Plot
Natasha "Nat" O'Brien is a celebrated pastry chef invited to London to assist in preparing a state dinner for Elizabeth II, organized by culinary critic Maximillian "Max" Vandeveer. Natasha's ex-husband, Robert "Robby" Ross, is a fast-food entrepreneur ("the Taco King") serving the "everyman" consumer while she caters to the affluent. Max is the "calamitously fat" grand gourmand publisher of a gourmet magazine Epicurious and is the patron of several famous European chefs, each renowned for a signature dish.
When Natasha arrives, Max is gloating over his latest issue, featuring "the world's most fabulous meal," which highlights the culinary masterpieces of his favorite chefs. However, Max's health is failing from an addiction to those chefs' specialties. After completing the meal at Buckingham Palace, Natasha has a one-night fling with chef Louis Kohner whose specialty is baked pigeon in crust. The next morning, Natasha finds Louis dead in a 450° oven. After being questioned by Inspector Blodgett, Natasha and Robby depart for Venice, where Natasha is wooed by another chef, Fausto Zoppi, whose specialty is a lobster dish. However, when turning up for their date at his kitchen, Natasha finds Zoppi dead in a tank of lobsters.
After more questioning, this time by Venice police, Natasha receives a call from Robby to come to Paris to help prevent one member of a group of French chefs from being murdered. When they arrive, they hold a meeting discussing how Louis and Zoppi were killed and what to do next. Later that night, after a phone call from Max (who learns from his assistant Beecham that Natasha is no longer in Venice, but in Paris staying with Robby), Natasha puts together what Louis and Zoppi had in common – both made a dish featured in the aforementioned magazine article. It is now known that the next to be killed will be Jean-Claude Moulineau, whose specialty is pressed duck.
The disturbing fact is that the killings are following the order of a meal, so Natasha will be the last to be killed, her specialty being a dessert known as "Le' Bombe Richelieu." Robby tries to calm Natasha by suspecting Max as the killer, with the motive that he was the one who selected Natasha, Louis, Fausto and Jean-Claude to be in the magazine, but Natasha believes the killer is really Auguste Grandvilliers, with the motive that he was left off the list; however, when they attempt to call Moulineau to warn him, they receive a phone call from Grandvilliers that someone is at his restaurant. When they arrive, Robby and Natasha find Grandvilliers on a meat hook in the freezer, still alive.
Robby and Natasha begin falling in love again. After being questioned by police, Natasha and Robby learn from Inspector Salpetre that Moulineau was killed after being pushed headfirst into a duck-press. Back in London, Natasha is set to be a guest on A Moveable Feast. Robby initially decides to stay with her to keep her safe. However, Robby and Natasha learn from Max that Blodgett called Beecham to inform her that Grandvilliers confessed to the murders, so Robby can head to Brussels.
As he is heading to the airport, he is watching Natasha on TV and realizes that the cake that Natasha is set to light – the cake Robby poked three holes into like a bowling ball – was switched and now has a bomb inside it. He calls Blodgett to confront him about Grandvilliers's confession, only to learn no one confessed. That's when Robby once again suspects Max is the killer. He arrives at the TV studio and rescues her just in time as, 30–45 seconds later, the cake explodes on-air.
In the end, the killer turns out not to be Max who had realised who the culprit was after the studio attempt on Natasha, and called Beecham to meet him at a restaurant. After consuming a surfeit of food, he claims responsibility for the murders to Blodgett, before expiring. Beecham, distraught at his death, then confesses that she couldn't allow Max to be remembered as a murderer and it was she who had done it out of love and admiration for Max, and to protect him from the food he couldn't resist that was slowly killing him. As she cradles him, Max hiccups and revives.
In the final scene, Robby and Natasha get remarried.
Reception
The film received critical acclaim and currently has a fresh 77% rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 13 reviews. [4] Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four, calling it "a light, silly entertainment with class". [5]
Variety wrote: "Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? is a happy combination of the macabre and the merry. The film is a fast-moving, witty film, beautifully cast with a large group of international professionals who give it full justice to Peter Stone's film adaptation of Nan and Ivan Lyons's novel". [6]
Conversely, Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic wrote: "Who ls Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? (Warner Bros.) is one more attempt to get fun out of homicide, an idea that sometimes succeeds but doesn't here because the script lacks focus, brightness, and pace, and the direction limps along after it". [7]
Ted Kotcheff, who directed the film, described it as an "eccentric and underrated black comedy". [8]
Graeme Clark of The Spinning Image gave the film seven stars out of ten, describing it as "ban the bombe". [9]
