A Taste of Hunger a visual feast that turns up the heat

Food film, food television, is so huge now.

Is it because years of consuming Masterchef and My Kitchen Rules and Nigella and Jamie has made us all think we're experts on the subject, and then all of those months of COVID lockdowns gave us the opportunity to put our knowledge to the test and perfect banana bread and macarons ourselves and confirm our own expert status in our minds.

Perhaps, whatever, but narrative drama like Salt Acid Fat Heat and The Bear are racking up the viewers for the streaming services and helping to keep the iconography around the chef as superstar alive and well.

Adding to this is new Danish film The Taste of Hunger, with the handsome Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as a superstar chef in pursuit of a Michelin star for his restaurant but, although seasoned with a healthy amount of food porn, this drama focuses more on the dissolution of a marriage.

Maggie (Katrine Greis-Rosenthal) has had a laser-like focus on Carsten (Coster-Waldau) since they first met at a party he was catering, a belief in his success that she has personally funded, opening their Copenhagen restaurant Malus together and doggedly pursuing a Michelin review.

Maggie manages the restaurant while Carsten is the talent in the kitchen, and yet Maggie's keen eye and savvy understanding of taste and presentation make their own contributions to Carsten's reputation.

The couple are out on the town, enjoying other people's meals and their wines, when they get a call from the staff at their restaurant - there's a big chance that the English patron dining alone and paying in cash might be the Michelin reviewer rumoured to be spending the week accessing the finest Danish eateries.

They rush to the restaurant in time for Carsten to cook the possible-reviewer (the Michelin reviewers supposedly are anonymous) their mains but it is possible the damage may have been done when the staff suspect they served a wrongly prepared appetiser.

When this is discovered, Maggie hits the streets trying to track the reviewer down and ask them for the chance to try again. But at the same time, and potentially more fractious for Maggie, is a letter she discovered just in time, addressed to her husband and informing him of Maggie's infidelity.

The woman is spiralling on two fronts and with her marriage intertwined with her business, so much is at stake.

This is such a handsome film, and not just the two extremely photogenic leads.

First, there's Manuel Alberto Claro's cinematography, and his skills get a workout with the action moving from kitchen-based food-porn shots to mostly Danish countryside to lamplit city streets. His lensing is as much a feast for the senses as are the scenes of food composition and meal prep.

While Kingslayer Coster-Waldau is the drawcard, Katrine Greis-Rosenthal has the harder of the two roles, and she is magnificent. What a performance, on par with Laure Calamy's harangued mother from the French drama Full Time earlier this year.

Director Christopher Boe's screenplay with Tobias Lindholm explores the impact of ambition at all costs on those that have to pay those costs. Their film's timeline jumps around so we slowly see the joys of Maggie and Carsten's courtship but also the stresses that begin to pull them apart.

Flora Augusta, a marvellous child actress, plays the couple's daughter Chloe, collateral damage of the couple's single-minded focus.

The production's food team do the kind of work that will have you salivating, though this isn't a start-to-finish foodie film like Babette's Feast or Big Night or Like Water for Chocolate.

I do have to point out the gorgeous tableau the film's marketers have created for its cinema poster, an artwork in its own right.