Graphic Novel Review - 'The Restaurant at the Edge of the World' by Oliver Gerlach (Writer), Kelsi Jo Silva (Artist)

Food! Glorious food!

'The Restaurant at the Edge of the World' ('Off Menu' in the US) - what a loving, warm, passionate, rustic, authentic (oddly enough), otherworldly cosy fantasy graphic novel. It is like Gordon Ramsay's 'Hell's Kitchen' set in a fantasy world. It is like if 'The Café at the Edge of the Woods' was a full-blown comic book. It is 'The Lord of the Rings' with its focus entirely on restaurants, food chains and marketplaces. I could practically smell the foods and the kitchens in this.

Accurately depicting working at a real famous restaurant and all that entails, it is an intense, stressful, hustle and bustle, and hard-hitting experience, but it is worth it at the end, for the good-vs-evil, poor-vs-rich story's empowering and hopeful message.

In my humble opinion, 'The Restaurant at the Edge of the World' is one of the best cottage cheese core fantasy books I've ever read. It belongs among the spice racks of 'Legends & Lattes', 'The Baker and the Bard', 'Delicious in Dungeon' (a reach, but still), 'The Bakery Dragon', and the works of Kay O'Neill.

And how similar it is to another recently released graphic novel I read at the same time, 'Crumble'. That one also has a young (human) female protagonist who is a talented chef and baker, who grew up in the business, and who has a nonbinary best friend who loves to eat her food. The main differences are that 'Crumble' is extremely lowkey fantasy, and Soup, the protag of 'The Restaurant', has a found family and community theme to her character arc, as well as needing to overcome an obstacle of getting out more and exploring new horizons and adventures, and the stakes are much higher in her story.


'A villainous boss, a magical bet, may the best cook win...'


I like that Soup, by the bye one of the few humans in 'The Restaurant''s fantasy world, is a fat girl. Throw away sour and stale tradition and convention: let's celebrate different body types as well as races and species. Additional rep: Soup is implied to be bisexual at the beginning, in her introducing herself, her restaurant home, and her world to the readers. There's no romance in the story, otherwise, which is good. Keep up the originality and convention-breaking.

There are bits of 'Imelda and the Goblin King' and 'Basil and Oregano' (though 'The Restaurant' is far better than that) to this cuisine, too.

It's not a perfect recipe. The main flaw I find with it is it doesn't really develop any characters who are not Soup, her nonbinary friend Clarion, and her evil, toxic, abusive, unethical, narcissistic, megalomaniacal capitalist boss, Trysil Heldritch. (Oh, and there's Squillace, Soup's dishwater elemental companion. He's cute.) I could barely tell the side characters and the very minor characters apart, and now and then I even got them confused with background players. This goes against the comic's friendship, found family and community theme, somewhat. Forest fae spirits are sort of thrown in near the end, too, with little-to-no build up.

But I don't know. The book overall is rich, raw, flavoursome, and enchanting. It's cute and sweet, to add to the meaty-and-veggie mixture. Oh, there's so much mouthwatering food! It's a delicious, delectable graphic novel, and I dare anyone not to feel hungry after devouring it.

Basically, if you like food, cooking, and fantasy, then read 'The Restaurant at the Edge of the World'.

Bon appétit.

Final Score: 4/5