Karen's Anime Blog

I loved Restaurant to Another World from a while back, so I’m excited for another fantasy restaurant show. So far, Welcome to the Outcast’s Restaurant doesn’t seem very food-focused, but I’ll take what I can get; the other food show this season, Fermat no Ryouri, isn’t licensed yet.

This show uses a couple of tropes that are extremely common lately, the main one being “Dude is kicked out of the hero’s party because the hero is actually a dummy-pants who doesn’t understand how valuable said dude is to the party,” and that goes down exactly like you’d expect. In this case, Dennis is a Level 99 chef who’s been taking care of all the party’s food and medicine. Once our guy Dennis is kicked out, it is totally predictable that the party’s efficiency is going to go way down, the party (Silver Wing) will falter, and I will totally enjoy it regardless of how predictable it is. Ah, schadenfreude.

The second major trope involves Dennis buying the female lead, Atelier, out of slavery. Slavery in fantasy anime has become ubiquitous, and I understand if some anime fans would rather not watch shows that feature slavery. In this case, Dennis sets Atelier free immediately, which is more of a gesture than anything else– she’s too young to support herself and can’t realistically leave– but I think it means a lot that he makes it clear to her that she is no longer a slave. Contrast this with Raphtalia’s situation in The Rising of the Shield Hero, where Naofumi fully intends to use her as a slave when he buys her, regardless of how their relationship develops later.

Most of this first episode focuses on the relationship between Dennis and Atelier as Dennis makes preparations to open a restaurant, with Atelier slowly waking up from her life of misery and realizing that working with Dennis might not be such a bad thing. We know Atelier has been through a lot, and that she used to be a noble before her parents were killed, but we don’t get any flashbacks from her perspective. From the OP, it appears several more young girls will be major players here, so this might be kind of a backdoor Cute-Girls-Doing-Cute-Things anime.

For now, I wonder if there’s really enough here for people to engage with. Dennis seems like a perfectly nice guy, and it will be nice to see Atelier come out of her shell as she acclimates to her new life, but it ends on a note of mild intrigue rather than a cliffhanger. I think I will keep watching, since I watch pretty much all food-focused anime, but I have to give this one only a rather tepid recommendation. It’s not bad, it’s just lacking in original ideas…so far.