ONE DISH, ONE KITCHEN, ONE STORY.
THE STORIES THAT STAY BEHIND THE COUNTER
Every day, food from all over the world is cooked in Paris. The people who cook it — families, cooks working alone, second-generation kids — rarely appear on camera. Their stories mostly stay behind the counter.
In these kitchens, we come together. Whatever our nationality, religion, beliefs, politics or the colour of our skin, they bring France together — and, in a quiet way, the world: flavours from far away, dishes from countries many of us have never seen.
It’s what a family kitchen has always done. Everyone comes home in the evening and eats at the same table; on Sunday mornings and on holidays, the whole family gathers around it. These kitchens do the same for a world that keeps pulling apart: they bring it back together around food.
That’s why we call it Kitchen Nation. Around these tables we are one people — curious, without prejudice, wanting to know the culture behind the dish. So we go looking for the stories of the kitchens that bring us together.
Kitchen Nation was made to tell those stories one at a time, without hurry. Where a dish comes from, whose hands it has passed through and what it means in this city — in the words of the people who cook it.
THREE THINGS, IN EVERY EPISODE
- Kitchen
- The food is cooked the way it is cooked at home. No fusion, no chef’s table; the recipe as it is, from start to finish.
- Place
- The restaurant is seen as part of its neighbourhood: the counter, the back room, the street outside.
- People
- The person behind the counter and their family: where they came from, why they stayed, what this dish means to them.
ON YOUTUBE, IN THREE LANGUAGES
- YouTube
- Full episodes are released on the Kitchen Nation channel.
- Instagram · TikTok
- Short cuts from every kitchen, plus behind the scenes.
- Subtitles
- Every episode is subtitled in Turkish, French and English. Everyone speaks in their own language.
- Paris
- The series is filmed in Paris: a kitchen from every corner of the city.
FOUR RULES
- Documentary, not advertising.The kitchens featured in an episode do not pay; no one interferes with its content.
- Nothing is staged.The food is filmed the way it is cooked that day. No script, no lines, no retakes.
- Everyone speaks their own language.French, Turkish, Arabic, Khmer, Tibetan… The subtitles take care of the rest.
- The story belongs to its owner.Each episode is shared with the participants before it is released.
MADE IN PARIS.
Kitchen Nation is produced by New Works Creative, a Paris-based production and advertising agency. Its parent organisation, Paris Kültür Sanat, has been organising cultural events in Paris since 2001; the series develops within that structure as an independent documentary.
An independent production.