It’s the quiet that strikes you in “Menus-Plaisirs — Les Troisgros,” a documentary rejoinder to every image of cacophonous haute cuisine environments — complete with clattering pans, hissing steam and chefs screaming invective — that has been fed to us by “Hell’s Kitchen”-style reality shows and the propulsive drama of “The Bear.” Serenity reigns in Frederick Wiseman’s languidly mesmerising 240-minute anatomy of one of the world’s greatest restaurants: The masters and staff of Le Bois Sans Feuilles, a three Michelin-star establishment in France’s Loire region, work with a hushed intensity of concentration that recalls a science lab, or a surgery table, more than any standard kitchen.
That suits Wiseman, a patient, rigorous examiner of institutional structure and process, who observes this culinary cathedral as seriously and methodically as he has such comparatively vast cultural hives as London’s National Gallery or the New York Public Library. “Menus-Plaisirs” also extends a rarefied subset of Wiseman’s oeuvre that explores temples of French culture, high and low, from the inside out: File it somewhere between his erotic cabaret study “Crazy Horse” and his Paris Opera Ballet ode “La Danse.” Viewers daunted in theory by four hours of (mostly) men in white assembling sweetbreads with tweezers or debating the correct balance of flavor between chili pepper and passion fruit will probably find their fears realized; others may wish to show up with a notepad and pen for all the exquisite recipes dished out in passing.
That gourmand hook could make this the director’s most readily distributable work in some time, albeit on an epicurean scale. Still, Wiseman and DP James Bishop’s plain, pragmatic shooting of these astonishing plates resists “food-porn” categorisation — consider it the ascetic counterpart to Tran Anh Hung’s lavishly mouthwatering “The Taste of Things.” It’s the human element of Le Bois Sans Feuilles (with translates, with an airy poetry typical of the place, as The Forest Without Leaves) that interests Wiseman most: A family business with a tradition of gastronomic innovation already running several generations deep, it’s here found at a compelling tipping point between father and son.
The former, Michel Troigros, is a celebrated culinary iconoclast who has already taken the restaurant far from the vision of his own father Pierre — a pioneer of the midcentury nouvelle cuisine movement that modernised and lightened the richer Cordon Bleu school of French cookery. Michel took it further, incorporating Far East ingredients and methods from his travels — the aromatic Japanese herb shiso is a staple — but he too now stands for a tradition that his elder son César is eager to update.
Some of the doc’s most compelling passages observe as Michel, César and younger son Léo (who runs a smaller neighboring establishment but still gets a say in the family business) civilly debate new recipes and menu plans at the kitchen table, tasting and deconstructing sample dishes in intricate detail. (Michel, like many an older-school French chef, thinks César leans too heavily on spice; César thinks bolder flavor profiles are the future.) Voices are never raised, but an urgent human narrative emerges from these discussions; unspoken concerns of family legacy and individual identity are present in soft disagreements about seasoning and plating.
This internal business is balanced by excursions to the nearby farms, dairies and vineyards that supply Le Bois Sans Feuilles with its top-grade ingredients — each business steeped in its own longstanding traditions and standards. Wiseman takes the same patient, forensic approach to these contributors that he does to the restaurant, though he hardly needs to pry: In an extended demonstration, one passionate fromager explains the process of making goat cheese in more detail than one ever might have imagined.
Whether in scenes like this or visually gorging on blowsy cabbages and gleaming zucchini at a local farmers’ market, “Menus-Plaisirs” generously indulges this kind of food nerdery — all of which gives a sense of momentous occasion to extended sequences of the kitchen in full flow during services. Wiseman’s nimble editing plays the agile, industrious rhythm of the chefs in concert with the gentler glide and patter of activity in the dining room, where expert service staff present dishes we’ve just seen exhaustively assembled — a John Dory “rose” of fish petals on a green curry base, a troupe l’oeil bird’s nest of mousse-filled confectionery “eggs” — in the briskly reverent manner of an art auctioneer talking up the value of his wares.
And some value at that: A lunchtime tasting menu with wine pairings at Le Bois Sans Feuilles will set you back over 500 euro, while the restaurant’s professorial sommelier drily explains his pricing rational for bottles that spill into five-figure territory. “Menus-Plaisirs” tacitly notes the privileges and restrictions of this luxury realm, where the staff and clientele are largely as white as the chefs’ starched, towering hats, and where modernity is largely creeping in via the casual dress of many diners. (As for those whipping out their phones to snap their perfect plates, we can detect a moue of distaste on Michel’s face as he makes the rounds, but it passes without comment.)
Wiseman’s filmmaker, as ever, lets any commentary emerge from observation, politics from procedure. But there is palpable respect for the labor and knowledge going into each ephemeral artwork served up here, and — amid Wiseman’s stripped, practical presentation — a hint of romance in its portrait of a family that has turned the elemental act of feeding people into a higher calling, in thrall to “the vivacity of a vinaigrette, softened by the sweetness of a pear, the saltiness of shellfish.” Anyone inclined to call the Troisgros’ operation pretentious would be hard pressed to draw the same conclusion four hours later: This is about as honest as elitism gets.
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