Leehama, Official Art, Gourmet Hound, Webtoon.
Gourmet Hound – Information
Content Warnings
These content warnings do not reflect the contents of the review below; only the literary work itself.
- Loss / Death
- Injury
- Trauma
- Illness
Spoiler Disclaimer
This recommendation post may contain small plot spoilers for review purposes. Any major spoilers are hidden by default and are able to be revealed via click or tap.
Gourmet Hound – Plot Summary
Gourmet Hound is a very wholesome and beautiful story with very light romance elements included, but they are not necessarily the main focus (although love in general is an included theme).
This story follows Lucy Fuji, as she searches for a specific chef whose cooking she remembers from her childhood.
Lucy grew up occasionally eating at a well-known French restaurant called Dimanche with her grandmother, who was best friends with the owner of the restaurant and also the owner of a cooking school.
However, years later as an adult, Lucy realizes that the beloved Dimanche taste she remembers from her childhood has changed. After discovering this, she becomes determined to find out what went wrong, and who exactly created that original beloved taste for her.
Lucy receives the help of two previous Dimanche chefs, Brie and Graham, both of whom she meets when she starts a part time job at their local cafe. We follow Lucy’s adventures as she meets more and more Dimanche chefs, and slowly learns the truth of what happened at Dimanche.
Why I Enjoyed Gourmet Hound
Gourmet Hound is an extremely wholesome story with an incredibly cute theme of food! All of the characters have food-related names that honestly feel pretty natural, but still really cute (Lucy Fuji = fuji apples).
The story does an amazing job of incorporating food in an interesting and wholesome way, impressively showing how food can affect and connect people’s lives in different ways.
Every character in this story is so interesting! This Webtoon has characters with a fantastic variety of personalities, as well as a lovely range of diversity.
We get to not only see representation for a variety of different cultures, ethnicities, and the inclusion of LGBTQIA+ characters, but even the food featured in each chapter has a nice cultural variety with cute little explanations at the end for those who may be unfamiliar with the featured dish.
Gourmet Hound is incredibly inclusive, and is filled with characters who demonstrate very realistic feelings and emotions!
This webtoon is also very humorous, with the characters reacting to each other’s unique personalities without hesitation, and appropriate jokes sprinkled throughout the story. It helps keep the vibe of the story balanced and lighthearted! It also lets you appreciate each character’s vivid personality even more.
Leehama, Official Art, Gourmet Hound, Webtoon.
As the story progresses, we get a peek into each character’s heart and slowly collect fragments of what happened at Dimanche from their point of view. Their emotions are portrayed very well in this story. We get a combination of flashbacks to show their personal experiences, as well as multiple characters’ points of view and emotions.
The emotions of every character feel so raw, and the story accurately portrays how difficult communication can be in certain settings, especially with different expectations from others weighing on you.
The romance elements of this webtoon are incredibly slow-burn for the main character, Lucy. You can definitely recognize moments for the main love interest where the feelings for her grow (and her feelings for them, too) but the actual romance is very natural and slow-paced.
Still, the resolution for these two feels very appropriate, well-timed, and satisfying! And, even without fast progress in terms of a main romance, there are strong themes of love in this beautiful story! Familial love, love for food, love for your friends, and even for those around you.
Another thing I liked about this Webtoon is that all of the characters are so lovable in this Webtoon. They all have such distinct personalities and opinions, and even the characters who you may originally dislike begin to have their own backstory and reasonings.
It’s a great story and a wonderful overall “lesson,” that makes you remember that humans can make mistakes, blame others, or choose to protect themselves over others, but can still have good hearts and good intentions.
Leehama, Official Art, Gourmet Hound, Webtoon.
I also loved that communication and vulnerability were two important themes in this webtoon. Even if it was difficult for these characters to communicate their feelings and be honest with each other, they all seemed to learn just how important and valuable doing so was.
They learned from their mistakes by opening up and discovering how much could be taken off their shoulders by relying on others!
Overall, Gourmet Hound was a lovely story with many deep topics about overcoming grief, loss, and regret, accepting both the ups and downs of life, and enjoying all the different sources of happiness as much as you can (especially with those around you).
Any Cons?
The only complaint for this amazing Webtoon is that I would’ve loved to see more romance elements between the main love interests for a few chapters after the resolution, but the story was amazing even without it! I have no other complaints.
Plus, we get to see Lucy grow as a person, understand herself and others better, overcome grief, and even help others from the goodness of her heart. ♡
More In-Depth Review (Warning: Spoilers!)
I really, really like the resolution and overall “lesson” of this story.
Even though it was a bit obvious from the start, it was still nice for Lucy to realize what it was she was missing. She didn’t miss a specific chef’s flavor, but she missed an important person in her life that made every dish complete; as well as the teamwork and love between everyone who worked at Dimanche.
I think this aspect of Gourmet Hound was well-written, because even though there is no “happy” ending where Lucy discovers the chef with a specific flavor, she actually just learns how to cope with loss of a loved one and realizes where the emptiness was actually coming from.
She meets more people along the way who become precious to her, and realizes she can still rebuild her happiness after loss. Everyone processes grief differently, and Lucy needed to process hers in her own way.
Another important aspect for this resolution that the author mentions in the afterword is that the romance wasn’t too heavy because of how they wanted Lucy to rebuild her happiness properly.
I think that’s actually a valid reason to not go heavy on the romance, because marriage and romantic relationships don’t necessarily guarantee happiness.
In other words, people can still be happy without those things. They mentioned a similar reasoning for how Heath and Brie’s relationship played out. I really respect the author for writing the story with those elements in mind.
Final Thoughts
Overall, Gourmet Hound is a really enjoyable story. Even without heavy romance aspects, it was a beautiful story with lots of lovable characters, yummy food art, and an engaging plot!
If you’re anything like me, you’ll likely tear up at some moments of this story, so bring your tissues. I definitely recommend this webtoon if you enjoy heartfelt, wholesome stories!
Disclaimer: Any images used for this blog are for illustrative purposes only, are not owned by me, and are under ownership of the artist or publisher.
Images Credit: Leehama. Gourmet Hound. Webtoon, 2017. https://www.webtoons.com/en/drama/gourmet-hound/list?title_no=1245.
