I don’t know a whole lot about the restaurant business or catering but I’m pretty sure I know more than the writers of Sweet Navidad. It’s not that I expect a reality show when I watch these movies. I do expect at least a little bit of realism though.
Carmen (Camila Banus) is a pastry chef at a Puerto Rican café. Despite not having any formal training, she nabs the pastry chef job at a holiday gala at a high class hotel. She gets paired with head chef Jax (Mark Hapka). In just six days, they have to create the perfect menu for the big event.
This bugs me a lot. Probably more than it should. The hotel owners, Victor (David Fumero) and Shirley (Autumn Federici), claim they have been holding this gala every year for a decade. Yet they didn’t start auditioning chefs for the positions until six days before the event. That isn’t how it works. Things like this take months to plan. Any chef worth his weight would have already been booked for holiday events by then. And then, Shirley tells Carmen and Jax that they have to have their grocery order into the vendor by the 22nd in order to have it for Christmas Day. Excuse me, what? That order would have to be in at minimum a week beforehand. Most likely more than that since there were supposed to be a lot of people there. (I don’t think we ever heard an actual headcount, though the room didn’t look that full during the event. They insinuated it was more than 50.)
In addition to the actual planning aspects being so far off base, Carmen and Jax then waste most of their six days visiting Carmen’s family or randomly going to a farmer’s market. We see them outside of the kitchen way more than we see them actually doing any work. Even though Carmen wasn’t formally trained, she would have to know how long it takes to bake the foods she’s making. Right? She has to be able to at least plan out timing. Right?
As much as it saddens me to say, I have to say skip this one. I love the focus on Puerto Rican culture and food but this was the wrong way to do it. Sweet Navidad would have been a better movie if they centered it around the café. Carmen works there as a pastry chef and she happens to meet Jax at an event and he’s all “Cakes are for baby bakers!” and she’s all “Well, try this!” I think the cooking part would have been a bit more realistic and then they could have had the couple interacting outside their respective kitchens without wasting time with an important deadline looming. If they are going to have a six day deadline, they can’t waste time dancing. Sorry.