Midway through the first episode of Aftertaste – ABC’s latest comedy, which premieres on Wednesday – the niece of newly disgraced celebrity chef Easton West (Erik Thomson) cuts her uncle down to size: “Guys like you, you gotta follow the recipe, right?” she says drolly. “Make your heartfelt apology to the press, then go into ‘bad man exile’. Then, after all that, you can make your comeback.”
After his latest violent outburst goes viral, West heads back home to Uraidla, a small town in Adelaide Hills wine country, convinced his name and clout are enough to salvage his career.
But the salient advice of Diana – herself an emerging pastry chef, played by TV first-timer and Muriel’s Wedding: The Musical star Natalie Abbott – offers an early taste of the show’s perceptive take on high-profile figures whose misbehaviour, once tacitly endorsed and monetised, now invites online condemnation and, on occasion, real-life consequence.
“It’s not meant to be a story of white male redemption,” says screenwriter and show co-creator Julie De Fina. Abusive chefs have always had an “enduring entertainment factor. They’re kind of like real life Malcolm Tuckers. And there is something entertaining about them – up to a point. Until you’re actually working with them – especially if you’re a young woman.”
Best known for portraying a variety of dads in shows like Packed To The Rafters and 800 Words, Aftertaste offered Thomson a chance to play aggressively against type.
“For 10 years [I’ve played] the mildly complicated, affable father figure,” Thomson laughs. “I thought if I do that again it’ll be the death of my career.”
The show draws some of its inspiration from the famous on-screen fiery tempers and old school misogyny of Gordon Ramsay and Marco Pierre White, but in recent years a broad mix of alleged failings from across the Australian hospitality industry – from alleged wage theft and complaints of toxic workplace cultures, to Pete Evans’s slide from baby bone broth into neo-Nazi iconography – have ensured food personalities are in season all year round.
“We wanted to have a crack at that guy, get a bit of mileage throwing pot shots in his direction,” Thomson says. “But after we did that for a while, we realised the question was, what are we trying to say? What’s underneath all that?
“At the time Harvey Weinstein and all that stuff was happening, so it was all about white male privilege, gender politics, power. And we thought, right, that’s what it’s all about.”
In the face of an increasingly crowded kitchen bin, Diana’s “bad man exile” speech points to something rarely canvassed in the many column inches spent fretting about “cancel culture”: for all but the worst offenders across food, entertainment and sport, such purgatory is often only temporary, a short hiatus before new streaming deals, live tours or film roles come knocking. At other times, the indignity of “cancellation” simply means sharing a spotlight they once enjoyed alone.
“Things haven’t shifted quite that much, but the tiniest shift is enormous to someone like [West],” explains De Fina, a first-time TV showrunner who drew from her own experience in the male-dominated industry. “These men who are used to wielding all the power, and really there’s been no accountability in the worlds that they’ve lorded over. There’s been complete lawlessness, and now there are rules – and he isn’t the one writing them.”
Thomson might bring star power, but by charting the rise of Abbott’s spiky, scene-stealing pâtissier and West’s former subordinate-turned-rival Ben Zhao (Spider-Man: Far From Home’s Remy Hii), Aftertaste seeks to tell a broader story of authenticity and structural change that is slowly playing out in Michelin starred kitchens, writers’ rooms and beyond.
“There are so many parallels between this kitchen culture and the entertainment industry,” De Fina says. “Obviously recently there has been accountability, and that’s been an enormous shift. But contending with certain male personalities in positions of power, you put up with any amount of abuse and bullshit.
“So Diana for me is part experience, and part wish-fulfilment. She’s way bolshier than I ever was at her age – I wish I could’ve gone up against these guys, and not just played along with it and felt like shit.”
Making space and dialling down the temperature can prove fruitful on screen. Twenty years after the spectacle of strip-tearing featured in early reality shows like Australian Idol, programs like MasterChef are winning fresh praise for embracing a more inclusive, decent sensibility (due in no small part to the arrival of new judge Melissa Leong, following the scandal-tinged exodus of its original, all-male judging trifecta).
A renewed push for authentic narratives and inclusivity has also brought greater scrutiny to the power structures of the food world. Despite the diversity found in restaurant kitchens, the people scoring the awards, book deals and presenting gigs – often after slipping into and “refining” other culture’s cuisines – tend to be quite a homogenous bunch. “Basically we deconstruct Easton to the point that he doesn’t know who he is,” Thomson says.
De Fina says: “It’s focusing more on this idea of the angry chef having to relinquish his power, and adapt to the new world.
“As opposed to celebrating ‘bad man’ behaviour – which I think people are over watching.”
• Aftertaste airs on ABC1 and iView from Wednesday February 3
