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This story begins in pre-Communist revolution Russia
and follows the incredible adventures of French chef
Pascal Ichac. Early in the film he meets Princess
Cecilia Abachidze and the two travel through
Russia together. His keen sense of taste and
smell allow him to detect bombs; twice he smells
gunpowder and manages to foil the plots of the
revolutionary Zigmund Gogladze (Timur Kamkhadze) .
Unfortunately, in doing so he manages to create a
life-long enemy. Later, he settles down with
Abachidze (Nino Kirtadze) and opens his own
restaurant in Georgia.
During the Communist revolution he refuses to leave
his restaurant and ends up being a servant to
Gogladze. Gogladze eventually persuades Abachidze to
marry him in return for promising to spare Ichac
life. Ichac's servitude to Gogladze does not last;
he serves him crow, resulting in the communist
getting ill in front of his troops. After that
incident Ichac lives in an attic and is brought
meals by Abachidze until he dies.
Soviet comrade Zigmund is finally able to force his
beloved Princess Cecilia Abachidze out of the house
of great chef Pascal Ichak (Pierre Richard). Ah, but
not out of his bed nor arms. Coming home one day,
Zigmund hears them at it through the bedroom door.
That's when, resonating on many different levels,
he fetches a big pot of soup and gobbles it up in
big spoonsful as he strides back and forth in front
of that door, listening raptly to the sounds of
pleasure just out of his reach.
Throughout this film one gets to watch Ichac
both eat and prepare wonderful meals. One
exceptional scene is when he is challenged to
identify all the meats in a dish. Not only is he
able to identify all of the meats, he is also able
to tell that the liver used in the dish is bear
liver. Another wonderful food scene occurs when
he is showing a fellow gourmet the dishes in his
kitchen. He gestures to the gourmet and tells
him that the best dish is over here, and gestures to
a pit. One of his assistants removes a sumptuous
looking suckling pig. The food scenes in this film
are fewer in number and less appetizing than those
in Big Night, but they are certainly sufficient to
qualify this as a food film |
