No flavor to ‘No Reservations'. Not-so-appetizing drama lays the sweetness on much too thickly.

With its designer cast, European pedigree and strange, yet unmistakable flavor of cardboard, “No Reservations” is a bit like a Big Mac served on Tiffany tableware. Unevenly adapted from the German lonely-gal fantasy “Mostly Martha” (2001), this heavily starched tale of a big-city chef (Catherine Zeta-Jones) seeking maternal and romantic fulfillment will leave wanting all but the most forgiving of palates.

Long type-cast as a sultry, strong-willed man-buster (“Entrapment,” “Chicago”), Zeta-Jones has told interviewers that “No Reservations” is her long-awaited chance to explore her vulnerable side. And explore it she does, but with a performance so bloodless and guarded that one questions the wisdom of leaving her pigeonhole.

Zeta-Jones plays Kate, a celebrated New York City chef who runs her kitchen with all the joy of a Soviet gulag. Rigid and isolated, Kate rarely dines on her own cuisine, but takes enormous, hostile pride in it. Much to the chagrin of the restaurant's coolly diplomatic owner (Patricia Clarkson), Kate routinely berates customers who question her culinary judgment. Suffer the foie gras, or suffer her wrath.

Don't you see? Cooking is a defense for Kate. She uses it to shut people out, including her own analyst (Bob Balaban), who can barely keep his mind on her wounded psyche between delicate, saffron-flavored bites of scallops and vegetables julienne.

Kate finally meets her match in Zoe (Abigail Breslin from “Little Miss Sunshine”), the adorable, orphaned niece she inherits after her sister dies in a car accident. Emotionally broken by the tragedy, Zoe has no interest in Kate's cooking. She is immune to Kate's magic, and therefore a threat to her solitude. It's a nice set-up, but never one that director Scott Hicks - best known for “Shine” (1996) - exploits for the expected, knock-out scene of catharsis. (Even when comforting a tear-stained Zoe at her mother's grave, Zeta-Jones seems half-there.)

Naturally, there's a love interest, too: Nick (Aaron Eckhart), a newly hired sous chef every bit as free-spirited as Kate is restricted. One imagines that first-time screenwriter Carol Fuchs designed Nick's antics (bellowing Italian opera, spinning white lies) to be boyishly charming, but the opposite is true. He comes off as a passive-aggressive egomaniac. In any case, the comic-Nick moments feel violently out of step with the serious-Zoe moments, encased as they are in Philip Glass' weighty, dirge-like score.

Evenness of tone is a problem for Hicks (“Hearts in Atlantis”), who exchanges the finer notes of the German original - the undercurrent of self-denial, the heroine's essential warmth - with copious squirts of saccharine. Good dining, it is not.

‘No Reservations'

Stars: Catherine Zeta-Jones, Aaron Eckhart, Abigail Breslin

Behind the scenes: Directed by Scott Hicks, from a script by Carol Fuchs

Rating: Rated PG for some sensuality and language

Running time: 1 hour, 46 minutes

Grade: D+