TL;DR: Carême is a luscious, over-the-top confection of sex, sugar, and sabotage, where French pastry meets political intrigue. It’s ridiculous, irresistible, and best consumed slowly—like an opium-laced croquembouche.
Carême
There are TV shows that simmer, some that sizzle, and then there are the ones that flambé themselves in absinthe and whipped cream. Carême is absolutely the latter.
Set in post-revolutionary France and swirling with opium smoke, confectioner’s sugar, and political backstabbing, this show introduces us to the chef as antihero, lover, and rogue—a tortured genius who can pipe perfect pastry while plotting Napoleon’s downfall. It’s not just a period drama, it’s a dessert-fueled fever dream.
Benjamin Voisin plays Antonin Carême like a pastry-slinging rockstar: moody, magnetic, and forever covered in some combination of flour and scandal. The first few minutes give you all you need to know. There’s whipped cream, sex, and a cheeky line about poisoning Napoleon’s troops. And yes, there’s a war on, but more importantly: can Carême impress the consulate with his croissants? That’s the show’s sweet spot—treating culinary brilliance with the high-stakes intensity usually reserved for bomb disposal units.
But don’t be fooled by its flour-dusted froth. This show has bite. Carême is as much about grief and revenge as it is ganache. Haunted by the death of his adopted sister (which he squarely blames on Napoleon), he walks a tightrope between revolution and careerism. It’s a war story where chocolate is both a seduction and a weapon.
And then there’s the kitchen. Oh, the kitchen.
If The Bear turned the restaurant world into a battleground of anxiety and art, Carême takes it to Versailles. Carême’s lab of decadence is where class politics and culinary perfection collide. He recruits Agathe (Alice Da Luz), a calm, methodical counterweight to his chaos, with the promise that they won’t sleep together. Naturally, the sexual tension is so thick you could glaze a tart with it. Every smouldering glance over a soufflé is more loaded than a pistol at a duel.
Narratively, it shares DNA with The Great—the same playful rewriting of history, the same sense of ornate chaos, the same love of orgies and powdered wigs. But where The Great crackles with razor-sharp irony, Carême leans into melodrama. It wants to make you swoon, not smirk.
And yet, its greatest asset is its commitment to the sensory. Watching Carême is like bingeing Bake Off after four espressos and a shot of absinthe. Apple TV+ clearly spent serious money on the show’s lush aesthetic, and it pays off: towering sugar sculptures, sumptuous feasts, opulent costumes, and a Versailles so decadent it practically sweats butter.
At times, Carême is wildly ridiculous. Voisin’s character is an everything man: pastry savant, opium user, herbalist, spy, fighter, and—of course—lover. The man makes mille-feuille and mayhem with equal finesse. It’s absurd, but so deliciously watchable that you don’t care if it’s historically accurate (spoiler: it’s not).
The show works in part because it understands its own absurdity. It doesn’t try to be prestige TV. It knows that watching a man seduce a nation—and several noblewomen—with dessert is inherently silly. And it leans in. Fully.
By episode three, you’ll stop asking, “Wait, is this a spy thriller or a pastry show?” and just accept that it’s both. One minute, Carême is sabotaging a rival’s dinner service. The next, he’s gently poaching pears for Joséphine while whispering about trauma. It’s totally unhinged. And it’s fantastic.
Even if it doesn’t quite reach the satirical brilliance of The Great, and even if you sometimes want to throttle Carême for being a gorgeous idiot, the show has something a lot of prestige TV has lost: pure, indulgent fun. Apple’s decision to release episodes weekly instead of all at once helps, too. Carême is a lot to digest in one sitting, but in small bites, it’s perfection.
Carême is the kind of show that licks the spoon, licks the enemy, and then lights the kitchen on fire. In other words: it’s delicious.
