Welcome to Le Hollandais, the most fashionable restaurant in town, where the food is divine and the clientele is dreadful! Meet Albert, a gangster with Michelin-star vulgarity, and his elegant wife, Georgina, who’s desperately seeking a more palatable main course. She finds it in a quiet bookworm, and soon they’re having their cake and eating it too, right under Albert’s nose! What follows is a deliciously decadent tale of high fashion, haute cuisine, and hilariously unsubtle revenge. It’s a visual feast where the only thing more shocking than the menu is the table manners.
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (1989)
Pray, draw back the heavy velvet curtain and step inside Le Hollandais, the kind of establishment where the decor is so ostentatiously opulent it borders on self-parody, and the food is so artfully constructed it seems a crime to actually eat it. This is not merely a restaurant; it is a theatre of consumption, a nightly opera of gluttony and grandeur, presided over by the stoic and endlessly patient French chef, Richard Borst. Each plate that emerges from his kitchen is a masterpiece, a testament to culinary genius. The tragedy, of course, is who gets to devour it.
Enter, with all the subtlety of a foghorn in a library, the titular Thief: Albert Spica. A gangster of such profound and spectacular vulgarity, he makes a mockery of the very concept of refinement. Clad in suits that scream for attention and draped in gold thick enough to anchor a ship, Albert holds court every single night at his reserved table, the undisputed black hole of decorum in this universe of elegance. He doesn't so much dine as he performs, his booming voice ricocheting off the damask-lined walls as he pontificates on his own brilliance, bullies his sycophantic cronies, and tortures the staff with his boorish demands. He is a man who believes his wealth entitles him to treat the world as his personal spittoon, and Le Hollandais is his favourite target.
And seated opposite him, a portrait of silent, simmering despair, is His Wife, Georgina. A creature of ethereal beauty and impeccable taste, she is as serene and elegant as her husband is brutish and loud. Trapped in a marriage that is less a partnership and more a hostage situation, Georgina endures Albert’s nightly tirades with the grace of a marble statue. Her rebellion is a quiet one, expressed through her meticulously curated wardrobe—each outfit a masterpiece of high fashion, a silent scream of defiance against the ugliness that surrounds her. She floats through the restaurant, a ghost at the feast, her eyes starved not for food, but for a morsel of kindness, a sliver of intellect, a life less… Albert.
One fateful evening, her gaze drifts past her husband’s gesticulating form and lands upon a quiet man dining alone, absorbed in a book. This is Michael, Her Lover-to-be. He is everything Albert is not: gentle, learned, and capable of sitting still for more than five seconds. He reads, he eats with quiet appreciation, he exists without needing to suck all the oxygen from the room. To Georgina, he is not just a man; he is an escape hatch. A silent, smouldering glance is exchanged across the crowded room, a spark of conspiracy against the tyranny of bad taste. An affair is not just inevitable; it is a matter of aesthetic survival.
And so begins one of the most audacious and absurd liaisons in cinematic history. With the tacit approval of the chef, Richard, who seems to believe that true love (or at least a desperate escape) is a cause worth risking his Michelin stars for, Georgina and Michael turn Le Hollandais into their personal playground. Their trysts are frantic, passionate, and hilariously brazen, conducted in every corner of the restaurant that isn't in Albert's direct line of sight. They find love in the cavernous, pristine kitchen amongst hanging pheasants and simmering pots. They embrace in the back of a lorry filled with rotting meat, the stench of decay a bizarre perfume for their blossoming romance. They even find refuge in the lavatories, a sanctuary of gleaming porcelain tiles. All the while, Albert sits just yards away, pontificating, stuffing his face, blissfully unaware that his wife is sampling a far more satisfying dish from the restaurant’s à la carte menu of patrons.
But such a delicious secret cannot be kept forever. Albert, for all his brutishness, possesses a gangster’s low cunning. He begins to notice the lingering glances, the prolonged absences, the faint air of satisfaction about his wife that has nothing to do with the dessert trolley. His suspicion, once kindled, erupts into a volcanic rage. The discovery is brutal, swift, and horrifyingly inventive. Michael’s sanctuary, his world of books, becomes his tomb. In an act of supreme cruelty, Albert’s thugs force-feed the gentle scholar the pages of his favourite book before ending his life.
This, Albert believes, is the end of the story. He is sorely mistaken. He has underestimated Georgina. The quiet, elegant statue has been shattered, and from the pieces emerges an avenging angel of haute couture. Her grief is not passive; it is a cold, hard, diamond-like fury. She seeks out the chef, Richard, not for comfort, but for collaboration. She has a recipe in mind, a final dish to be served to her husband—one that will ensure he finally gets what he deserves. The stage is set for a final, unforgettable confrontation where the main course is revenge, served ice-cold. It’s a visual feast where the only thing more shocking than the menu is the final bill. Bon appétit!
"Looks like catfood for constipated French rabbits!"
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Scott and Steven
