Best Food Films

Editorial

At last count, this year sees at least two new kitchens on a big budget screen. Food farce The Trip looks entirely promising with Steve Coogan, whose virtuosic turn in 24 Hour Party People made me giggle for a week, starring as an uber foodie engaged by a newspaper to tour the UK’s best restaurants. And Ewan McGregor went deep into Method acting as he prepared at the hot-plates for the sci-fi foodie apocalypse of Perfect Sense.

We can be sure that McGregor’s role research, which reportedly turned him into quite the cook, is going to go down well at home. What we can’t be sure of yet is if the flick’s any good. While we’re waiting for the dish, hhere’s some celluloid amuse bouche. Or, amuse yeux.

* Ratatouille

Although a kid’s flick, this always appears in the gastronomic honour-roll. If you didn’t think you could be moved by a rodent who reads Escoffier, you were wrong.

* Tampopo

This ensemble comedy begins with ramen noodles and finishes in a blaze of questionable culinary glory that could be dreamt up only by the world’s most truly obsessed food nation, Japan.

* Eat Drink Man Woman

Cineastes have already seen everything the acclaimed Ang Lee has made. If you’re a keen knife wrangler and you’ve not seen this moving tale of a semi-retired chef, correct the oversight this instant. And, while you’re at it, see the sweet American remake that film snobs won’t abide, Tortilla Soup. It’s delightful. And the Mexican chef does extraordinarythings to a round of ricotta that I’m almost sure are faintly illegal in the continental US.

* Babette’s Feast

If you thought erotic food stylings reached their peak in the recent past, you haven’t seen the last thirty minutes of a film that can only be described, despite its over use, as “pornographic”.

* Chocolat

You will learn very little about food. You will, however, learn a good deal about the physical lure of Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche.

SM King, Citysearch