The Real Reason This Emily In Paris Restaurant Scene Makes No Sense
Food styling is a real thing. According to The Art Career Project, arranging food so that it looks delicious and appealing in front of a camera is an art that many people have made a career out of. A food stylist's job is to make TV viewers and magazine readers want to eat the beautiful dishes they are looking at.
The Art Career Project goes on to share there are a lot of tricks of the trade, and often the food you are looking at isn't food you would actually want to let anywhere near your mouth. The use of undercooked meat, soap to make eggs and drinks look bubbly, and putty or wax to hold food together are just some of the hacks food stylists use to create the illusion they hope we buy into. And if you find yourself craving the short stack of pancakes on a table dripping with what appears to be syrup, beware! It might actually be motor oil.
Food stylist Susan Spungen reviews food scenes and breaks down how realistic they are in print and on-air, and her most recent review was of "Emily in Paris." The Netflix original series follows a young marketing exec in Chicago named Emily Cooper (Lily Collins) who lands her dream job in Paris (via Netflix). And Spungen revealed on Vanity Fair's YouTube channel why the iconic steak scene from "Emily in Paris" just doesn't make sense.
For starters, the chef is too hot!
Many scenes of the Netflix dramedy take place at the fictional Les Deux Compères restaurant. But the food isn't the only thing that's hot. Owner Chef Gabriel (Lucas Bravo) is just one of the many attractive Frenchmen Emily encounters, according to Parade. But, as Spungen notes in the Vanity Fair Youtube clip, "Nothing is real. I mean, the way this chef comes out of a small, little bistro kitchen perfectly clean, his sleeves are rolled up on his biceps ... it's not about the food."
Spungen goes on to talk about the food (or lack thereof) and that infamous steak scene. "We are to believe that Emily has received a steak that is very rare, but you never see the steak," Spungen explains. "The fact that there is no real close-up of the food in the scene tells you that they are not really so concerned about the food. It's much more about the dialogue and the characters and even the humor of the scene."
Yes, Chef Gabriel is pretty easy on the eyes. But, coincidentally, Bravo, actually was a sous-chef in real life. "I have some cooking skills," he revealed to Vulture. "But you know, we did some kind of cook-off competition ... to promote the show, and I completely burned my omelet and cut my finger off, so I'm trying not to brag about my cooking skills anymore."
That's okay, as Spungen suggested, it's not really about the food anyway.