On this episode, Ragnar speaks with Christine Tobin, a food stylist and culinary creative with over 30 years of industry experience telling powerful stories through food. With a background in fine arts, a family of passionate cooks, and years spent working in restaurants before transitioning into food styling, Christine has brought her expertise to projects including Julia on Max, Don’t Look Up, The Holdovers, Challengers, Little Women, and the upcoming Anthony Bourdain biopic TONY. Across her work, Christine sources ingredients, manages logistics, and designs beautiful and delicious dishes that enrich narratives. Tune in to hear more about food styling and discover how Christine builds food scenes from script to camera on Episode 137: Cooking for the Camera with Food Stylist Christine Tobin.
Tune in and LEARN:
- Behind the Scenes of On-Set Food: Discover how Christine ensures every dish is authentic and camera-ready while prioritizing food safety.
- Collaboration on Set: Learn why adaptability, communication, and teamwork are essential in food styling, and how Christine works with directors, prop teams, assistants and actors, pivoting quickly when creative decisions shift.
- From Script to Plate: Explore Christine’s process of translating written scenes into fully realized dishes. Find out how she reads the script like a recipe, sources ingredients, plans logistics, and builds the culinary world of her projects.
Resources
“Chefs are food stylists. Every chef that presents food on a plate is a food stylist. It’s a big part of the training that chefs are underway in culinary schools and practices…I approach food as an artist first and culinarian second, but all culinarians are artists. Food is a vehicle of art making.”
In this episode, Christine provides valuable insights into the world of food styling. As the only food stylist in the New England area of the United States, Christine has a unique expertise that has been recognized through her work in many series and films.
In each project, Christine starts with the script and written word, like working off a recipe. She reads the script and pulls the food scenes, then looks for examples online that would help illustrate to the director what those foods would look like.
“I lead by visual representation and presentation. Once that is solidified with the director, prop master and set decorating team, then I work with the culinary team like a chef in a restaurant. We go into a catering sensibility where I do the menu breakdown, ingredient breakdown and we source ingredients. We empty out my shed of restaurant equipment and folding tables and we load it out of our cars and cook on the sets.”
In the episode, Christine shares more about this process and discusses one of her best known projects as food stylist for Julia, the Max series based on the life of Julia Childs.
“Assist as many food stylists as you possibly can. Just reach out, even cold call…Look at art, look at paintings, look at contemporary work…
Call your local business manager for film. Always bring a sweet treat for anyone who would want to hire you as an assistant or food stylist.”
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to Christine for joining us. To learn more about her work, click here.
World on a Plate is supported by Nestlé Professional and Electrolux Food Foundation.
