REVIEW: ‘Bon Appétit Your Majesty’ Rushes Its Meal Service

The best kind of storytelling allows us to savor every moment, giving just enough time to let things linger before plunging us deep into emotional turmoil. With its penchant for culinary delights, one would expect this feeling to resonate within Bon Appétit Your Majesty, the latest Kdrama starring Lim Yoon-a and Lee Chae-min. Unfortunately, due to its unbalanced pace (and lingering far too long on one story arc), the series rushes through its ending, leaving what should be a five-star experience underwhelming.

Bon Appétit Your Majesty starts in the present day, honing in on French-trained chef, Yeon Ji-young (Lim Yoon-a). Not long after winning a French cooking competition, an eclipse happens on her flight home to Korea.

This would be pretty innocent on its own, except Ji-young has a mysterious ancient Korean cookbook that her father wanted her to bring back to him. This cookbook, in line with the eclipse, triggers an event that propels her back in time to the Joseon era during the reign of the corrupt King Yi Heon (Lee Chae-min).

A comedy of errors and circumstance pushes Ji-young into the path of Yi Heon, immediately creating an opposites-attract sort of setup. Lee Chae-min plays Yi Heon with the level of pompous confidence that befits the image of a king known for being the worst tyrant in Korea’s history (per Ji-young’s words).

However, his identity is unknown to the chef in their initial interactions, allowing the young royal to be treated like anyone else by someone who thinks that she’s caught up in an elaborate dream.

Keeping the king’s identity a mystery from Ji-young gives us, as well as the king himself, time to get to know the character before the big reveal. Matching her up with someone known for being a gourmand with an extraordinary sense of taste from the beginning sets up the inevitable, ongoing challenge for her in Bon Appétit Your Majesty when Yi Heon makes Ji-young the head cook of the palace. Yet, it is really in these opening episodes that we get to see Ji-young’s personality thrive.

Bon Appétit Your Majesty starts off promising, with Lim Yoon-a’s charisma shining through.

Unfortunately, once Yi Heon’s royal identity is revealed, Ji-young’s personality and characterization stumble. She never quite manifests as fully fleshed out, with much of the character’s time spent taking on each culinary challenge thrown at her.

These moments do highlight her intellect and skills, but her past and experiences don’t fully manifest themselves. It’s a shame because Lim Yoon-a is such a charming, capable actress, but the material never fully lets her shine or experiment with her range.

As her counterpart, Lee Chae-min is given much more to work with in Bon Appétit Your Majesty as Yi Heon, even without Ji-young serving as a catalyst for his empathetic awakening. As revealed in flashbacks and bouts of exposition, Yi Heon’s life has been marked by tragedy and the natural corruption found within the royal court. It’s impossible to find anyone to trust, and, with his uncle Prince Jesan (Choi Gwi-ha) and confidant, Kang Mok-ju (Kang Han-na), scheming for power, he can never wholly let his guard down.

Most of the characters are likable, but they don’t transcend their archetypes.

And while Ji-young’s quest to find the cookbook she’s lost (as it is her key back home) is relegated to the back burner, Yi Heon’s quest to uncover those involved in his mother’s murder deepens. Complicating matters is the slowly growing feelings for Ji-young, who never shies away from taking him to task, even if she is more careful and subdued in her delivery due to the obvious power imbalance between the two.

With literally nothing to hold him back, Lee Chae-min explores the full range of Yi Heon’s emotions. From his devilish smile as he luxuriates in holding Ji-young’s life in his hands to his petulant, volatile rage when denied, to the crumbling of his face when the people he loves inevitably are targeted by his enemies, Lee Chae-min infuses Yi Heon with everything he has. Ultimately, Yi Heon becomes the strongest and most fascinating character to watch in Bon Appétit Your Majesty.

Unfortunately, what ultimately makes Bon Appétit Your Majesty a struggle to watch, more than anything, is its unbalanced storytelling. It is equipped with a strong start, and when it finally reaches the climax of Yi Heon’s and Ji-young’s journey, the emotional heartbreak it renders is hard to pull away from. Yet, the middle suffers from an overwhelming sense of meandering, particularly with its handling of a cooking competition with a rival nation that spans three entire episodes. That’s basically twenty-five percent of the series runtime.

What could have been a strong romance never quite lands due to unbalanced storytelling.

Bon Appétit Your Majesty oscillates between various genre tones that never quite mesh together in a seamless transition. With the series pulled in different directions, it’s no wonder that the final episodes are rushed in execution once focus is regained. That is not to say that the emotional moments, once the series’ inevitable conclusion arrives, aren’t well-delivered. They are, but it’s impossible not to wonder whether the moments would have resonated more strongly with better pacing and story direction.

And that’s the thing that ultimately left me wondering after finishing Bon Appétit Your Majesty. With more realized characters on the page and a better grasp of the story’s identity and tone, would Bon Appétit Your Majesty have been able to stand out among a well-stocked sea of similar time-travel and portal series?

It’s not clear. However, with its epilogue leaving more questions than answers, Bon Appétit Your Majesty ultimately left me wanting more than it wanted to give.

Sadly, Bon Appétit Your Majesty doesn’t live up to the potential naturally found in its opening episodes. With characters that never stray from their archetypes, unbalanced storytelling lacking focus and identity, and a frustrating ending, the performances cannot make up for a series that never quite knows what it wants. It’s a shame because the actors truly gave their all, but the material couldn’t live up to what they brought to the table.

All episodes of Bon Appétit Your Majesty are streaming now exclusively on Netflix.