Catherine Zeta-Jones and Aaron Eckhart work wonderfully together in this story of a workaholic chef who rediscovers love after her sister suddenly dies and she is left to take care of her young niece.

I would call No Reservations a light romantic drama, there are a few funny moments but overall the tone is more dramatic than comedic. Yes, I have seen this story before. Someone who is so involved with a career and does not want or have time for a relationship finally finds love when that certain someone enters his/her life. And yes, I guessed the ending about half way through the movie. However Catherine Zeta-Jones as the chef without a personal life and Aaron Eckhart as the new sous chef with a zest for life do such a good job that I was able to forget about the predictability.

If you do not have great expectations for No Reservations then you will probably enjoy this movie. I watched it one lazy Sunday morning with a few cups of tea and I was entertained enough to recommend watching this to others.

Foodie Notes
There are a few good shots of plates of food but there is better food porn on the Food Network. Also there are not any real good long, drawn-out scenes of food being prepared or any real philosophy about how food and cooking are metaphors for life (I recommend Eat Drink Man Woman for that). However Zeta-Jones and Eckhart are convincing as chefs, they seem at home in a kitchen.

DVD Extra
The only DVD extra is an episode of Unwrapped about the behind the scenes of the filming of No Reservations. I recommend watching it for the real life chefs who were consulted in the making of the movie. There is some interesting material here and this extra is only about 20 minutes long, so why not watch it?

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No Reservations at IMDB, 6.3/10 with 8,687 votes.

No Reservations DVD at Amazon.