Fergus Henderson recalls cinema’s best food film of all time and how it inspired his cooking
My thoughts turn to the greatest food film ever, La Grande Bouffe. The first meal in the film being a heavy set roasting tray full of roast marrow bones. This is the first eating, together, Marcello Mastroianni and Phillipe Noiret, and their companions go around sucking on the bones and they’re still looking bonny! Not the liverish bloated, gentleman they become on their fatal culinary adventure. There was a “do you see the light” kind of moment for me, a matter of weeks before St John opened as I went to see this film and it became our signature dish! The futility of the last meat delivery as Phillipe Noiret passes away into the large blancmange breasts…
Photography Joss McKinley
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Taken from Port 9: The Film Issue
