''Haute Cuisine'' is a 2012 French

comedy-drama film Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical ...

based on the true story of Danièle Mazet-Delpeuch and how she was appointed as the private chef for François Mitterrand. The original French title is ''Les Saveurs du Palais''.

Plot

Hortense Laborie (

Catherine Frot Catherine Frot (; born 1 May 1956) is a French actress. A 10-time César Award nominee, she won the awards for Best Actress for '' Marguerite'' (2015) and Best Supporting Actress for ''Family Resemblances'' (1996). Her other films include ''Le D ...

), a renowned chef from

Périgord Périgord ( , ; ; oc, Peiregòrd / ) is a natural region and former province of France, which corresponds roughly to the current Dordogne department, now forming the northern part of the administrative region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. It is div ...

, is astonished when the President of the Republic (

Jean d'Ormesson Count Jean Bruno Wladimir François de Paule Le Fèvre d'Ormesson (16 June 1925 – 5 December 2017) was a French novelist. He was the author of forty books, the director of '' Le Figaro'' from 1974 to 1979, and the Dean of the Académie français ...

) appoints her his personal cook, responsible for creating all his meals at the Élysée Palace. Despite jealous resentment from the other kitchen staff, Hortense quickly establishes herself, thanks to her indomitable spirit. The authenticity of her cooking soon seduces the President, but the corridors of power are littered with traps..."Haute Cuisine"
/ref> The story is framed by Laborie's later role cooking at a French Antarctic research station.

Cast

as Hortense Laborie *

Arthur Dupont Arthur Dupont (born 1985) is a French actor. He was born in Saint-Mandé, Val-de-Marne, France. Career In 2006, he starred in ''Chacun sa nuit'' (One to another) directed by Jean Marc Barr, alongside Lizzie Brocheré and Karl E. Landler K ...

as Nicolas Bauvois *

as The Président *

Hippolyte Girardot Hippolyte Girardot (born Frédéric Girardot; 10 October 1955) is a French actor, film director and screenwriter. He is the father of actress Ana Girardot. Selected filmography * 1973: '' La Femme de Jean'', directed by Yannick Bellon, Rémi * ...

as David Azoulay *

Jean-Marc Roulot Jean-Marc is a French masculine given name. It may refer to: * Jean-Marc Adjovi-Bocco (born 1963), Beninese former football player * Jean-Marc Ayrault (born 1950), French politician * Jean-Marc Barr (born 1960), French-American film actor and di ...

as Jean-Marc Luchet *

Brice Fournier Brice Fournier (born 20 July 1966) is a French actor. He appeared in more than thirty films since 2004. Selected filmography References External links * 1966 births Living people Male actors from Lyon French male film actors Fr ...

as Pascal Le Piq *

Arly Jover Araceli "Arly" Jover is a Spanish actress. She is best known for her role as the villainous vampire Mercury in the 1998 superhero film ''Blade''. Life and career Araceli Jover was born in Melilla, a Spanish region. After living there for five ...

as Mary *

Joe Sheridan Joseph Michael Sheridan (27 November 1914 – 30 September 2000) was an Irish politician, originally with Fine Gael but for most of his career an independent. Sheridan came from Colmcille in County Longford, and had three brothers and two sis ...

as John * Laurent Poitrenaux as Jean-Michel Salomé * Hervé Pierre as Perrières * Manuel Le Lièvre as Loïc * Steve Tran as Grégory *

Thomas Chabrol Thomas Chabrol (born 24 April 1963) is a French actor, director and screenwriter. Filmography On stage References External links * {{DEFAULTSORT:Chabrol, Thomas 1963 births 20th-century French male actors 21st-century French male ac ...

as The prefect of the Chief

Production

Parts of the movie were actually filmed at the Élysée Palace, in a three-day shooting window where filming was only allowed when then President Nicolas Sarkozy was not at the palace.

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

served as a stand-in for the Crozet islands in the movie. The film crew spent six days there to film on location.

Reception

The

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

reports a 68% approval rating with an average rating of 6.1/10 based on 31 reviews. The website's consensus reads, "While it'll certainly be an easier sell for foodie filmgoers, ''Haute Cuisines beautifully filmed biopic should satisfy most viewers hungry for a beautifully filmed dramedy." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, it has a score of 61 out of 100 based on 14 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

References

External links

* * * (en) * * * 2012 films Cooking films French cuisine 2010s French-language films French comedy-drama films 2012 comedy-drama films Films directed by Christian Vincent Films scored by Gabriel Yared 2010s French films {{2010s-France-film-stub