THERE WAS A TIME WHEN I wanted to see what was so special about some of the finer restaurants in the city. One of the first places I made reservations at was the French restaurant, Maxim’s De Paris. I cannot remember anyone ever mentioning that name to me except in the movies. If memory serves me correctly, it was in the musical movie Gigi. The other reason I wanted to book this place was because periodically the city newspapers would mention a visiting celebrity who had dined at the famous restaurant. That was enough reason for me to want to go see the place myself. I remember Maxim’s was located on the lower level of a hotel. The décor was art nouveau with red velvet chairs, spiral black metal railings and curved archways. Lining the sides of the rooms were tall, curved booths of black leather that formed a scallop design down the length of the walls. I remember we had 3 people taking care of us: a waiter, a server and a busboy. The waiter unfolded our napkins and placed them on our laps; between every course he scrapped crumbs off the tablecloth with a metal looking object he kept in his pants pocket. The food was delicious, I remember; however, I did not see any celebrities that night.      MY CURIOUSITY OF FANCY RESTAURANTS DID not last long. It was depleting my funds and more times than not; I did not care for the food. The only time I felt full was when the restaurant served a basket of breads or dinner rolls. I am a visual and texture eater which means for me if a dish doesn’t look good then I will not be touching it. Also, I am not fond of things sitting in liquid or having a gelatinous texture. There were some restaurants we visited that tried to be creative with their food items. Unless it was in the dessert category, I generally did not like any of the food; if I cannot recognize it then I don’t want to stick it in my mouth. The other issue I had with some of the restaurants was the food portions; they were too damn small, in my opinion. What annoyed me during the duration of my eating at fancy restaurants was the fact I never saw a celebrity at any of the places, not even waiting outside the place for their limo. Based on my experiences at these fancy restaurants, there is no way I would want to have been a guest at the food establishment in this comedy, horror thriller.      A YOUNG COUPLE JOINED A SMALL group of dinner guests to experience everything at a renowned chef’s remote island restaurant. There were going to be plenty of surprises for the guests throughout the meal. With Ralph Fiennes (The King’s Man, The Dig) as Chef Slowik, Anya Taylor-Joy (The Northman, The New Mutants) as Margot, Nicholas Hoult (Those Who Wish Us Dead, Warm Bodies) as Tyler, Hong Chau (Downsizing, Homecoming-TV) as Elsa and Janet McTeer (Me Before You, Albert Nobbs) as Lillian; this film is a very dark comedy. Out of the cast, Anya was the standout for me. She has a way of commanding the screen that made her character the strongest. The script was interesting in the way it slowly revealed bits of the story. I will say there were a few scenes that seemed too far-fetched; however, they started to make sense when I thought of them more as a satire. I will say, I did not like the ending and felt it was too abrupt and somewhat of a cop-out. If it was not for the cast, I might have had a harder time watching this film. The food shown did not interest me; but if there was a turkey club sandwich with no mayo and burnt bacon served, that would have caught my attention.

3 stars