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Menus-Plaisirs — Les Troisgros is every food lover and documentary lover’s dream.
The 44th documentary from filmmaker Frederick Wiseman (City Hall, Titicut Follies) takes us behind the scenes of a trio of French restaurants run by the Troisgros family. One of them, Le Bois sans Feuilles, has held three Michelin stars for 55 years; this is where the bulk of Menus-Plaisirs takes place. What follows is a transfixing journey through good food and the artistry that creates it.
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Menus-Plaisirs — Les Troisgros is a food documentary and family story rolled into one.
Credit: Zipporah Films
Chef César Troisgros is the fourth generation of the Troisgros family to head up Le Bois sans Feuilles. His younger brother Léo is the chef at La Colline du Colombier, one of the family’s other lauded restaurants. Their father Michel oversees the restaurants, while their mother Marie-Pierre runs the Troisgros hotel. It’s a family business through and through. Even though their interactions in the film are mostly work-focused, they still provide a telling snapshot of what makes the Troisgros tick. An early discussion where Léo and Michel debate whether almonds have a place in a new sauce carries elements of father-son familiarity, but also the kind of tension that arises when you want to impress or even prove your boss wrong.
The Troisgros family is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Menus-Plaisirs. Wiseman spends quite a bit of time in the kitchen of Le Bois sans Feuilles, following chefs as they prepare for service early in the morning, then pick up the pace as customers arrive. True to Wiseman’s usual style, there is no voiceover, music, or any guiding text. He just situates us in the controlled chaos of the kitchen and lets us observe the care that goes into each dish.
And what dishes they are! Between frothing sauces, carefully butchered meats, and delicate desserts, Menus-Plaisirs is a feast for the senses. Without any musical accompaniment, you’re sucked into the sounds and rhythms of the kitchen, be they the chopping of knives or the quiet discussions between chefs. To watch Menus-Plaisirs is to be held rapt by the minutiae of the cooking process.
Menus-Plaisirs — Les Troisgros is all about process, process, process.
Credit: Zipporah Films
Menus-Plaisirs doesn’t just stop at the kitchen, though. This is a comprehensive portrait of the restaurant: Wiseman shows us how staff prepares the dining room for guests and how waiters interact with customers. Most intriguingly, he also takes us to many of the places that the Troigros family sources their food from, like a cattle farm focused on sustainable practices, a local farmers’ market, and a cheese cave. Every piece of information enriches those hypnotic cooking scenes. Even if you don’t know what a certain ingredient is, or what the final dish will be, you’re aware of all the work it took to get it in front of a hungry diner.
Tying into this awareness is Menus-Plaisirs’ four-hour runtime (which is not too surprising by Wiseman standards). While the length of the film may initially put you off, it’s far more rewarding than it is a barrier for viewing. With each minute that passes, you become more and more conscious of the amount of time that goes into making food at Troisgros — more time than what Wiseman gives us even, seeing as he’s collapsed hundreds of hours of footage into this film. The added background on sourcing extends the timeframe further. We’re not just looking at cooks, but at an entire food chain, an ecosystem centered around creating edible art. There’s a beauty to the final products, but a bittersweetness too: No matter how long it takes to make these dishes, they will be eaten up in a matter of moments.
That might just be the greatest gift Menus-Plaisirs has to offer: It makes you ponder how much time and effort go into every little thing you eat, and every piece of art you take in, be it a film or a book or a painting. It’s a reminder to savor and appreciate and think, instead of mindlessly consuming. Even though the vast majority of us will never make it to a Troisgros restaurant, we can still find meaning in their work, and in the astounding work of Wiseman.
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Frederick Wiseman’s 44th documentary, “Menus-Plaisirs — Les Troisgros,” is now streaming on PBS.org and the PBS app. It airs March 22 on PBS as well. Review.
