6 dining-related movies to devour while you wait for restaurants to reopen
Even if you're enjoying takeout from local restaurants, it's not the same as dining out. So here are a few of our staff's favorite dining-centric movies to stream while we wait for suburban eateries to fully reopen.
'The Hundred-Foot Journey'
Food, romance, cultural conflict and the wonderful Helen Mirren make "The Hundred-Foot Journey" a picturesque trip to a quaint French town filled with dining delights at a time when we can enjoy neither in person.
Mirren stars as the snobby owner of a Michelin-starred restaurant who's anything but pleased when an Indian family from Mumbai opens a restaurant a mere 100 feet from hers. She does whatever she can to stop them, but eventually warms to both the father and his incredibly gifted son (Manish Dayal), whom she takes under her culinary wing. There's more to the story as the novice learns from a veteran - and vice versa.
Pair a viewing of 2014's "The Hundred-Foot Journey" with takeout from your favorite Indian eatery and you have the perfect night at home.
- Lisa Friedman Miner, Metro Editor
'Big Night'
The 1996 movie "Big Night" serves up a movie well-suited to our times. Genius Chef Primo, played by Tony Shalhoub, and his younger brother Secondo, played by Stanley Tucci, bring the marvelous recipes of their native Italy when they immigrate to New Jersey and open a restaurant called Paradise. But the locals don't appreciate the heavenly food and prefer mounds of spaghetti and meatballs.
The restaurant is in danger of closing, unless one big night can save them. Star singer Louis Prima and his band are coming to eat at the restaurant, and the brothers pull out all the stops to serve the perfect dish.
- Burt Constable, Columnist
'Ratatouille'
Writer/director Brad Bird became a Pixar star with "The Incredibles," a superhero smash that grossed more than $600 million worldwide. His next film? A comedy about a rat who can cook.
Remy (voiced by Patton Oswalt) tires of picking through garbage and dreams of being a chef like the late Auguste Gusteau (Brad Garrett). The rat travels to his hero's signature restaurant in Paris and finds a vessel in young, clumsy Linguini (Pixar animator Lou Romano) - Remy dreams up the recipes and guides Linguini's cooking from underneath his chef's hat.
Silly? Yes. But also surprisingly touching, especially when Remy's interpretation of the title dish is able to win over the toughest food critic on earth, Anton Ego (Peter O'Toole).
- Sean Stangland, Assistant News Editor
'Chef'
Jon Favreau writes and directs the tasty domestic comedy "Chef" with such conviction and honesty (he is a fairly unappetizing character in the first act) that he puts an engaging glaze over rewarmed material about a driven, self-centered chef who pushes his family life to the back burner.
His life changes when he refurbishes an old food van and hits the road with his long-ignored son Percy (Emjay Anthony) and his top assistant (John Leguizamo). Favreau wisely resists making his chef lovably eccentric, preferring to give him a sour disposition that slowly abates as he comes to know his son and avoids becoming a twice-baked couch potato.
- Dann Gire, Film Critic
'Jiro Dreams of Sushi'
Among the most renowned chefs reduced by the coronavirus lockdowns is Jiro Ono, the 94-year-old master sushi chef who for decades has run a prestigious 10-seat restaurant in Tokyo - the first sushi spot ever to be awarded three Michelin stars.
In this 2011 documentary, a film crew captured Ono's craft, skill and, perhaps most significantly, severe work ethic, a trait all of the younger chefs in his kitchen have to adapt. Watching scenes of his underlings repeatedly try - and fail - to produce dishes to his exacting standards is a reminder of how much hard work goes on behind the scenes at all beloved restaurants.
At the heart of the documentary is Ono's relationship with his eldest son Yoshikazu, who will inherit the restaurant once his father finally passes on, and his second son Takashi, who long ago decided he had to leave his father's shadow, only to start his own Michelin-starred sushi restaurant.
- Doug Graham, Staff Writer
'Who's Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?'
The 1978 comedy-mystery directed by Ted Kotcheff and starring Jacqueline Bisset, George Segal and Robert Morley is a genuinely delicious travelogue of sorts, taking the viewer from London to Venice to Paris. It's a slightly campy treat for all of us who love to cook, eat and travel, especially now that we're grounded for the foreseeable future.
Morley stars as a famed epicurean, who assembles for his haute cuisine magazine the world's most fabulous meal made by famed chefs across Europe. The killing part of the story comes in as one by one said chefs wind up dead. Bisset stars as a famed pastry chef in London to bake for a state dinner at the palace, and her ex-husband, played by Segal, is a fast-food entrepreneur who shows up as the wiseacre love interest.
My favorite part is when the chefs meet to work out who's bumping off their colleagues, and they question who could hate food so much. The answer: a waiter.
- Susan Stark, Food Editor