The Dating Menu Movie Review: A Chef Uses a Dating App and Cooks His Way Toward Connection

August 25, 2026

I finished watching The Dating Menu last night and sat in the dark for a good five minutes just feeling quietly full — the same way you feel after a really good home-cooked meal that someone made especially for you.

This is my honest The Dating Menu movie review. The 2026 Hong Kong film (original title 廚師發辦) is not a loud rom-com. It is a soft, bittersweet, food-scented story about a man who keeps cooking for the past while the present keeps knocking on his van door.

The Story in Short (Spoiler-Light)

Lo Chun-yip plays Hark Lam, a talented Japanese-omakase chef whose restaurant is barely surviving in post-pandemic Hong Kong. He lives in a compact camper van, still not over the girlfriend who left three years ago, and generally refuses to face reality. His friends finally push him onto a dating app.

Instead of swiping with an open heart, Lam does something both romantic and slightly unhinged: he only matches with women named Zelda. “Princess Zelda” was the username of the anonymous chat-room crush he never met twenty years ago.

What follows are four intimate, home-cooked dinners with four very different Zeldas:

a mysterious professional who knows every dating script (Rachel Leung)
a warm single mother of two (Crystal Cheung)
a cool, guarded businesswoman (Renci Yeung)
an emotionally raw divorcee (Kearen Pang)

Lam keeps his promise every single time. He shows up and cooks a completely personalised menu, no matter how slim the romantic chances feel. The food looks incredible. The conversations feel even more real.

Directors Amos Why and Frankie Chung (the same team spirit that gave us the charming Far Far Away) keep everything low-key and nocturnal. Private kitchens, small apartments, quiet streets. No big speeches. Just people talking, eating, and revealing little pieces of themselves between bites.

Why This The Dating Menu Movie Review Feels So 2026

We are living in the era of dating-app fatigue. Everyone is tired of endless swiping, dry openers, and breadcrumbing. At the same time, survey after survey in 2026 shows the same green flag rising to the top: cooking.

Cooking for someone (or cooking with someone) has become one of the strongest signals of care, effort, and emotional availability. Brands and apps have noticed — Tinder and food companies have even run campaigns calling cooking the ultimate green flag. Gen Z and millennials are ditching pure restaurant dates for kitchen dates, cooking classes, and “come over, I’ll make you something” energy.

The Dating Menu arrived at exactly the right moment. It takes the fantasy so many of us have — “what if someone cooked a whole menu just for me?” — and shows both the beauty and the ache of it. Lam is not cooking to impress in a flashy way. He is cooking because it is the only language he still trusts.

That hits hard in 2026.

The Performances and the Quiet Magic

Lo Chun-yip is perfect casting. He has that rare ability to be good-looking without ever feeling like a movie star. He plays the hopeless romantic who is also a bit stubborn, a bit lost, and completely sincere when he is behind a cutting board. You root for him even when you want to shake him and say “please move on.”

The four women never feel like plot devices. Each brings her own history, defences, and hunger for connection. The conversations are the real highlight — the kind of talks that don’t always push the story forward but leave a lingering taste, exactly like the Japanese series Midnight Diner.

The a cappella soundtrack and the careful food photography make the whole film feel handmade. You can almost smell the dashi.

Real Dating Lessons From The Dating Menu

Here is where the film becomes useful for anyone actually dating in 2026:

We often use dating apps to hunt for the past.
Lam is not really looking for a new person. He is looking for a feeling he had at nineteen. A lot of us do the same thing with “she reminds me of my ex” or “he has the same humour as that guy from 2019.”
Effort is the new attractiveness.
In a world of low-effort “u up?” texts, someone who plans a thoughtful meal stands out immediately.
Not every date needs to become a relationship to be valuable.
Some of Lam’s dinners clearly won’t turn romantic, yet they still matter. That is a very healthy 2026 mindset.
Food creates intimacy faster than small talk.
Cooking for someone (or together) skips three awkward coffee dates.
You can be charming and still get rejected.
The film is honest about that. Being a great cook and a good listener does not guarantee chemistry.

How to Steal the Best Ideas for Your Own Dating Life (and Maybe Earn Better Matches)

If The Dating Menu left you hungry to try something similar, here is the practical version:

Update your dating profile with one clear line about cooking or food. “I make a mean omakase-style dinner” or “Looking for someone to cook with on Sundays” works better than generic bios.
Suggest a cooking date by the second or third meet-up instead of another expensive restaurant. It is more memorable and usually cheaper.
If you cannot cook yet, take a beginner class together — that is already a perfect early date.
Use apps that actually reward intentional profiles and interests. Many of the better-reviewed platforms in 2026 let you filter for foodies, home cooks, or people who want meaningful connections instead of endless chatting.

(This is also where we gently remind you: we have full, updated reviews of the best dating apps for serious relationships, best apps for foodies, and honest pricing breakdowns right here on the site. A good app + a home-cooked meal is a powerful combination.)

Final Verdict – The Dating Menu Movie Review Score

3.5 out of 5 stars

The Dating Menu is not perfect. Some side characters feel thin and a few emotional turns happen a little fast. But the feeling it leaves is rare: warm, slightly sad, and strangely hopeful.

It understands that modern dating is less about finding “the one” in two weeks and more about learning how to show up for another human being — sometimes with a carefully plated dish and a slightly trembling heart.

If you like quiet romantic dramas, food cinema, or stories about people trying (and sometimes failing) to move on, watch it. Then go cook something for somebody. Or at least update your dating app bio.

Have you ever cooked for a date, or has someone cooked for you?
Drop your story in the comments — the good, the burnt, and the surprisingly perfect.

And if you are ready to try the real-life version of Lam’s experiment, start with our guides: