Anouchka de Williencourt photo
“Haute Cuisine,” the 2012 French film opening today, has two things going for it: the charming Catherine Frot, last seen by American viewers as the put-upon wife in “The Dinner Game;” and an impressive amount of food porn, including some very complicated and classic French dishes. It has many other things going against it, however.
Titled “Les saveurs du Palais” in France, “Haute Cuisine” tells a fictionalized version of a real life event. After many years of fancy meals, President FranÁois Mitterrand hired a middle-aged woman from the countryside to be his personal chef. He was looking for someone to make the kind of food his grandmother made.