And if you’re anything like us, you want to know more.

From Noma in Copenhagen to Oncore by Clare Smyth right here in Sydney, fine diners (and we really do mean fine) are more coveted than they ever have been. Chefs are elevated to near god-status, food bills are easily four-figures, waitlists to even get a booking are impossibly long… but the food! Well, that makes it all worth it.

So what happens when the glow of fine dining morphs into something else, something uglier? What happens when good chefs become caricatures, good restaurants become arenas for privilege, and good food becomes a status symbol rather than a source of enjoyment? 

That’s what The Menu, a new film directed by Mark Mylod and written by Seth Reiss & Will Tracy, holds a mirror to. 

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The film sets a familiar, albeit exaggerated, scene – a globally celebrated Chef Julian Slowik (played by Ralph Fiennes) runs Hawthorn, an exclusive restaurant on a coastal island in the Pacific Northwest. Vegetables are grown on site, seafood is caught fresh from the bay – every ingredient is traceable, every dish has a sense of place. 

Sounds ideal so far, right?

What about the fact that, for the entire length of the meal, you’re stranded on that island with your small group of dining companions – the die-hard foodie, the ego-driven critic and her editor, the impossibly wealthy couple, the fading movie star, the insufferable tech-bros…

Maybe that’s a little less ideal.

It’s what served as writer Will Tracy’s initial inspiration for The Menu, who visited a Norwegian restaurant on an island not dissimilar to the setting of Hawthorn.

“I’m a bit claustrophobic, and as we sat down to eat, I saw the boat that dropped us off leaving the dock,” Tracy recalls. “It was a small island. And I realised, ‘Oh, we’re stuck here for four hours. What if something goes wrong?’.”

Now, if that doesn’t serve as foreboding, we don’t know what does.

What unfolds over the following courses at Hawthorn (as a side note, each of the dishes were created by Michelin-starred chef Dominique Crenn, who consulted with the filmmakers, to learn about how a chef relates to their kitchen staff and informed Fiennes’ portrayal of Chef Slowik) builds to unsettling crescendo of horror, dark comedy and pointed satire.

Will it make your inner foodie squirm? Absolutely. 

“I loved how the script combined humour and biting satire,” said producer Adam McKay. “It was fun but dark, and it indicted an exclusive culture in a surprising way. The film mixes biting class satire with humour, darkness and a healthy dash of absurdity. Does that sound like a recipe? I swear I didn’t mean to do that.” 

“It’s a very entertaining film, but beyond that I hope the grotesque characters and deranged exclusivity that runs through the movie lands, as well,” McKay adds. “In a dream world, maybe even a few audience members ask some questions about service, entertainment and our relationship with food.”

The Menu, presented by Searchlight Pictures, is in cinemas now. Watch the full trailer here.

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