Film Screening: Au Menu—Menus-Plaisirs: Les Troisgros

To wrap up our 2024/2025 gastronomy-themed film series, “Au Menu,” we are thrilled to bring you Frederick Wiseman’s 2023 French documentary Menus-Plaisirs : Les Troisgros (Lesser Pleasures: The Troisgros Family)!

Escape the July heat in our air-conditioned Auditorium and allow yourself to be transported to Central France and Troisgros: a Michelin 3-star restaurant owned and operated by the same family for four generations, and destination for gastronomes from around the world.

The film will be presented by AF-Chicago Board President and scholar of gastronomy Richard Shepro. Complimentary light refreshments will be available throughout the screening. Attendees will be automatically entered into a raffle for a $50 gift certificate to Sofitel Magnificent Mile’s très chic Le Bar.

Doors at 10:00 a.m. Screening at 10:30. Please enter via 54 W Chicago Ave.

The New York Times has called American filmmaker, documentarian, and theater director Fred Wiseman “one of the most important and original filmmakers working today.” In his 44th documentary—which has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes—Wiseman takes us behind the scenes, where we are privy to:

• passionate debates among the head chefs (a father and his two sons) about texture, color, and depth of flavors;
• visits to a bounteous produce farm, a local vineyard, and a massive cheese cave (where “each cheese has its moment of truth”); and
• waitstaff meetings focused on individualized customer preferences and food plating at a performance-art level.

In his trademark style, Wiseman patiently illuminates the restless creativity of this culinary family as they experiment with dishes, methods, and ingredients—keeping their haute cuisine anchored in tradition while brilliantly evolving.

Menus-Plaisirs : Les Troisgros won Best Non-Fiction Film at the 2023 New York Film Critics Circle Awards, the 2023 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards, and the 2023 National Society of Film Critics Awards.

Additional Praise for Menus-Plaisirs: Les Troisgros

A masterpiece.

- The Daily Beast, Los Angeles Times, Slant Magazine, MovieWeb

Deeply pleasurable.

- The New York Times

Mesmerizing.

- Variety, Eater

About the Director

Frederick Wiseman

Frederick Wiseman, 95, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, which continues to be his home–when he is not in Paris, often doing post-production work on his films. After training to be a lawyer, he taught at Boston University School of Law in the late 1950s. While there, he took his students out of the classroom and into institutions to which their work might eventually lead them: prisons, parole board hearings, medical examiner’s offices, courtrooms… places he would later go on to film.

His film career began with producing The Cool World, directed by Shirley Clark. That depressing and liberating experience made him set out to direct, produce, and edit his own films. Forty-one of his forty-five films have won industry awards. Wiseman has been the recipient of numerous lifetime achievement awards, along with Guggenheim and MacArthur fellowships.

About the Presenter

Richard Shepro

Richard Shepro is President of the Alliance Française de Chicago. He attended the Paris avant-première of Menus-Plaisirs: Les Troisgros in December 2023 with the Troisgros family and Frederick Wiseman. A published scholar of gastronomy, he has spoken at many food and wine symposia in the US and given ten lectures at the Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery. His sold-out talk on the history of pairing wine with food in France took place at the Alliance just days before COVID. He is also an international lawyer at Mayer Brown and teaches at the University of Chicago.

Get Here

The Alliance Française de Chicago is one block from the Chicago Red Line stop. Best bus routes are the 22 on Clark and the 66 on Chicago.

Parking Information

$12 for 12 hours at InterPark (100 W Chestnut St). Validation is available at reception.