I feel like I've seen "A Taste of Romance" (9 tonight, Hallmark) before. In fact, I kind of feel like I saw it on Hallmark last week.
That's because it has the same theme as "Fixing Pete," the last Hallmark offering I reviewed: uptight professional woman needs "loosening up" by regular guy who's in her same field. Because everyone knows that having a career makes women hard and unlovable.
Still, "Romance" manages to find a way to be a charming variation on that faulty theme. That's mostly because the actors approach the whole thing with a dignity that exceeds the material.
Teri Polo is chef Sara Westbrook, a classically trained chef who owns an upscale French cafe, along with pastry chef Patsy (Romy Rosemont). To her chagrin, The Five Alarm Grill opens next door. It's basically a burger joint opened by former firemen, including widowed cutie Gill Callahan (James Patrick Stuart) and Danny (Rockmond Dunbar). Gill has a precocious adoring daughter Hannah (Bailee Madison).
Sara and Gill start off on the wrong foot; her tender sensibilities are offended when he plays rock music while painting the place. The animosity escalates when Gill pranks her, starting a series of retaliations. Meanwhile, the grill is doing well, while the upscale cafe scrapes by. When Sara meets and falls for Hannah, the hostility starts to thaw.
You believe Polo in her role; she comes across as both smart and cultured. And as a woman opening herself up to love, but who is unsure that is the right thing to do, she sustains her authenticity by underplaying. Not once is she silly or girlish; her missteps and her attraction to Gill feel like the steps of a grown woman. Stuart too doesn't take the 'he's a big kid' thing too far. He's a bit vanilla and his and Polo's chemistry is non-existent. But you like him. Madison isn't cloying in her more-sensible-than-the-adults role.
In fact, everyone is so poised that you might not invest in the relationship. It's not a passionate one. But I think the food setting gives the same old same old a nice spin. There's even a visit to a food truck -- someone was trying with this script.
"A Taste of Romance" isn't comparable to a meal at a fancy French restaurant. But it ain't chopped liver either.
Assistant Features Editor Adrienne Johnson Martin would like to have her life turned into an animated cartoon. 
