SWEET REVENGE IS BEST SERVED HOT IN "THE MENU".
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Work long enough in customer service, it's enough to drive anyone mad. Let's face it. There is no pleasing the unpleasable. The higher the standards of work, the more money that work may demand. This is Chef Slowik's greatest mistake. His clientel is chronically unhappy, and the entire staff at the exclusive Hawthorne restaurant goes insane trying to please their unpleasable clients.
However, one lowly customer slips through the cracks, escorted through the doors by her wealthy, but niave and young benefactor along with nine other infuriating diners. The mysterious Margot, an anorexic prostitute, finds herself a fish out of water on this excluded, inescapable island. As the night goes on, the courses shift from excentric to downright terrifying. By the time these eleven customers realize the fate that await after dessert, it's too late to save themselves.
Chef knows she doesn't belong there. So does she. Still, she tags along for the money and a free dinner. However, Chef knows something she doesn't know. She must helplessly watch as the mysterious conception for the Menu is slowly revealed as well as the painstakingly selected guest list.
The conception is the fate of the restaurant and everyone in it: DEATH BY FIRE.
First, the restaurant would burn.
Then, the island would return to its natural state and thrive without a human presence stripping it of its resources.
Chef honors the island for the sustenance it produces. However, he no longer honors the people who eat it. It then becomes his mission erase the "takers" and "eaters" from the equation.
Chef speaks of it constantly throughout the night. It's amazing how the best critic in the world didn't pick on the concept. Then again, she is too busy criticizing every plate brought to her. For all those fancy words and intellectual analysis, she completely misses the foreshadows of her dark fate. They all miss it, except for Margot, customer that doesn't belong.
The entire night is a tense dance of knowledge between the chef and his surprise guest. He knows things, but so does she. Their secrets are their power over the other. Margot's real name and profession are mysteries, sure. Her reluctance to reveal them tells him that she belongs with the staff, the people who aim to please and doomed to fail. He sees himself in her. That dynamic is her only hope to escape the island with her life in tact.
First, she must unearth his secret, the one the hides behind the silver door. His past. His background. She finds the last time he felt joy in his craft, smiling while serving his food. It's heart-breaking to see because he is so young. Since then, the of pleasing everyone slowly presses down on him until he finally snaps.
She must also accept that his madness is too strong. He is to far gone, and there is no hope in reasoning with him. Therefore, she speaks to him on a level that he can accept. As an independent customer (cut free from the demands of her benefactor), she sends the food back to the kitchen. Not literally, of course. It's all cleaned up by then.
Rejecting the food is rejecting the concept. Then, she makes a very special order. She orders the same food that brought him joy to cook so many years ago. By tapping into that lost feeling, Chef Slowik becomes easier to manipulate. This opens up one last exchange. She gives him the gift of joy, and he spares her life.
They understand each other on a level that no other rich, entitled customer can understand. Margot is different from all the others in the dining room. More importantly, she's intelligent enough to use that understanding to her benefit. She leaves the island with a renewed appetite for food and life. The trial of the night refines her, even though the fire does not.
