Stars War
‘Grand Maison Tokyo’ moves to Europe to fully embrace the butter.
Grand Maison Paris
Director: Ayuko Tsukahara • Writer: Tsutomu Kuroiwa
Starring: Takuya Kimura, Kyoka Suzuki, Ok Taec-yeon, Yoshinori Masakado, Yuta Tamamori
Japan • 1hr 52mins
Opens Hong Kong Mar 27 • IIA
Grade: B
What’s with all the Japanese food movies lately? Okay, it’s only been two – The Solitary Gourmet landed a few weeks back – but with Grand Maison Paris | グランメゾン・パリ coming so close on that film’s heels it’s hard not to think there’s an invasion happening. This time around (mostly) television director Ayuko Tsukahara continues her slow creep into feature filmmaking with the movie iteration of the 11-part 2019 series Grand Maison Tokyo and its COVID special in 2024. It should be noted that Tsukahara also directed the time travelling romantic fantasy Cafe Funiculi Funicula right before the Grand Maison stuff, which will become an important factoid in 3… 2…
Grand Maison Paris picks up post-pandemic, after asshole chef Natsuki Obana (Takuya Kimura) and his long-suffering sous chef Rinko Hayami (Kyoka Suzuki) picked up three Michelin stars in Tokyo – and then lost them when the ’rona forced a pivot to frozen takeaway meals. The duo is in Paris where Obana apprenticed with master chef Louis Blancan to open a restaurant and become the first Asian chef to run a three-starred French eatery in France (the stones…) and needless to say, it’s no easy feat. Grand Maison Paris is a drama. Full stop. It’s got a couple of moments of levity but for the most part the film falls somewhere in the neighbourhood of The Bear, or a less satirical The Menu, less so the jovial Chef, Big Night or The Solitary Gourmet. At a time when the Fine Dining Industrial Complex is coming under fire for its unsustainable practices and abuses, and the Michelin Guide for its elitism, tendency towards urban devastation and putting chefs out of business, Grand Maison Paris opts for character drama, focusing on Obana’s personal growth. But rest assured knowing the last 40 minutes is pure food porn. I immediately came home to make my own croque monsieur. You will too.
The Eiffel Tower, because Paris
Grand Maison Paris begins with Obana and his crew preparing some sort of gala dinner for a bunch of fancy types, among them Obana’s mentor and patron Louis Blancan and his son Pascal, who’s bucking to take over the space his father rents to Obana. Dinner is a disaster, and in a weird and twisty way Obana vows to get three Michelin stars by the next cycle if Blancan lets him keep the kitchen. If he fails, he’ll leave France forever. This promise comes after the catastrophic gala led to a fight between Obana and Rinko – and her immediate resignation. Uh oh.
For just over an hour we watch Obana be a selfish dickbag, demanding things be done his way, no one is coming to eat their food so on and so forth. Among the unwanted are creative pastry chef Yuan (Ok Taec-yeon, boy band 2PM, Vincenzo), who’s also in debt to mobster types because he wanted to splurge on a dessert lab at home, the peacekeeping hors d’oeuvres guy Aizawa (Mitsuhiro Oikawa), and maître d’ and personnel manager Kyono (Ikki Sawamura). Kyono is one of the few on the crew that Obana leaves to himself, so naturally he hires Rinko back when some of the staff quit upon hearing about the three-star gauntlet and the demands that come with it. And naturally she winds up in the kitchen again. A couple of mishaps lead to a long dark night of the soul for Obana, who finally acknowledges that Rinko is the beating heart of Grand Maison Paris, that the life and culture of each of his chefs only adds to French cuisine, and it’s his rigidity that’s truly stopping it from getting three stars. The Michelin Guide people will be thrilled the film thinks its stars are really just about the food.
Anyone who skipped the series isn’t going to struggle to follow the action in Grand Maison Paris. Previous relationships have little to zero impact on the current events; didn’t Aizawa have a wife, and isn’t food influencer Linda Machiko (Ai Tominaga) Obana’s ex? If Blancan was a mentor, we only learn that because someone says so. Returning writer Tsutomu Kuroiwa’s workmanlike script is a self-contained story that pushes extra-curricular details to the margins. New additions are thinly sketched rather than given a deep dive. The race-based preferred treatment by suppliers is never truly addressed – it’s seulement la cuisine! – and the gangster sub-plot goes nowhere, essentially there to 1) let us see Obana’s humanity emerging and 2) get the restaurant some smoked comté (acceptable). Fans of the show will likely read more into some interactions than newcomers, but the overall effect is welcoming, brutal French notwithstanding. But this is a pleasant enough complement to the TV series that has no aspirations to being deep and meaninful. And with food styling assistance from three Michelin-starred KEI owner and chef Kei Kobayashi, the third act payoff – the service to end all service (that’s not how it works, but whatever) – is appropriately mouthwatering. Like I said last time: Don’t come hungry.