HAUTE CUISINE

Haute Cuisine is a food connoisseur’s movie, in French with subtitles, the extraordinary true story of French President François Mitterrand’s private cook Danièle Delpeuch unfolds, with a sprinkling of comedy, a sizable portion of protocol and solemn stateliness as a side.

When the President asks to have a cook brought from the outside it is taken very badly by the chefs of the main kitchen in the Élysée Palace. Enter Hortense Laborie in pursuit of excellence, with her grandmother’s recipes, to the corridors of power.

Covering two different chapters of Hortense’s career: the Élysée Palace and as cook on a remote Antarctic scientific base. Hortense finds the warmth and recognition that was lacking at the Élysée in this rugged setting. This is gastronomy with an almost religious fervour. (MS)

****1/2

BY MEL SOMMERVILLE