‘Sweetly Salted’ will have your mouth watering

Category: Television and Streaming

Being a food critic isn’t easy, especially when your latest restaurant review goes viral, and not in a good way. Sweetly Salted is a cute romantic comedy about two people who met for a few minutes years ago and now rediscover each other and yes, fall in love.

Alison (Lanie McAuley) is the food critic at a Chicago newspaper. The thing is, no one knows that. She is known in the paper and online as “Sweetly Salted.” She keeps her identity a secret so she won’t get any special treatment when she dines in restaurants. Alison wants to get the same treatment and food as her readers would. 

Years ago she tasted a Puerto Rican sandwich from a food cart. That taste stayed with her. It was delicious. So when a new Puerto Rican restaurant run by a famous chef opens in the Windy City, Alison is eager to try it out. She is also anxious to taste the authentic Puerto Rican sandwich she remembers from all those years earlier. Unfortunately, when she does, it is nothing like what she remembered. Plus, it isn’t even prepared the same way. That all goes into her column and the newspaper soon gets plenty of hate mail and hate comments online. After all, Sebastian (William Martinez) is a well-known and popular chef. So trashing his new restaurant in her column does not get a lot of love from the readers.

Alison is forced to take a few weeks off from the paper to let the unpleasantness calm down. So, during this time she returns to the restaurant and takes a job as a sous chef, even though she has never been one before. She talks her way into the job and starts to write about what it is like to work in a restaurant and with a famous chef. With a proposed book deal in the offing, this just might be the hook that will propel her writing career into a new direction. The problem is, the book editor insists she “out” herself. They need her to disclose her true identity. No longer with Sweetly Salted be anonymous. 

While she is working hard learning how to chop and mix ingredients, Alison and Sebastian, aka Seb, compliment each other in the kitchen and in their off-hours.

Alison also manages to teach Seb a new dessert recipe which he adds to his menu. And she finally learns why the sandwich she tasted that influenced her rough review, was not made the way she remembered or the way Seb planned to make it. 

There is an attraction that they cannot deny. But when he finds out she has lied to him, not to mention was the critic who almost cost him his new restaurant, all bets are off as to if he will forgive her or not. 

The only thing that this movie could use would be an accompanying recipe book because the food throughout the show looks absolutely delicious.

Sweetly Salted premieres March 17, 2024 on UP TV. Get your taste buds ready for some mouth-watering recipes.

note: The movie is also known as With Love, Your Sweetly Salted.

About the Author

Francine Brokaw has been covering all aspects of the entertainment industry for over 30 years. She also writes about products and travel. She has been published in national and international newspapers and magazines as well as Internet websites. She has written her own book, Beyond the Red Carpet The World of Entertainment Journalists, is the entertainment correspondent for Good Day Orange County, and has her own TV show, Beyond the Red Carpet, on Village Television in Orange County. She is a longstanding member of the Television Critics Association and is accredited by the MPAA.