What does the man who has everything really want for dinner? A humble hamburger — at least, that’s what Succession seems to be telling us.
In the season four opener, Murdoch-esque media mogul Logan Roy slips away from his lavishly catered birthday party and decamps to a low-key diner, where he mulls the meaning of life in the company of monosyllabic bodyguard Colin. “What are people?” asks the tycoon, before concluding, depressingly, “Economic units.” This existential crisis with a side of fries is (spoiler alert) Logan’s on-screen Last Supper, and it reveals more about him and his ilk than a disdain for canapés.
Food is everywhere in Succession — yet rarely is anybody enjoying it much. From patricidal mozzarella salads to excruciating Thanksgiving suppers where the priority is roasting people, not turkeys, the dinner table is a battleground.
This unappetizing banquet speaks volumes. In a show with such impressive attention-to-detail, known for employing wealth consultants to fine-tune its portrayal of the 0.1 percent, whatever these characters do (or don’t) choose to eat is no afterthought: just like the art hanging in their Upper East Side apartments, their stealth-wealth wardrobes or how to walk onto a helicopter like you’ve been doing it all your life (tip: don’t duck your head).
You might expect the food featured in Succession to be all caviar and Champagne. Sure, decadent fare does get a look in sometimes — but usually for characters with something to prove. When Kendall tries to woo back his estranged wife back in series one, he wined and dined her at Le Coucou. One of Manhattan’s most coveted fine-dining newcomers back when the pilot aired (fake heiress Anna Sorokin used to frequent it circa 2017), it was the perfect choice for Logan’s chronically insecure scion: a trendy yet reassuringly old-school spot, where the $61 “all of the rabbit” and $80 dover sole put a moneyed Manhattan spin on French bistro fare.
Cousin Greg’s ascent up the corporate ladder means he must wave goodbye to his beloved Cajun chicken linguini at California Pizza Kitchen, and instead submit to the icky ritual of ortolan. This controversial (in some places, illegal) dish of brandy-drowned, roasted songbird should be consumed with a linen napkin draped over one’s head “to mask the shame heighten the pleasure,” mentor Tom Wambsgans explains.
Ah yes, Tom. It’s no coincidence that the show’s most desperate striver is also its foremost gourmand
Ah yes, Tom. It’s no coincidence that the show’s most desperate striver is also its foremost gourmand. The middle-class Minnesotan done good is at pains to show off the rarefied tastes he’s acquired by marrying into the Roy family. (“But that’s not how you’re supposed to like it,” he groans about Greg’s chicken linguini.) Facing a possible prison sentence for white-collar crimes, his main concern about life “inside” seems to be what the food will be like.
Logan has no need for such posturing. The patriarch scoffs take-out burgers in front of the TV and, after demanding thousands of dollars of exquisite seafood get thrown in the trash in his Hamptons mansion, orders takeout pizzas. You wouldn’t catch him pretending to enjoy a funky natural wine or clamoring for a table at Manhattan’s coolest pop-up. Comfort food signals his complacency (or perhaps, more generously, a yearning for simpler times). This holds true in real-life, where the menus at billionaire-frequented restaurants often read like the kids’ corner: macaroni cheese, chocolate sundaes, hot dogs.
You’d never catch him being distracted by the finger food at a corporate retreat. When the Waystar crew faced their GoJo rivals in Norway this season, those execs foolish enough to succumb to the human urge of hunger and tuck into the “serious Scandi spread” were wrongfooted by their younger, fitter Scandinavian counterparts breezing in; it’s hard to make a power play while holding a plate laden with potato salad. Tom spells out the strategy for us: “Ambush. You took the bait, fattened for the kill.”
More often than eating on-screen, you’ll hear characters throwing around food-related jibes. Adversaries are variously likened to: “a dildo made out of American cheese,” “the California Fuckin’ Raisin,” “a jar of mayonnaise in a Prada suit” and “the fucking belligerent zucchini.”
“It’s a clever way for the characters to rank their status and validate themselves against one another,” says Marina Tweed, co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Gourmand. “Even the world finest ingredients just conjure up untasteful jibes, sharp digs and spiteful sarcasm. Food — being the humblest of needs, something every human being has in common — used as insult in this way is testament to their detachment from everyday folk.”
It’s also often a vehicle for characters’ contempt towards those who serve them, too. Eldest son Connor, overseeing a charity gala at the Met, rails at the caterers about some offensively over-chilled butter: “You fucckwads, there’s dinner rolls out there ripping as we speak!” Food and drink orders are placed without throwing so much as a glance at the server, let alone a “thank you.”
When this on-screen behavior isn’t leaving you feeling queasy, it can inspire pity. Along with the jittery handheld camera work and nerve-jangling strings of Nicholas Britell’s score, mealtimes convey the joylessness of the Roys’ world. Nobody seems to have sex in Succession — just as no one seems to savor their food.
Family dinners are often shunned altogether (remember poor Connor’s engagement supper?), unless they double as negotiating tables for corporate maneuvers, like when they break bread with rival media-owning dynasty, the Pierces. The closest thing the Roy kids get to a home-cooked supper is a gristly, buckshot-laced pigeon served by their English ice-queen mother Caroline. She promises to have a heart-to-heart with Kendall at breakfast time “over an egg,” but all he finds in the morning on the AGA is an excuse note; she couldn’t stomach a display of maternal love, after all.
Even the most celebratory of comestibles, a wedding cake, becomes sinister in Succession-land. Connor is triggered by the sight of a fondant-iced sponge at his wedding — apparently, as a child he was stuffed with consolatory “loony cake” after his mother was packed off to a mental institution. And that box of doughnuts Logan sends to his scheming scions? Potentially poisoned; best avoid.
Roman briefly imagines the idle-rich life of ‘sushi and snowmobiles’ the siblings could be enjoying
Tweed agrees, “Food should evoke feelings of happiness and pleasure at the table. But for the stars of this show the joyless mealtime ceremonies are a constant reminder of the unease and emptiness that lies at the heart of this curious family.”
Roman briefly imagines the idle-rich life of “sushi and snowmobiles” the siblings could be enjoying, if only they stopped vying for control of their father’s company. But that’s never going to happen. To borrow from the Roys’ own vocabulary: fuck food; the only thing these characters are hungry for is power and profit.
