Andor & The Bear Fans Need To Check Out This Overlooked Apple TV+ Series

The best movies about cooking have some familiar tropes. The food has to look delicious, the cooking meticulous and artistic, capturing the craft and the dedication. Yet many shows and movies about cooking are also about how the art of cooking is hell, and everyone who works in a kitchen goes through trenches night after night, with enough stress to destroy just about anyone. It's part of what makes the best episodes of "The Bear" so compelling, along with the family drama, funny moments, and enough nail-bitingly stressful situations to eliminate any hunger that could come up from watching the delicious food in the show.

Whether you're savoring every new episode of "The Bear" for as long as you can or binge-watching it as quick as possible, eventually you'll go through kitchen drama withdrawal, and that's when you need to watch the best new AppleTV+ show of the year: "Carême." This is a show that not only features nail-bitingly thrilling sequences of chefs trying to come up with new dishes, but they are doing so under constant threat of execution during a tumultuous time in French history. It is also a fantastic take on the biopic genre that reimagines the story of the first celebrity chef into a tale of political intrigue and romance, revealing how food helped Napoleon rise to power — and maybe helped him lose it.

That's right. This is a biopic show that is not just a kitchen drama, it is also a political thriller about the rise of a dictatorship and how resistance can come from the most inconspicuous of sources. This makes "Carême" a show every "Andor" fan should watch too, now that the single best "Star Wars" project in 40 years is over. "Carême" is basically like the Tony Gilroy show but sexier, with more food, and just as many French people.

"Carême" is a dramatization of the story of the first celebrity chef, Antonin Carême (Benjamin Voisin), a talented cook in the time of Napoleon who ends up working as a chef for diplomat Charles Talleyrand (Jérémie Renier), who has plenty of schemes involving the First Consul. This is a rather spectacular take on the biopic, one that belongs in the same category as the "Weird: The Al Yankovic Story" as projects that completely reimagine the life of their subject and choose a fun story over historical accuracy.

Sure, the show follows some biopic origin tropes, such as how it portrays Carême's most famous accomplishments like popularizing the chef's hat or the croquembouche like some grand and fated discoveries, but that's about it. "Carême" mostly feels like an attempt to place a bunch of historical people on a board like chess pieces and tell a wild fictional story of how Napoleon's rise to power happened because of a single opportunistic former bishop and his chef. This Carême is more of a modern rock star than a chef, with an earring, clothes that feel more like 1980s than 1780s, and a brash, overly confident personality that resembles Gordon Ramsay in his numerous TV reality shows.

That "Carême" is co-created by Ian Kelly, who wrote the book on the chef's biography and his gastronomy, only adds to the weirdness of the show, which tries to go for both wild fantasy and authenticity at the same time. You see, there is technically no knowledge that Carême was a spy, but he also never really talked about his personal life, so he could have been! He did make the cake for Napoleon's wedding cake, so who is to say he didn't bake it in a specific attempt to deliver a hidden message that would influence French foreign policy?

The show constantly utilizes food as a tool of diplomacy, appealing to important guests, seducing a future empress with tasty desserts, and even delivering secret messages in confectionery. There is also a fascinating portrayal, in the periphery, of people's response to the revolution and the moment Napoleon's call for order turned into yet another authoritarian regime.

Director Martin Bourboulon, already responsible for the highly successful two-part adaptation of Alexandre Dumas' "The Three Musketeers," gives the story of Carême a blockbuster air, an epic scope that feels on par with Ridley Scott's "Napoleon" movie — but with more sex and more of a rock 'n' attitude. There are lavish wardrobes and extravagant sets, and it truly feels as expensive as any other Apple TV+ show (which is saying something). Like "Andor," it has exquisite production design that really paints a picture of the time period it is portraying (real or otherwise), making you feel the scope of a country changing into an empire and the anger of a people who have been fooled by those in power.

All of that is portrayed through the food. There are plenty of fantastic scenes of Marie-Antoine Carême creating incredible dishes, showing the beauty of French cuisine, but it's how the food ties into the political intrigue that makes "Carême" a show worth watching. This is a show about the power of food to influence people, to bring them close or pull them apart. Take a scene in which Carême convinces Louis XVII to renounce his claim to the French throne by literally making a ratatouille so good that he flashes back to his childhood in a scene taken straight out of the Pixar movie, sans rat.

It's ridiculous, thrilling, and it has interesting things to say about the rise of Napoleon and the response to the revolution, all while featuring plenty of steamy hot romance and delicious-looking food. Whether you're into historical fiction, shows about food, or stories of political intrigue and revolution, "Carême" is worth a watch.