Burnt – a Chef’s Perspective

Note: In celebration of In Good Taste Denver’s 4th anniversary, we ran a contest for tickets for the advance screening of Burnt. One of the winners turned out to be a local chef who, after seeing the movie, asked if she could provide us with a review. Of course! We welcomed her opinions (which differed from ours) and her unique perspective. 

Shot of hands opening a knife kit? Check. Beautifully plated food on pristine white china? Check. Bradley Cooper screaming and throwing plates? Check, check and double-check. Burnt, featuring Mr. Cooper as Michelin-starred chef Adam Jones, opens this weekend, and “foodies” should rejoice.

As a professional chef for more than twenty years, I always have been and always will be drawn to any film featuring food as a primary character. Nothing else connects us more as humans, and there is nothing else that every single person on the planet shares so intimately. That said, making a good film about food isn’t as easy as it sounds – but in many ways, Burnt succeeds.

When I decided to attend culinary school, in the mid-1990s, announcing to your parents that you were going to cook professionally was akin to announcing that you planned to rob convenience stores as a career choice. Chefs were not the demi-gods they are today, and certainly no one had one-name status, like Giada or Bobby. Cooking professionally (the only option, of course, was to cook in a restaurant kitchen) was simply a long and ultimately pointless path for those not successful enough to make it in the real world. Fast-forward twenty years, and chefs have achieved unheard-of fame and recognition, plus endorsement deals for everything from packaged sauces to cookware to pet food. As with sports or acting, however, only a very small percentage will ever make it big – but that doesn’t stop culinary schools from churning out thousands of “line dogs” every year.

Burnt capitalizes on chefs’ current rock-star appeal by casting the not-difficult-to-look-at Bradley Cooper as Adam Jones, a formerly famous American chef working in Paris who throws his kitchen career away in pursuit of ever more substances to inject, snort or inhale. This path isn’t unfamiliar to anyone who has spent even five minutes in a professional kitchen, but of course we need a redemption story to carry the film, and Mr. Cooper’s character is in pursuit of his third Michelin star. (This European-based ranking system means a great deal in Europe and New York City, less so in the rest of the U.S.) Jones crawls his way out of the sewer back to London, where he promises to elevate a fading hotel restaurant into haute cuisine’s upper echelons. He’ll obviously need a platoon of chefs recruited from prior gigs to back him up, as well as Sienna Miller as his feisty sous-chef. Once the team is in place, the real work can begin: competing with fellow chefs, attending sort-of therapy with Emma Thompson, running from drug lords, and cooking for Michelin reviewers.

This isn’t a life-changing movie in any sense, but for me it was infinitely more watchable than last year’s bland, pallid Chef with Jon Favreau, which was desperately under-seasoned – basically far too nice to a miserable industry. Where Burnt gets it right is in the intensity and pressure of a high-end kitchen – the stress, the screaming, the tension. What it can’t convey, unfortunately, is the incredible heat, which only adds to the pressure. (We regularly clocked our Parisian training kitchens at 120 degrees.) It also showcases the breathtaking arrogance chefs (or anyone) simply must possess to be at the absolute top of their game, and more importantly to stay there. When Cooper’s Jones loses his cool, literally and figuratively, I found myself shrinking in my seat, remembering how many times I’d witnessed – or been the target – of a similar attack from a manic chef. My movie companion even turned to me and said in horror, “Is that what it’s really like?” Yes, yes and yes – and perhaps that’s one of the many reasons the restaurant industry is currently experiencing such a critical shortage of cooks.

Silly subplots aside (though Emma Thompson’s therapist is delightful), where Burnt also gets it right is by not beating the inevitable kitchen romance to death. While Cooper and Miller make a lovely pairing, this film is ultimately about food and restaurants and cooking – at an elite level that most of us will never experience. It also emphasizes that while certain chefs are household names, what is often forgotten is the nameless brigade of sous-chefs, line cooks and dishwashers supporting them. Cooper’s Jones has to learn that it is a team effort, even though it’s his name on the door. (The film was originally titled Adam Jones, perhaps in a nod to the trend of simply naming restaurants for the chef. This is tricky if the chef departs.) In addition to remembering my own experiences in both mediocre and good kitchens, the film also left me sad – because I have never (and will never) cook in a Michelin three-star kitchen. And while it’s not exactly the best or healthiest way to spend a career, Burnt reminds us that there are a few people in the world for whom perfection simply isn’t good enough. As Jones’ nemesis accurately points out, “that forces the rest of us to be better.”

Thank you to In Good Taste Denver for the opportunity to view a screening of Burnt!

Chef Elizabeth Buckingham is a Colorado native; she earned her culinary degree from Le Cordon Bleu Paris. A spontaneous scuba diving trip to the Bahamas following her graduation led to the next eight years of her career: she cooked aboard dive boats and later progressed to head chef aboard private yachts worldwide. Elizabeth teaches public and private cooking classes in the Denver area and offers corporate recipe development and trade-show services to her clients. She thinks everyone should know how to cook at least a little bit. Find her on Twitter @chefbuckingham.