The Menu – A film review (sort of)

Trigger warnings – mental health, suicide, sexual assault. Contains spoilers.

Unless you’ve been living off-grid, it’s unlikely to have escaped your attention that The Menu has finally landed on Disney+ streaming service for those foolish enough to miss the big screen experience (it’s me, hi). For the uninitiated, this is a chef film without precedent.  The Menu’s star-studded cast is headed by Voldemort, fashioned as an enigmatic and celebrated chef who invites 12 guests to dine at his remote and Scandi-luxe restaurant, Hawthorne.  The experience rapidly unravels as it is apparent the chef has curated a menu that will conclude with something altogether far more violent than petit four.

As a film it is a triumph.  The food served was curated by the undeniably talented Dominique Crenn (owner of 3-star Atelier Crenn) and shot in HD to the point of teetering on the pornographic.  Little surprise given David Gelb, of Chef’s Table fame, was brought on board to ensure it felt convincing.   It is a dark comedy that has already spawned meme upon meme with a cast that simply do not misstep. 

Anyone who has worked in hospitality will identify easily the cliches lampooned amongst the fictional diners.  From Nicholas Hoult’s insufferable influencer type who continues photographing the food oblivious and indifferent to the murder and mayhem around him, to Janet McTeer as a food critic flanked by her sycophantic Editor. 

For those looking for pithy one-liners, you’ll find plenty.  Hong Chau as the maitre’d has spawned her own sub-genre of fandom – in one scene whispering “you’ll eat less than you desire and more than you deserve” into the ear of an entitled finance bro.  The entire hospitality sector of London will find much to relate to here.  A sommelier introduces a wine with “a faint scent of longing and regret”.  Half the wine world cringe, whilst half – I am sure – nod in agreement and make notes for their next pairing.

What makes it somewhat more hard-hitting for those of us who work in hospitality are the uncomfortable moments where the film’s satire feels rather too close to the truth.  The film’s Chef Slowik espouses: “There is no way to avoid the mess.  The mess you make of your life, of your body, of your sanity, by giving everything you have to pleasing people you will never know.”  Shortly after a sous chef kills himself in the middle of the dining room and a course entitled The Mess is served up to the diners-cum-victims. 

There is an uneasy rhyming event at work as Rene Redzepi announces the closure of Noma mere days after the film’s debut on streaming.  Whilst I increasingly desire to reserve judgement on matters of which I know little, it is widely known that Redzepi has faced considerable criticism for years for the restaurant’s reliance on unpaid placements – known as stagiers in the industry – fuelling his restaurant’s ascent to the top of every list and awarding body.  He’s also publicly acknowledged his physical and mental abuse of his team – paid and unpaid – over the years.  And now, having realised the superlative and exclusive menu cannot be produced without swathes of unpaid labour it seems he’s realised the only way to avoid the mess – or the critique – is to close.  It is an announcement seemingly so ludicrous that in any other sector it is near unthinkable, but here we are.

The film is extreme, at times silly – but it merely amps up the excesses that trouble the real sector and, more importantly, real people.  Taylor-Johnson as the film’s anti-hero delivers a blistering monologue to fictional Chef Slowik; “you cook with obsession, not love.”  Isn’t that the kicker?  I sat bewitched by the entire damn thing – shaken by the fineness of line that separates any ambitious restaurant from the satirical horror unfolding on screen. 

It is a timely reminder that sometimes the mirror must be confronted – however grotesque – to ensure we redouble on the work to never let satire and real life become so easily mistaken.  I’ve met with Marius, my Exec Chef, and asked for us to double-down on our efforts relating to working hours, time-off and how we continue to get it right, which at times last year we struggled to contain. But the spectre of a broken sous chef dead on a restaurant floor is sufficient to spur us to explore how we can widen the mental health support available to our team and beyond and keep doing better.

There is too a total thought shift required – repositioning food away from the excesses of Slowik’s chef utterly aching pretentiousness; “do not eat, taste.”  There is, uncomfortably, part of many chef-patrons that will be seduced by aspects of this film.  I spent some time lusting after the interiors and jaw-dropping kitchen (CGI and set, turns out – an illusion fittingly), there will be chefs who – murder aside, one hopes – will long to work in a restaurant much like Hawthorne, which was inspired in part by a remote American restaurant, Willows Innby Chef Blaine Weitzel.  Critically acclaimed by Rene Redzepi and others, before shutting permanently at the end of 2022 after an onslaught of lawsuits and controversies including financial, physical and sexual abuse. 

Thus, my earnest wish is that young entrants into the industry watch this film, revel in its ridiculousness, in its pretence, in the extremity and absurdity of a film about creating the perfect restaurant, whilst recognising what it might escalate to, and apply that to their mindset should they find themselves working for a real-life Slowik.  Regrettably, you will find him in the real world more frequently than may be comfortable to acknowledge for both guests and hospitality staff alike. 

The best restaurants, I think, are those rooted in love and happiness, not obsession and pressure.  The best of us, and I hope the future of us, is in accepting there is no such thing as perfect, and it is a hugely dangerous compass to guide you.  There is no more fitting final thought than to note the film’s only survivor, Taylor-Johnson’s Margot, is spared after ordering an American hamburger to go from the homicidal chef-patron, stirring a nostalgia for food he loved and cooked as a trainee.  Sometimes perhaps we’d all be better served by food, cooked with love, that we want to eat than what the obsessions of that monster inside all of us lust for.