I love watching cooking shows so I was excited to read this story about a romance between two chefs at a trendy restaurant. Alexander Chen (aka Shang) is the head chef at La Rougue and Eden Monroe is his new sous chef. They are a wonderful grumpy/sunshine pair and I enjoyed seeing them fall in love as they cook delicious meals and handle daily crises in the kitchen.

Shang is one of the most talented Chefs in the world and he demands perfection from his staff. Eden is a people person who laughs easily and has a way of bringing calm to the kitchen when things get hectic. She knew Shang when she went to Chef school for two weeks several years ago but he doesn’t remember her. I wondered why she had to leave Chef school after only two weeks and this is revealed later in the story. She is an excellent chef but worries she will be fired if anyone finds out she exaggerated about her education and work experience on her resume. She took the job at La Rouge because it pays well and she has been trying to save money to hire a private investigator to help her find her parents who disappeared when she was young.

Shang also has issues from his past. He is Chinese-American and has to deal with discrimination in the food industry. The owner of La Rouge, who was also his mentor, told him to change his name to Alexander so he would better ‘fit in’ with the haute cuisine scene. Shang went along with it because he was eager to impress but he didn’t feel good about it and his family didn’t understand and they are upset.

We see Shang become more curious about Eden and want to spend more time with her. He is under pressure from the owner of La Rouge to come up with a new menu but he is feeling burned out and has lost his passion and taste for food. He is struggling to come up with new dishes until he asks Eden to help him. This was my favorite part of the story and I got hungry reading about their dishes like Eden’s molten chocolate dessert. Eden brings out the best in Shang and it’s wonderful to see her open her heart to him.

I read that Shang, Eden and a few other characters in the story were inspired by Kylo Ren fanfiction from Star Wars. There is a lot going on in the story, between Shang and Eden’s past issues and present drama and there were times when I could barely keep up with it all. It felt like the story moved a little too quickly through some of these issues, like Eden’s rather sad past.

There were wonderful work friends and family members along with a few villains and it was spicy when things started heating up in the kitchen between Shang and Eden. The ending was happy and satisfying and surprisingly, the epilogue went out five years. I recommend this to readers who would enjoy a story about chefs who find the recipe for love.