Bárbara Mori stars in tepid tale of a high-society wife who opens a restaurant in her home after her husband leaves her
What you expect from a film about a fancy high-end restaurant is a certain amount of heat: the roiling intensity of staff pushed to their absolute limits in the pursuit of gastronomic perfection. But this 1960s-set Peruvian drama instead maintains a gentle simmer, sedate and elegant. Perhaps it’s too elegant given the circumstances of its chef-proprietor, a high-society trophy wife with no catering experience who makes a high-stakes gamble on opening a successful restaurant.
Bárbara Mori is Norma, a glacial beauty who cultivates a kind of Jackie Onassis chic: huge sunglasses, massive blow-dry, makeup thickly applied like armour. One night, Norma’s husband humiliatingly leaves her for a beauty queen. You’d be sympathetic if Norma wasn’t so foul to the staff, lashing out at housekeeper Rosa (Hermelinda Luján) and chauffeur Oscar (Cesar Ballumbrosio). It’s Oscar (who is a bit in love with Norma) who suggests she opens a restaurant in the house to pay the mortgage. Norma’s father was the French ambassador to Peru, and she has picked up his passion for gastronomy. Although the script is a bit inconsistent on this, since Oscar also says he’s never seen her so much as light the oven.
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