Listicle: 10 onscreen dishes we’re drooling over

From Carmy’s Italian beef sandwich to TSITP’s margaritas and Laapataa Ladies’ lotus stem curry, these 10 onscreen treats had us drooling and googling recipes

Pomegranate Margarita, from The Summer I Turned Pretty S1 (2022).TSITP was a pain to get through, but the scene in S1, in which Belly, Jeremiah and Conrad secretly make a batch of the cocktail is cute. Belly’s version of the drink had red Kool-Aid, pomegranate juice, and lots of ice. She lost control sipping “two or five” of them, tripped and caused her birthday cake to get smashed. Utter chaos. Those must have been some good margaritas.

In S1 of The Summer I Turned Pretty, Belly had too many pomegranate margaritas. It caused chaos.

When Life Gives You Tangerines had us all rushing to whip up peas and rice.

Rice and Peas, from When Life Gives You Tangerines (2025). The K-drama is set in 1950s Jeju, a time when men ate separately from women and were served the best parts of the meal. Gwan-sik, a fisherman, not only chooses to sit with his wife and child, but also saves the peas in his barley-rice-and-peas meal for his daughter, who loves them. Nothing on Jeju island is dull, why would this dish be?

Carmy’s Chicago-style Italian beef sandwich is hearty, flavourful, and messy. (SHUTTERSTOCK)

Italian Beef Sandwich, from The Bear (2022 - ). Carmy’s Chicago-style Italian beef sandwich looks so good, it got vegetarians rethinking their life’s choices. He refined The Original Beef of Chicagoland’s signature sandwich, standardising the portion sizes and improving the jus and vegetable relish. It’s hearty, flavourful, and deliciously messy. You will get stains on your shirt. But it’s worth it.

Emily in Paris was mostly cringe, but the show did make a single leek seem appetising.

Leek Vinaigrette, from Emily in Paris S2 (2021). Forget Emily’s cringe escapades in the French capital. Focus on what people are eating. In a S2 episode, Gabriel whips up an appetiser made of a single blanched leek, topped with caviar and mustard, to show her how to coax the flavours out of the stalk. The show’s food stylist struggled to make a single leek look appealing. It worked. We’re all into leeks now.

All of Us Strangers had a beautiful, painful scene in which the son ate flapjacks his mum made. (SHUTTERSTOCK)

Tea and Flapjacks, from All of Us Strangers (2023). Adam returns to his childhood home to come out to his mother. He does it over (title alert!) tea and flapjacks, his fav, in the kitchen. It’s a beautiful, painful scene; the mother was looking forward to hearing that he had a girlfriend. She doesn’t eat the meal. We know why. It means that a cherished shared tradition is now altered forever.

We’d love to know the recipe for the rabbit and vegetables meal featured in The Last of Us.

Rabbit and Vegetables, from The Last of Us S1 (2023 - ). So what if it’s the apocalypse? That doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy good food. In the bottle episode Long, Long Time, Frank, on his way to a military zone in Boston, stumbles on Bill’s home. Grudgingly, Bill agrees to cook him a meal – seared rabbit with vegetables and wine. It’s more than a nourishment. It’s the gesture that kick-starts their relationship.

Everything Everywhere All At Once made us crave hot scallion noodles.

Scallion Noodles, from Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022). It’s a simple, last-minute meal – noodles tossed in soy sauce, chopped onions, and sesame seeds. But for most Chinese, it’s a core family memory. Evelyn prepares it in a rush; running a laundromat leaves no room for elaborate meals. But in a movie with multiverses, mumbling rocks, monsters and making up, it’s comfortingly familiar.

The Smiley Congee from Turning Red looked too cute to eat.

Smiley Congee, from Turning Red (2022). In Pixar’s painfully accurate movie about the anxieties of growing up, Mei’s mother embarrasses her in front of her whole school. To make up for it in typical Asian-style, she makes Mei’s favourite dish: Congee, with two eggs for eyes, a cute button mushroom nose, and a soy sauce smile. It’s appeared in other animated movies too; In Disney’s Mulan, it had a bacon-strip for a smile.

In Laapataa Ladies, Deepak’s mother Yashoda loved lotus stem curry. (SHUTTERSTOCK; INSTAGRAM/@RAODYNESS)

Lotus Stem Curry, from Laapataa Ladies (2024). There’s a small but powerful moment as Deepak is trying to locate his missing bride, Phool. His mother Yashoda talks about making her own favourite dish, one she still remembers liking; the rest of her preferences long eclipsed by those of her husband and son. “My mother used to make it like this, and season it with lots of garlic and onion,” she recalls. We hope she’s enjoying it somewhere.

The French film The Taste of Things is filled with delicious food montages.

Chicken in Half-Mourning, from The Taste of Things (2023). There’s more chemistry than spices simmering in this French film. Chef Dodin and his head cook Eugénie share a love for creating elaborate meals that’s only second to their complicated romance. There’s veal and braised lettuce, turbot cooked in milk, and split-pea soup. But the dish that’s most memorable is poularde demi-deuil, named because the truffles slipped in between the skin of the chicken resemble a black-and-white mourning veil. The chicken is cooked with leeks, carrots, celery hearts, and served with a creamy truffle sauce. Yes please!

From HT Brunch, November 29, 2025

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