# The Kitchen (2012)

> A young aspiring chef, Max Lavrov, learns that the restaurant kitchen at Claude Monet is far harder and messier than cooking alone.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/41707

## Facts

- Seasons: 6
- Episodes: 120
- Episode runtime: 25 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: comedy, drama
- Created by: Vasily Kutsenko, Igor Tudvasev, Dimitry Jan, Pavel Danilov, Vitaly Shlyappo
- Network: STS
- Cast: Dmitri Nazarov, Mark Bogatyrev, Elena Podkaminskaya, Dmitriy Nagiev, Sergey Epishev, Olga Kuzmina, Viktor Horinyak, Marina Mogilevskaya
- TMDB rating: 8.4/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2930610/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: brisk
- Intensity: mild
- Complexity: accessible
- Violence: none
- Tone: wry, warm, bruising, comedic, chaotic

## What critics say

Audiences rate the series as acclaimed, with a strong overall score and a notably uneven run across its six seasons.

## Synopsis

The Kitchen (2012-2016) is a Russian television workplace sitcom created by Vasily Kutsenko, Igor Tudvasev, Dimitry Jan, Pavel Danilov and Vitaly Shlyappo for STS. Aspiring chef Maksim Lavrov (Mark Bogatyrev) wants to build a career as a great cook, but he discovers that the kitchen of the Parisian-themed restaurant Claude Monet is a far harder and more complicated world than he imagined. Around him, head chef Viktor Barinov (Dmitri Nazarov) and waitress Viktoria Goncharova (Elena Podkaminskaya) anchor a tight-knit staff whose shifts, rivalries and romances spill out from the service line into their private lives. Each episode of this twenty-five-minute comedy is built from concrete pressures: a crowded dinner rush, a demanding owner, a broken bond between colleagues, and the constant tangle of infidelity and friendship. Running six seasons and 120 episodes, the show moves as one continuing story with recurring characters and evolving relationships. Its tone is wry, warm and sometimes bruising, with a grounded contemporary Moscow setting. Fans of The Bear, Cheers and Kitchen Confidential will find resonance in its blend of kitchen chaos and character-driven comedy.

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