How House Of The Dragon Took A Different Approach To Food Compared To Game Of Thrones - Exclusive
"House of the Dragon" was always inevitably going to draw comparisons to "Game of Thrones." After all, it is a prequel series set nearly 200 years prior to the events of the global HBO phenomenon. However, it's admirable that "House of the Dragon" blazes its own path forward to make it familiar yet somehow distinct.
The most glaring way this is made clear is the time jumps that take place in "House of the Dragon." "Game of Thrones" moved rather linearly, while "House of the Dragon" will jump several years between episodes, occasionally requiring different actors to portray the same characters. This was made innately clear in Episode 6, when Milly Alcock and Emily Carey's characters were replaced with Emma D'Arcy and Olivia Cooke, respectively.
But the differences come down to more than merely the timeline. You can see it in the set and food, as well, as pointed out by set decorator Claire Richards in an exclusive interview with Tasting Table. She detailed how "House of the Dragon" utilizes food in a unique manner compared to its predecessor.
House of the Dragon's food was familiar but new
Completely different set design teams worked on "House of the Dragon" and "Game of Thrones," so with that alone, there's bound to be some differences in how the shows come together. But "House of the Dragon" had the unique challenge of being reasonably within the same world as "Game of Thrones" while clearly being its own thing. After all, food and home designs have changed significantly in our world in the last 200 years, so it only makes sense there would be some deviations in Westeros within that same time frame.
As Claire Richards put it, "We were trying to establish a new world for them [while] also having elements of what people would recognize from the force in terms of hunts and big feasts and things like that. It does show that there are many layers to their dining tables, but through 'Game of Thrones,' it looked a little bit simpler in terms of when they were on the road, or Westeros, when they were out in the markets."
It appears that over the centuries, how royalty lives in Westeros hasn't changed much. They still live in luxury with giant feasts with the finest meals the kitchen staff can provide. And with talented set decorators like Richards making sure everything looks pristine, it allows "House of the Dragon" to carve its own path out of the shadow of "Game of Thrones."
"House of the Dragon" Season 1 airs new episodes on HBO and HBO Max every Sunday.