as if her life depends on it. (It does.)
The fictional king, thought to be inspired by Yeonsangun, the great terror of the Joseon Dynasty, hurls death threats at the chef as often as he purrs, eyes closed, between bites of her exceptional dishes.
As of its third week of streaming, “Bon Appétit” is Netflix’s second most popular non-English show worldwide (after the Spanish thriller “Two Graves”), according to Tudum, the streamer’s official site. A limited series, it’s among the top 10 most-watched shows in 73 countries. It’s a grab bag of genres, but at its core it’s a romantic comedy, with cooking as its love language.
“I found the story of a modern chef and a king falling in love to be incredibly romantic,” said Chang Tae-you, the series’s director (and food programing aficionado), calling it “a story where food changes a person, and that change evolves into love.”
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The post A Time-Traveling Chef, a Tyrant King: This Korean Drama Is Finding Fans Around the World appeared first on New York Times.
