Chef's Kiss Review

Watch things start to really heat up in the kitchen in this sweet, queer, new adult graphic novel!

Now that college is over, English graduate Ben Cook is on the job hunt looking for something…anything…related to his passion for reading and writing. But interview after interview, hiring committee after hiring committee, Ben soon learns getting the dream job won’t be as easy as he thought. Proofreading? Journalism? Copywriting? Not enough experience. It turns out he doesn’t even have enough experience to be a garbage collector! But when Ben stumbles upon a “Now Hiring—No Experience Necessary” sign outside a restaurant, he jumps at the chance to land his first job. Plus, he can keep looking for a writing job in the meantime. He’s actually not so bad in the kitchen, but he will have to pass a series of cooking tests to prove he’s got the culinary skills to stay on full-time. But it’s only temporary…right?

When Ben begins developing a crush on Liam, one of the other super dreamy chefs at the restaurant, and when he starts ditching his old college friends and his old writing job plans, his career path starts to become much less clear.

General Impressions

I requested "Chef's Kiss" because I really loved the cover art style and when I read the synopsis I was ecstatic not only at the themes it would feature but the fact that there was a gay main character comfortable with his identity, which I found really refreshing.

If you are looking for a cute queer read, a beautiful graphic novel or just something fast and uplifting, you should definitely pick this up.

Chef's Kiss follows a recently graduated college student that after finding it impossible to be hired without any kind of experience or resorting to nepotism, starts working at a restaurant as a chef in training. There he meets a great group of passionate people, a grumpy boss and a possible crush which makes him start questioning the future he thought he wanted.

Along with the more serious themes such as the pressures of being a young adult struggling to balance a personal life, do meaningful work and find themselves at the same time, what I really liked in this book was how the main character was surrounded by such good people and how all these characters supported each other and forgave one another whenever one of them fell short.

Thank you to NetGalley and Oni Press for this DRC.

Rating: 4/5