In ‘Materialists,' Restaurants Say Everything About Dating

Eater

3 days ago

is a born-and-raised New Yorker who is an editor for Eater's Northeast region and Eater New York, was the former Eater Austin editor for 10 years, and often writes about food and pop culture.
What do L'Abéille, Joseph Leonard, Birdy's, Nobu, and Altro Paradiso have in common? The New York City restaurants and bars say volumes about the taste of the characters in the Materialists, a modern romantic dramedy from writer and director Celine Song, starring Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal, and Chris Evans.
Materialists centers on a trio (Song is fond of exploring love triangles): matchmaker Lucy is caught between her paramour, debonair private equity partner Harry, and her ex, struggling actor-slash-cater waiter John. Her suitors' economic statuses are starkly different: one woos her with expensive peonies and takes her to omakases; the other intuitively knows her go-to drink order of a Coke and beer and prefers halal carts. Eater interviewed Song about her film, NYC restaurants, and dating culture.
The economic contrasts between the two men are best seen through restaurants, Song explains. The perfect first date restaurant is somewhere conducive to talking, not necessarily the best new restaurant.
'I've been to hot, cool restaurants, but I've not enjoyed myself because I can't hear the person I'm there with, and we have to shout, and then my voice is gone,' Song says. 'It should be a place where you can have a conversation.' While the quality of the food is important, what trumps that is a setting conducive to connection. 'An ideal restaurant is where the food is fucking awesome,' she says. 'If you're on a first date, you might even want to sacrifice a little bit of the food for a quieter room.'
That's why Harry and Lucy's first meal together takes place at Altro Paradiso, 'an amazing restaurant that's a great place to go on a date,' Song says. 'The vibe is important, but the more important thing is how good the food tastes. I don't care about restaurants where the food isn't good.'
Lucy, for her part, is seen meeting clients at Joseph Leonard, an easygoing oyster bar in the West Village.
Lucy walking in Manhattan. Atsushi Nishijima
Those restaurant choices show a person's core: For Pascal's character development, Song knew he'd do so much research on knowing everything about dining out, especially because he can afford it. 'Harry's somebody who will read the New York Times best restaurants list or even Eater,' Song says. His predilections veer lavish, which shows in the rest of his dates, including French Japanese tasting menu L'Abeille, and the two-person omakase at Sushi Ichumura.
On the other hand, Evans' character is more savvy and smart with his limited funds. 'John is somebody who will just know where he can get a really good meal for a certain budget level,' Song says. 'He'll know all of the deals in his neighborhood. There's a banh mi place where he can get something for 12 dollars, and it's awesome. He knows the places that are really delicious and very no-frills.' In one scene at the afterparty for John's play, the group, including Lucy and Harry, goes back to Birdy's, an if-you-know dive bar in Bushwick. She has her two love interests in one space, requiring her to navigate her two sides at the same time.
During the shoot, Song and location manager Joseph Mullaney had to balance selecting restaurants that were good while also showing how luxe they were through film. 'Some restaurants are more photogenic, and some restaurants are better when you're just there in person,' she explains. 'You walk into some amazing space, but then you put a camera on it and it doesn't shoot well. It's because it's the energy that you can't feel in film. You have to feel the textures and the depth, or that color doesn't quite read in the way we want it. Some spaces are really photogenic. It just has to make sense as a character, but also has to look good.'
One of Song's favorite places is Italian restaurant I Sodi, where she, Johnson, Pascal, and Evans had what could be called their first dinner date before rehearsals. 'It's an amazing restaurant,' she says, but 'you cannot enter into every shot and explain what the menu costs or what Eater said about it.' There have to be visual cues to show how fancy these places were. 'It's a balance of what photographs well and where somebody would taste would take you,' she added.
Lucy and John (played by Chris Evans). Atsushi Nishijima
So while the team didn't film at I Sodi, they selected high-end Japanese restaurant Nobu to film a scene that was crucial to Song. Lucy and Harry are having a conversation where she asks him if a romantic date needs to be expensive, and he answers, 'Doesn't it?' She breaks the fourth wall and looks at the camera, which then pans to the deluxe setting. To Harry, these four-dollar-sign category restaurants are an everyday occurrence, but Lucy is not used to it. s. The juxtaposition points out how out of place she inherently is because she's more practical.
'We needed something in a clear way to express luxury,' Song explains. 'Then that joke works because the interior is so spectacular. It's always a balance of what's actually a classy place that a rich person goes to and photographs well in a way that's going to be understood.'
There's also the New York of it all, and needing a restaurant to read well in a high-level city way. 'I think about this all the time,' Song says. 'Because of The Bachelor and these reality TV shows, luxurious restaurants have a certain look that we're all used to: a lot of space, everything's a little shiny.' But that doesn't necessarily make for an interesting setting. She gives Italian restaurant Via Carota as an example. It's a well-known celebrity magnet that is widely known, but it doesn't show up well on camera.
Dining and drinking together is a through-line in most romantic comedies, but the setting doesn't matter.
'Some of my favorite dates have been at diners, McDonald's, or bars,' Song says. 'The point is to eat together and talk and eat. That's really what the most romantic thing about it is.'
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