Julia Barretto is a chef caught in a love triangle in ‘Secret Ingredient’

The pilot episode of the regional romantic-drama Secret Ingredient ended in a cliffhanger that made the audiences at the advance screening last 28 April squeal with excitement.

A brewing love triangle set in a kitchen restaurant in Jakarta, Viu’s first original regional series stars Julia Barretto, Korean actor Sang Heon “SH” Lee, and Indonesian actor Nicholas Saputra.

Barretto plays Maya, a financially struggling novice chef, whose life (and heart) gets entangled between two men — the acclaimed chef Arif (Saputra) and her fellow commis chef, the Korean Ha-Joon (SH), who leads a secret life.

At the mediacon following the screening of the first-two short episodes, Barretto shared that she had fun on the set and got along wonderfully with a multicultural cast and crew.

Her two male-costars are household names in their respective countries. SH rose to fame in Netflix’s XO, Kitty, the spin-off of Jenny Han’s highly popular To All the Boys film series. Meanwhile, Saputra, an Indonesian actor and film producer, is known for his role in 2003’s Biola Tak Bedrawal, Indonesia’s submission to the 76th Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film.

Written by Baek Dong-hoon and directed by Cho Young-gwan, the soap-y Secret Ingredient is a collaboration between Viu and Unilever Nutrition Southeast Asia and Indonesia, and features familiar food products from all the countries it represents.

Showrunner Corrina Vistan, who has worked for blockbuster movies Doctor Strange (2016) and Iron Man 2 (2010), and created the Viu drama series K-Love, which ran for a year and starred Iza Calzado, said Secret Ingredient will continue to drop “edge-of-seat” excitement in every episode.

After the screening of the first to episodes, she promised more twists and turns in the show.

“There’s going to be a lot more surprises. We really, really tried that in every episode, there’s a huge cliffhanger,” she said.

For Vistan, the show will appeal to those who enjoy romantic thrills and the culture in a commercial kitchen. She is sure that audiences will love the series “if you enjoy the kilig, and the intense story of what’s it like in a kitchen (restaurant), and the love story that grows,” she said.

When asked about the challenges in bringing the script to life, she said:

“Well, this is the first time — at least I know for Viu — that we had four different languages in our script. We have English, Korean, Bahasa, and Tagalog. And it was really wanting to make sure we got it right, that we were authentic to all the languages, the accents, the way people speak. We really wanted to get that right.”

Meanwhile, Barretto said Secret Ingredient is a “rare” project that she’s grateful for.

“It’s not an opportunity you come across every day. I think it’s still a challenge for us Filipino artists to try to just get on the global stage and have different experiences and to be able to work with different productions. So just being able to do this, I really value it. I really cherish this opportunity.”

When asked about how the show has made an impact on her personal growth, Barretto, who, in real-life has a passion for cooking, was candid in her answer.

“This is such a huge opportunity for me. Just this alone being a global series and being able to work with SH from Korea, and Nicolas, who’s from Indonesia, and having a Korean director, there’s just so much growth alone — even being on the set, because, you’re almost required to adapt right away, adjust right away, especially when we all had our differences. But thankfully, we really did get along. We were all on the same page.”

Barreto, who polished her existing cooking skills under chef Mae Montalban in a three-day intensive course for this series, further revealed her experience in a multicultural environment.

“We all had one goal. We were all aligned. We really wanted (the series) to come out really beautifully. Just having to adapt and to adjust and getting out of my comfort zone alone, I feel like it’s already growth for me alone. Hopefully, praying to God, there’s more (like this project) to come.”

 Secret Ingredient premiered 30 April on Viu, and will be dropping new episodes every Tuesday at noon for free.