Kings of Pastry

Name: Kings of Pastry
Genre: Drama, History, Family, Documentary
Released: September 15, 2010
Duration: 87 min
Rating: 69

2010

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Generally favorable reviews based on 11 Critic Reviews

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Kings Of Pastry

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Movie Details & Credits

First Run Features | Release Date: September 15, 2010

Summary: Imagine a scene never before witnessed: Sixteen French pastry chefs gathered in Lyon for three intense days of mixing, piping and sculpting everything from delicate chocolates to six-foot sugar sculptures in hopes of being declared by President Nicolas Sarkozy one of the best. This is the prestigious Meilleurs Ouvriers de France competitionImagine a scene never before witnessed: Sixteen French pastry chefs gathered in Lyon for three intense days of mixing, piping and sculpting everything from delicate chocolates to six-foot sugar sculptures in hopes of being declared by President Nicolas Sarkozy one of the best. This is the prestigious Meilleurs Ouvriers de France competition (Best Craftsmen in France). The blue, white and red striped collar worn on the jackets of the winners is more than the ultimate recognition for every pastry chef – it is a dream and an obsession. The finalists, France’s culinary elite, risk their reputations as well as sacrifice family and finances in pursuit of this lifelong distinction of excellence. Similar to the Olympics, the three-day contest takes place every four years and it requires that the chefs not only have extraordinary skill and nerves of steel, but also a lot of luck. [First Run Features]… Expand

Director: Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker

Genre(s): Drama, History, Family, Documentary

Runtime: 87 min

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Critic Reviews

Kenneth Turan

The French, no one needs to be told, take food and food preparation with extreme seriousness. "There are no 'all-you-can eat' places in France," one chef sniffs in this excellent Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker documentary. "The idea is to eat small amounts of the best food." Read full review

Ella Taylor

Kings of Pastry is about the craft, the teaching and learning, the collaborative work, the tedium, the heartbreak and emotional backbone it takes to make something lovely, even if that something is destined to disappear down a gullet in seconds - and even if the maker ends up a noble failure. Read full review

Rene Rodriguez

Dec 9, 2010

Some of the creations these chefs produce defy belief (and make you wish you could jump into the screen to have a taste). Read full review

Mike Hale

The film builds in interest and intrigue as it goes along, helped immeasurably by the directors' choice - canny or fortunate or both - of the astonishingly good-natured and likable Jacquy Pfeiffer, an Alsace-born, Chicago-based chef, as their chief protagonist. Read full review

Alissa Simon

Given what seems like unprecedented access to the very masculine world of the French patissier, Pennebaker and Hegedus get their subjects to reveal a few trade secrets as well as personal aspirations. As their calm camera glides over the chefs' almost-too-beautiful-to-eat creations, viewers share their awe. Read full review

Boxoffice Magazine Matthew Nestel

The work is a brutal rite of passage that will click with anybody who has put it all out there and lost once, twice or thrice. And still got up to face the music again. Read full review

Melissa Anderson

Most of the culinary footage is devoted to documenting-in flat, dull DV-the finalists' piece montée, or "sugar showpiece," in which sucrose is manipulated for its chemical properties, and dessert becomes a weird, often tacky sculpture. Read full review

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