How can a din­ing expe­ri­ence enhance a film?

Film and food are intri­cate­ly linked. If you think of Matil­da, you think of Bruce Bogtrotter’s choco­late cake. If you think of Pulp Fic­tion, the Big Kahu­na burg­er might come to mind. And with the film Rata­touille – the clue is in the name. Keen to take advan­tage of pun­ters who might want some pop­corn with their film, cin­e­mas have been charg­ing extor­tion­ate prices for what is, at best, very mediocre grub for decades Recent­ly, there’s been a rise in ​‘dine in’ expe­ri­ences in cin­e­mas. At Odeon’s Luxe branch­es in the UK and the Alamo chain in the US, you can order food and drink direct­ly to your seat. But what about cin­ema­go­ers who fan­cy a more bespoke evening of viewing?

I was intrigued when I found out about Taste Film, an expe­ri­ence which screens cult clas­sics along­side a timed set menu, which is craft­ed to each film to enhance its most mem­o­rable moments. Their web­site says ​‘we believe that films should be more than watched, they should be lived, and no sense is more mean­ing­ful and evoca­tive than taste.’ Pre­vi­ous screen­ings have includ­ed The Silence of the Lambs where the line ‘“A cen­sus tak­er once tried to test me. I ate his liv­er with some fava beans and a nice Chi­anti”’ is paired with Goose Liv­er Pâté with Fava Beans and a nice Chi­anti Jelly.

I was invit­ed to their screen­ing of Jon Favreau’s Chef. Favreau, who direct­ed, wrote and co-pro­duced the film, stars as chef Carl Casper, who has grown dis­il­lu­sioned by the old-school menu he has to cook at the behest of the restau­rant own­er, Riva (Dustin Hoff­man). There is very lit­tle con­flict in the film, apart from a pub­lic melt­down in front of a food crit­ic and a fur­ther melt­down on Twit­ter. Oh, and a slight­ly awk­ward encounter with his ex-wife Inez’s (Sophia Ver­gara) ex-hus­band Mar­vin (Robert Downey Jr). Hav­ing been fired from his job and on his ex-wife’s advice, Chef Casper acquires a food truck and trav­els the coun­try sell­ing Cuban food, along the way exploit­ing his son Per­cy (Emjay Antho­ny) for labour but ulti­mate­ly recon­nect­ing with him as well. His for­mer line cook Mar­tin (John Leguizamo) quits his job in the kitchen and comes along too. What’s not to love?

Before the film began we were told that this is Taste Film’s most request­ed film, and it is obvi­ous why. Chef boasts scenes of beau­ti­ful food on screen enough to make you sali­vate. It must be a tall order for those in the kitchen. I noticed ear­ly on that the food scenes that were shown in the film were not always repli­cat­ed on our plates, instead clev­er­ly side-step­ping more com­plex food moments with their own interpretations.

When a ready-to-be-roast­ed pig is brought into the kitchen on-screen, we were served Pig­gy Frit­ters with Smoked Bacon May­on­naise (a veg­e­tar­i­an menu is also avail­able). A scene that I do wish that I had got to taste is when Chef Carl cooks an amaz­ing pas­ta dish for his girl­friend Mol­ly (Scar­lett Johans­son), but I did enjoy that when Per­cy remarks ​“Mom cuts off the crusts”‘ I was served the fan­ci­est Crust­less Cheese on Toast I think I will ever eat.

One of the high­lights of the night was one of the parts of the film that I remem­ber from pre­vi­ous­ly watch­ing it. Casper dress­es down Ram­sey Michel (Oliv­er Platt), a food crit­ic who calls his Choco­late Lava Cake under­cooked. Under any oth­er cir­cum­stances would I choose to eat a dessert mid-way through a meal and before the main course? No, prob­a­bly not. But it an amaz­ing expe­ri­ence to eat a Triple Choco­late Lava Cake along­side the line ​“It’s fuck­ing molten, you asshole!”

One of my favourite things to watch on YouTube is Bing­ing with Babish, where the host recre­ates food from pop­u­lar TV shows and films. ​‘Babish’ (real name Andrew Rea) is such a fan of the film that he’s got a tat­too of a carv­ing fork that is almost iden­ti­cal to the one Cas­par uses, and has recre­at­ed var­i­ous dish­es from Chef on his chan­nel. The Babish Culi­nary Uni­verse now has 9.69 mil­lion sub­scribers., and there is clear­ly an appetite for crossover between food and film. I’m will­ing to bet that there are plen­ty of peo­ple like me, who are nev­er going to recre­ate the food at home, but enjoy the cer­tain mag­ic in see­ing food on our screens bro­ken down for us. In 2019 Babish teamed up with Jon Favreau and chef Roy Choi to recre­ate Chef’s famous Lava Cake, but for less effort, hun­gry view­ers can go to Taste Film.

My ques­tion when vis­it­ing Taste Film was not ​“Is this good or bad?” – the food was always going to be amaz­ing and I already knew that Chef is a decent film. My ques­tion was ​“Does this expe­ri­ence enhance the film?” and I think in the case of Chef, it def­i­nite­ly does, where the food is obvi­ous­ly such a big part of the sto­ry. For me, the expe­ri­ence of eat­ing an inter­pre­ta­tion of what I was see­ing on the screen real­ly com­ple­ment­ed watch­ing Chef. It made me feel clos­er to what was hap­pen­ing in the film by being able to taste it for myself. Most of all, it was a deli­cious new way to see a film that I thought I knew well. It felt like a real expe­ri­ence, which watch­ing a film should always strive for.

I won­der if Taste Film would be brave enough to tack­le Boil­ing Point, anoth­er film about the restau­rant busi­ness, which is prob­a­bly the polar oppo­site to Chef in that it is a very stress­ful film to watch. I’d also be intrigued to go back to anoth­er upcom­ing film on the ros­ter where I can only vague­ly remem­ber char­ac­ters eat­ing – The Wolf of Wall Street (quaaludes?) or Love, Actu­al­ly (a canapé that ​‘looks like a dead baby’s fin­ger’?). Those might pose more of a chal­lenge in terms of adding to the experience.I’d love to go back and find out.