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Cooking Up Murder: Uncovering the Story of César Román is a three-part docuseries that lays out the grisly 2018 murder of Heidi Paz, and the conviction of acclaimed chef César Román for the killing. Through news footage, reenactments and interviews, the series’ filmmakers try to construct a picture of Román, who shot to fame in 2016 as the “King of Cachopo” when a contest judged his version of the Asturian comfort food dish the best in Spain. The series includes a video interview Román did from prison, where he is serving a 15-year sentence for Paz’s murder, even though he still maintains his innocence.
COOKING UP MURDER: UNCOVERING THE STORY OF CÉSAR ROMÁN: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: A prison door opens and we see a reenactment of a man being led out of a cell by corrections officers.
The Gist: The story goes back and forth between 2018, when the torso dismembered body covered in a white powder was found in a suitcase under a staircase in a building in Madrid, and 2016, when Román became famous for his cachopo. Román was a man of short stature but great confidence, and he claimed that he’s done everything from being in the military to conducting top secret espionage.
His restaurant empire grew exponentially after the attention he got for his cachopo, but it wasn’t long before he stopped paying employees and suppliers, and the restaurants closed in rapid succession. At the same time he was dating Paz, a server at one of his restaurants. After she disappeared and the torso was found, the police wouldn’t tell Paz’s mother that she might be the one that was found, leaving her confused and in a distraught limbo. In the meantime, Román disappeared from public life, disguising himself and getting a job cooking at a restaurant in Zaragoza.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Because of the deceptiveness involved, Cooking Up Murder has a lot of elements of Bad Vegan.
Our Take: In a lot of ways, Cooking Up Murder is a pretty straightforward true crime docuseries; it lays out the case and the people involved and talks to the principals, including the person convicted of the murder. It doesn’t quite go in a linear fashion, but the time period it’s examining — Román rise to fame in 2016 through the 2018 murder of Paz and Román’s arrest and trial — is so short that the back and forth isn’t all that distracting.
What the producers of Cooking Up Murder have done a good job with is showing just how intricate the story Román constructed for himself actually is. They have multiple actors playing him in reenactments, along with tiny painted figurines representing the different aspects of his life that Román has discussed. In the first episode, they tend to hold judgement on whether these things that he’s saying are believable or not. At this point, they’re more interested in building the story of just how this heretofore unknown chef became so famous so quickly.
As usual, the victim, Heidi Paz, should get as much if not more attention than Román does, especially because we see him speculating that her dark side caught up to her as she was wrapped up in a cocaine bust shortly before her disappearance. The assumption is that she was eliminated by cartel types, not by Román. But by having him be able to freely state his views of what happened to her, the filmmakers are doing Paz and her mother a disservice.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: Román says, “When Little Red Riding Hood tells the story, the wolf is the bad guy,” before he starts to talk about what he thinks led to Paz’s death.
Sleeper Star: The sleeper star is the cachopo, full stop.
Most Pilot-y Line: The multiple actors playing Román in the reenactments was a clever touch. So much so that the figurines were probably not necessary.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Cooking Up Murder: Uncovering the Story of César Román is a straightforward docuseries about a famous chef who was at the least an expert fabulist and con artist, but is also a convicted murderer.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
