The series opens with Talia and her sister Julia living with their aunt Tilly in Boston, but they soon travel to Miami where the sisters will spend a month with their abuela Dolores. While there, they discover that Dolores' restaurant, Lola's, has been closed due to a number of failed health inspections - and that these inspections were sabotaged by a rival restaurant across the street, Fuchinelli's, run by Federico "Frenchie" Fuchinelli and his cousin Debbie. Talia becomes determined to return Lola's to its former glory and show her aunt that she has what it takes to stay in Miami as the restaurant's new head chef. In addition to Julia and Dolores, she gets help along the way with new friends Rudy and Valerie, a young kid named Rocky who has a crush on Julia, and Debbie's brother Tyson who has the same for Talia herself. Also helping her are some old spices hidden behind a wall that have magical powers and can affect people in different ways depending on how they're combined. As it turns out, she's not the only one who knows of the spices or how they work - nor the only one who has a magical spice set.
The series concluded its daily first season run of 18 episodes on July 30, 2015 and began another 18 episode run on November 30th that year. It also shared two consecutive Crossover episodes with Every Witch Way in the first season (concurrent with Every Witch Way's last season). The second batch of episodes ended on December 23rd, 2015. On the week of January 11th, 2016, members of the cast confirmed on social media that Nickelodeon decided not to renew the show for another season, leaving the show on a cliffhanger.
Tropes seen in Talia in the Kitchen:
- Big Bad: The Fuchinellis are the natural rivals to Talia and Lola's.
- Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: An unusual mixed-gender variation with Talia (brunette), Rudy (blond) and Valerie (redhead).
- Debbie, Talia and Valerie in the second (half) season.
- Brainless Beauty: Valerie. Debbie to a lesser extent.
- The Chosen One: Talia seems to be the only one besides Will who not only can use the spices but isn't affected by them in turn. In the Every Witch Way crossover Jax Novoa implies that Talia is something special that he's heard of before, but he can't remember what exactly.
- Cock Fight: Rudy and Ty nearly come to figurative blows over Talia at times. While Talia and Ty are set up as the show's obvious Official Couple Rudy has obvious feelings for Talia as well.
- Cultural Translation: Some things have been changed compared to Toni, la Chef, namely the Miami setting and Talia and Julia being originally from Boston.
- Dating Catwoman: As with Every Witch Way a gender-flipped version with Talia and Ty Fuchinelli (unlike EWW this relationship starts right from the beginning).
- The Ditz: Valerie being the most obvious one, but Rudy and Debbie have enough frequent moments to qualify too.
- The Dragon: Debbie Fuchinelli, to her cousin Frenchie.
- Everyone Has Standards: Debbie is mortified when she learns Frenchie cheated to help her win a cooking competition, which makes her question how often he's done this and whether she's really a good chef. She's rude and arrogant, but unlike Frenchie she wants to win because she's actually the best, not just for the title.
- Everything Sounds Sexier in French: The whole reason for Frenchie's Gratuitous French.
- Expy: Valerie seems to be a more toned-down version of Sophie from Every Witch Way, or even of Cat from Vic TO Rious/Sam & Cat (the red hair especially helps draw the inevitable comparisons).
- Face–Heel Turn: Will. It turns out he's plotting against both Talia and the Fuchinellis.
- Foreign Remake: An English-language adaptation of the Nickelodeon Latin series Toni, La Chef produced by and in the same studio with the same writers and airing concurrently with the original series.
- Gambit Pile Up: How the Fuchinellis' plans to shut down Lola's usually turn out. Then add to this Will's plans to steal Talia's spices, usually by using his own spices to manipulate Frenchie into his bidding.
- Gratuitous French: Frenchie, full stop - as if his name didn't clue you in. It's Frenchie's raison d'etre.
- Local Hangout: The local community center, essentially standing in for High School (as the series takes place during summer vacation).
- The Mentor:
- Will, Talia's sous chef, becomes Talia's mentor in how to use the magic spices. Then he pulls a Face–Heel Turn when he tries to steal those same spices for himself.
- Frenchie justifies his poor treatment of Debbie by saying it's all part of mentoring her to become a proper Fuchinelli's chef.
- No Ending: Within each episode; partly this is due to the Telenovela format, partly because the credits are crammed into the bottom of the screen and there's no Vanity Plate at the end. There's something like the beginning of a resolution (really, setting up the next episode) that barely starts to happen and before you know it you're ten seconds into The Thundermans.
- Secret-Keeper: Valerie and Rudy keeping Talia's spices a secret to everyone else, especially Dolores. Except it turns out Dolores already knows about the spices and was the one who hid them in the first place - in which case Valerie and Rudy keep the secret that Talia still uses the spices from Dolores as she expressly forbids them, putting Dolores in the awkward position of having secrets kept from her while being a Secret Keeper herself for Talia. Will also becomes a secret keeper for Talia until it's revealed that he wants her spices for himself.
- Self-Deprecation: Frenchie complains that the notion of spices being able to manipulate a person's feelings sounds like a plot device from a bad telenovella.
- Series Continuity Error: The series is supposed to take place during summer vacation to explain why neither Talia nor Julia have to enroll in high school during their stay in Miami, yet the first season is supposed to be concurrent with Every Witch Way's fourth season (as demonstrated by the crossover) which still takes place during the school year.
- Shouldn't We Be in School Right Now?: Averted as the series actually takes place during the summer vacation months, but the local community center (where Frenchie teaches classes and where some of the cooking-related events take place, including the cooking competition at the end of Season 1) essentially stands in for the high school setting typical on a Kid Com. Later on after the mid-season break school starts up.
