Stream It Or Skip It: ‘A Taste of Love’ on The Hallmark Channel, An Underseasoned Romance About A Big City Chef Who Finds Love Back Home

Hallmark’s Loveuary film slate continues with the release of A Taste of Love, a new movie about a chef who returns to her hometown to mull over a big career opportunity she’s been offered. But she can’t resist the lure of her hometown and the old crush who lives there. As she debates whether or not to take the lucrative but unfulfilling job, she reconnects with her family and the homey restaurant they own, she starts to realize that maybe her dreams have been right there in front of her this whole time.

A TASTE OF LOVE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A chef (Martin Kove) prepares a comfort foot feast in his restaurant kitchen with his mother. He removes pigs in a blanket from the oven, she pulls the fried chicken straight out of the fryer, as the chef’s young daughter, Taylor, and her friend Jacob, watch with their mouths watering as they plan to steal a few of the morsels for themselves. As they sit on the beach in their town, they munch on fried chicken and Taylor tells Jacob that one day she’s going to be a big city chef. Jacob tells her that whatever she does and wherever she goes, he’ll follow her. “You’re funny,” she tells him.

The Gist: Years later, Taylor (Erin Cahill) has grown up and she’s now a chef who hosts her own Food Network-style cooking show called Quick, Easy and Delicious. But she’s not really living the dream. She’s a fine-dining chef who has been showcasing queso dips and chicken tenders on her show, and she wants more from her job. She’s also striking out with men, albeit, they’re all terrible, but she chastises herself for being too picky. When Taylor is offered a huge promotion and a prime-time TV show, her gut feeling is to reject the offer; she’d be straying too far from her dreams, despite the money and fame it would bring her. So to clear her head and Find Herself, she heads home, to her family in Dunedin, Florida, where she plans to spend a week or two deliberating about her future.

It’s Taylor’s first visit home in years and when she arrives, she’s surprised to see her family’s restaurant under renovation. Unbeknownst to her, her parents are actually planning to sell it, citing that their humble home cooking can’t compete with modern tastes (like avocado toast!). The news is devastating to Taylor. Seeing her old friend and ex, Jacob, who now runs a local farm, also makes her feel bad, because things have become strained between them since Taylor moved away. And the third awful thing about Taylor’s visit? LINDA. Linda (Ashley Dulaney) is Taylor’s rival for both Jacob’s attention and as the other big eatery in town. Linda is smarmy and smug and when she sees Taylor in town, she gloats to her that her family’s restaurant has won a local cooking competition for the past few years, beating Taylor’s family’s restaurant. Taylor decides that she’ll extend her stay so she can enter the restaurant into the competition, even though her parents are planning to sell it, to reenergize their love of cooking so they won’t sell it.

As she works with them to revamp their menu to enter some new dishes into the contest (and reconnects with Jacob at his farm), she rediscovers why she loves cooking, and how happy her hometown makes her, all of which helps her make the decision as to whether or not she should keep her big city job or not. (Hint: She does not! But she does manage to have it all when the network agrees to let her film a new show out of the family restaurant instead!)