The opening season of "The Restaurant" was like a meal from a Spanish taperia: lots of small savory dishes with no overarching theme to bind them all together. Stomachs are never completely filled, and diners, or viewers, to continue the analogy, usually leave wanting just a little bit more.
"The Restaurant" Season Two, is NBC's attempt to satisfy its audience's craving. Picking up where the first volume left off, "The Restaurant" centers on celebrity chef Rocco DiSpirito's newest restaurant "Rocco's on 22nd." Now six months after the calamitous opening, "Rocco's" is on the brink of financial disaster -- which of course makes for intriguing and dramatic television.
Main investor Geoffrey Chodorow and his cronies at China Grill Management have decided to take action and investigate why their brand-name chef is putting out a generic and bland product. The focus of this season looks at the Task Force and their fights with Rocco over the direction of the latter's namesake restaurant.
The revelation that "Rocco's on 22nd" is in danger of being shut down should come to no surprise to loyal viewers of the first incarnation of "The Restaurant." In the previous version, Rocco and his playboy attitude spurred great dissension between the staff and the management. In his blind devotion to create an eatery faithful to his mother's home-style cooking, DiSpirito lost sight of what was necessary for a successful restaurant.
Nothing had really changed since this past summer when DiSpirito fashioned himself as something special. His self-focused spin-doctoring illustrated the definition of hubris. Now, instead of wooing fashionistas and New York celebrities on the dining floor, Rocco simply doesn't show at his restaurant, period. He's too busy promoting his new cookbook and miserably failing to be the next Emeril.
A few of the players from Act I of "The Restaurant" have returned in their previous roles. Mama DiSpirito is still the "heart" of the business, although her allegiance to her son is bound to become a sticky issue in the future as Chodorow and company investigate "Rocco's." General Manager Laurent still has the "snooty European" smirk plastered on his face, and permanently underappreciated chef Tony remains woefully unacknowledged.
"The Restaurant" gets most of its drama from its dissection of the psyche of the West Side's Playboy, Rocco DiSpirito. He has so grossly overestimated his own cache in the restaurant business that everyone besides Mama is hoping that Rocco gets his ass canned and the name changes to "Tony's on 22nd". The show is one train wreck that is an uninhibited joy to watch and enjoy.
In "The Restaurant," there are no midgets, nerds, or ugly women to place a strain on your conscience. It may be a guilty pleasure, but at least you won't need a shower to cleanse yourself as you would after indulging in "The Swan" and other reality shows of similar ilk.
That being said, "The Restaurant" still falls short of excellence for the same reasons as the previous season. The expansive list of characters is fine, but they rarely interact with each other. Shows like "The Apprentice" and "The Bachelor" are successful because the audience gets to see how these "real" people interrelate amongst themselves. In "The Restaurant," the plot is all about how they deal with Rocco. But no one likes Rocco, save for Mama. So what's the drama if everyone knows what's going to happen anyways?
It's highly doubtful that Chodorow will ever have the guts to actually fire the celebrity chef, but even the promise of a rocky path for Rocco will make for enticing programming.
