Checco Zalone makes fun of the world of gastronomy in Buen Camino

After many years of absence, the comedian Luca Medici (much better known as Checco Zalone) returned to theaters with a new film for which December 25, 2025 was chosen as the debut day. In just four days of programming the feature film became the most watched of the whole year in Italian cinemas. A collection of more than 30 million which allowed exhibitors to breathe a sigh of relief after an uninspiring season. Despite the demonstrated harmony between Zalone and his audience, there was no shortage of criticism from some observers who judged the comedy of the comedian from Bari to be too prudent, blunt and do-gooder, who had instead struck in previous years for his political incorrectness.

Zalone and his new blockbuster film

But if Zalone tries to be more accommodating and less lashing compared to youth films, he certainly doesn’t save himself when it comes to the world of gastronomycuisine, restaurants and symbolic agri-food products. In the film Zalone is a very rich, braggart and vulgar father’s son who has never worked in his life. He spends his life organizing parties (like the super cafonal one for his next 50 years) and running around on his yacht where no anchovies other than “of the Cantabrian” and where the biggest drama is the possible breakage of the ice machine with unacceptable “hot cocktails“. This routine characterized by superficiality and wealth is disturbed by the seventeen-year-old daughter who disappears: Zalone manages to track her down and chase her on a daring journey that will strengthen their relationship.

“Buen Camino”, in brief

Zalone discovers his daughter’s intentions thanks to the story of a friend of hers, who confesses to Zalone in exchange for a “starry dinner“in a funny restaurant where an international chef compares himself with traditional Roman cuisine, a mockery of the worst derivatives of fusion cuisine of a few years ago. The girl gives in and reveals Zalone’s daughter’s intentions only when she manages to help herself with her hands from an unlikely dessert trolley. Only at this point does it become clear that Zalone’s daughter has left to undertake the Way of Santiago de Compostelaprobably tired of a life that is too comfortable and full of jokes.

Cristal, Zalone’s daughter is named after a Champagne

Don’t forget that Zalone’s daughter is called Cristallike the Champagne that the protagonist cannot help but order at every meal. With Cristal, Zalone stays along the Camino in uncomfortable hostels where the uninviting meals are characterized by a simplicity to which he is not accustomed. Zalone, still unable to put himself into the role of the pilgrim, asks who “the chef” in charge of the refectory is, discovering that he is a pilgrim who comes from the East.

Precisely to avoid a further dinner prepared by the Asian, Zalone offers to organize a meal in honor of his daughter who has overcome some difficulties and has finally convinced herself to continue the Way. Daughter Cristal, knowing her father’s tendencies, recommends sobriety, nevertheless Zalone cannot resist his instincts as a spoiled rich man and does the expense in a three Michelin star restaurant and in a very expensive pata negra shop. In order not to disappoint Cristal, however, he pours a very fine French wine into simple plastic tanks and organizes a fake-rural catering by having the multi-starred chef disguise himself as a farmer: luxury raw materials in a rural and fake-frugal context, does this remind you of anything?

The starred cuisine mocked by the cinema

Known for providing a significant thermometer of society, vices, tics and the widespread feeling of the country, Zalone’s comedies have never avoided talking about food and eating habits. But if in the past the sketches were more classic (the simple-minded Italian who, like Alberto Sordi, cannot conceive of the small portions of a gourmet restaurant or the non-traditional cuisine of an Italian restaurant abroad) this time it seems that the starred restaurant or at least its caricature side is in the spotlight. Coincidentally, she is caught in her moment of deepest identity crisis, united in the film with other fatuous consumptions currently in great crisis among other things among a young audience (personified by Cristal) such as powerful cars (Zalone’s Ferrari passed off as a ridiculous and out of place object) or fashion accessories (3800k shoes or unobtainable handbags which however do not impress her daughter).

Checco Zalone, a key to understanding

But if sports cars and fashion accessories make quick appearances in the narrative plot, it is gastronomy that be present more consistently over the hour and a half. The gags therefore focus on luxury consumption, on the clichés of haute cuisine (the star chef first states that he cannot do certain things, but then in exchange for money he lowers himself to any service), on the obsessions of famous ingredients repeated like nursery rhymes. Zalone certifies how some are perceived by the masses exaggerations looked at with indulgence or curiosity about fifteen years ago have today become empty pastimes and boring liturgies. Interesting almost only for upstarts and the wealthy who are still very convinced that in 2025 a gourmet restaurant, an ostentatious ingredient or an unjustifiably overpriced bottle of champagne is enough to create status. It is a trend, this one of taking the excesses of gourmet cuisine for a ride (which contributed to destroying gourmet cuisine), which has consolidated since the seminal film The Menu of 2022 and which has permeated down and down. Up to Checco Zalone.