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The Cooks: pilot telemovie

Temptation

Australia: August 31, 2003 (Ten)
Canada: September 09, 2003 (W)
Executive Producer: Sue Masters
Producer: Penny Chapman
Writer: Sue Smith
Director: Tony Tilse
Starring:
  • Colin Friels as Roberto
  • Rhondda Findleton as Rita
  • Kate Atkinson as Ruth
  • Toby Schmitz as Gabriel
  • Nicholas Brown as Sachin
  • Emma Lung as Carmelita
  • Tirzah Gestetner as Rosalba
  • Alan David Lee as Mark
  • Jacqueline Brennan as Cathy
  • Lindsay Wallington as Fi
  • Winston Cooper as Tony
  • Simon Westaway as Bob
  • Essie Davis as Julie
  • Damian Rice as TAFE Teacher
  • Adam Tuominen as Courier
  • Michael Denkha as Joey
  • Mark Jensen as Austioneer
  • Kim Knuckey as Councillor
  • Andrew Matthews as City Hotel Chef
  • Rebecca Smee as Breatharian
  • Nick Simpson-Deeks as Agent
  • Daniel Marcatiu as Official

Temptation is a television drama about cooking, love and passion.

Temptation is a tale of two warring restaurants—but it’s a war undermined by secret love and mutual admiration.

Ruth (Kate Atkinson), Gabriel (Toby Schmitz), Sachin (Nicholas Brown) and Carmelita (Emma Lung) are young cooks fresh out of cooking school. Tonight, they celebrate their new life with a chilli-eating binge. Tomorrow, Sachin is to be married to a stranger so he can stay in the country and be with his true love, Carmelita. When his bride doesn’t show, Sachin is faced with deportation.

Gabriel is about to start work at his father’s restaurant. He attempts to persuade the autocratic Roberto (Colin Friels) to sponsor Sachin. Considering Roberto regards all Indians as liars, cheats and thieves this proves to be a hard task.

Roberto is having problems of his own. Small parcels of strangely familiar exquisite dishes have been arriving, origin unknown. Roberto is uneasy. We see scarred hands preparing them but the author remains a mystery. As more arrive, Roberto becomes increasingly unhinged.

The two top students of their graduation year, Ruth and Gabe are selected to face each other in a cook-off. The big day delivers a lovely shock—Gabe and Ruth have fallen in love.

Then Ruth astonishes everyone and outrages Roberto by announcing that she is opening a restaurant across the road from his. Her partner is Rita (Rhondda Findleton), a genius maverick cook and ex-partner of Roberto’s—in the kitchen and the bedroom.

Across the divide, the two restaurants, which—thanks to old passions and enmities—are at war. The Romeo and Juliet tale takes new twists as Gabe and Ruth try to come to terms with their desires, Roberto and Rita deal with their passionate and troubled past, while Sachin and Carmelita determine that love will conquer all.