A MATTER OF TASTE (Sally Rowe). 68 minutes. Opens Thursday (September 29), at the TIFF Bell Lightbox, including a Q&A with Rowe and Liebrandt. See listing. Rating: NNN
Here’s a movie foodies will go crazy for. It follows chef Paul Liebrandt as he struggles to open his own restaurant and conquer New York City’s food scene.
The food at Liebrandt’s resto, Corton, is gorgeous and the prep meticulous, and director Sally Rowe gets right up close so we can see exactly what it takes to execute his culinary vision.
He literally paints his plates with his sauces, demands his vegetables be sliced uniformly to the millimetre and fusses endlessly with every dish so it meets his expectations.
But such film portraits put the director in a no-win situation. If the subject is a mercurial egomaniac, she’s guilty of the worst kind of Food Network cliché. And if he’s a nice guy, as Liebrandt appears to be, we’re not that powerfully engaged.
Rowe tries raising the stakes with a suspenseful wait for the big New York Times review, but she should have been questioning his staff’s obsession with finding out exactly when Times food critic Frank Bruni would be coming to the restaurant. Liebrandt’s a perfectionist 24 hours a day, no matter who’s dining. Why freak him out by telling him the city’s most influential critic will be at his table that night?
