Entertainment | Food & Culture
Anthony Bourdain was not a man who handed out compliments easily. The celebrity chef, travel host, and author — best remembered for his no-nonsense approach to food and his relentless pursuit of authentic culinary experiences on CNN's Parts Unknown — was famously scathing about food trends, cooking shows, and Hollywood's chronic inability to portray professional kitchens accurately. So when Bourdain declared something the best food movie ever made, the food world listened.
His choice? Ratatouille. A 2007 Pixar animated film about a rat who wants to be a chef.
🐀 The Quote That Surprised Everyone
When Bourdain was asked about food-centric movies by Entertainment Weekly in 2011, his answer was immediate and unambiguous. "It's a measure of how deficient Hollywood has been in making an accurate restaurant-food based film that far and away the best was about an animated rat," Bourdain said. "They got the food, the reactions to food, and tiny details to food really right. I really thought it captured a passionate love of food in a way that very few other films have."
The quote spread widely online — and continues to resurface every few years, because it perfectly captures the paradox of Bourdain himself: a deeply serious man who found the most honest depiction of his life's work in a children's cartoon.
🍳 Why Bourdain Loved It: The Tiny Details
Food journalist Michael Ruhlman asked Bourdain about Ratatouille for his blog just weeks after the film hit theaters in the summer of 2007 — and Bourdain's response was even more effusive than what later appeared in Entertainment Weekly.
"I think it's quite simply the best food movie ever made. The best restaurant movie ever made — the best chef movie," Bourdain wrote. "The tiny details are astonishing: The faded burns on the cooks' wrists. The 'personal histories' of the cooks — the attention paid to the food. And the Anton Ego ratatouille epiphany hit me like a punch in the chest — literally breathtaking."
What moved Bourdain most was not the story itself — charming as it is — but the film's forensic accuracy about professional kitchen life. The burns on cooks' wrists. The way chefs move. The hierarchy of a professional kitchen. The relationship between a critic and the food that transforms them. These are details that only someone who has spent years behind a stove would notice — and Pixar got every one of them right.
🎭 The Anton Ego Scene: 'What Movie Making Was Once All About'
The moment Bourdain described as hitting him "like a punch in the chest" is one of the most celebrated scenes in Pixar's history — the moment when the fearsome food critic Anton Ego tastes Remy's ratatouille and is transported back to his childhood, to his mother's kitchen, to the memory of a meal that first made him love food.
Bourdain described seeing the scene in a crowded theater: "I saw it in a theater entirely full with adults — and the reaction to that moment was what movie making was once — a long time ago — all about: audible surprise, delight, awe and even a measure of enlightenment."
The Anton Ego scene works because it captures something that is almost impossible to put on screen: the emotional memory of food. The way a particular taste or smell can collapse time, return you to a specific place and moment, make you feel like a child again. That Pixar achieved this with animation — without smell, without taste, without any of the sensory experience of actually eating — is the kind of cinematic miracle that impressed even a cynic like Bourdain.
🎬 Bourdain's Secret Role: He's in the Credits
Bourdain's appreciation for the film was deepened by a personal connection most viewers never notice. Anthony Bourdain and Chef Thomas Keller were consultants on the film, and Bourdain was proud of his "minuscule" contribution to the film early on during its development.
"I am hugely and disproportionately proud that my minuscule contribution (if any) early, early in the project's development led to a 'thank you' in the credits," Bourdain wrote. "Amazing how much they got right."
Patton Oswalt — who voiced Remy in the film — later confirmed Bourdain's love for Ratatouille on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen. "[Bourdain] was like, 'They got kitchens and chefs right. It's very, very accurate,'" Oswalt said. The actor also revealed that the two developed a friendship over the movie, and that Bourdain gave him and his late wife restaurant recommendations for their Paris honeymoon.
🏆 The Film's Legacy: Awards and Acclaim
Bourdain was not the only one to recognize Ratatouille's extraordinary quality. The film broke the record for the most Academy Award nominations for an animated film, with five nominations and one win, for Best Animated Feature.
It remains one of the highest-rated films in Pixar's history — and among the most critically acclaimed animated films ever made. Directed by Brad Bird, it is regularly cited alongside WALL-E and Up as the pinnacle of the studio's creative achievement.
But for Bourdain — who had spent decades eating in the best restaurants in the world, cooking in professional kitchens, and traveling to every corner of the globe in search of honest, authentic food experiences — none of that critical consensus mattered as much as a simpler truth: Ratatouille got it right.
🎞️ Other Food Movies Bourdain Liked
While Ratatouille was clearly his top pick, Bourdain also appreciated a handful of other food-centric films. He mentioned other titles like Big Night and Eat Drink Man Woman, but his clear number one was the story of the Parisian rat. Since Bourdain's death in 2018, other food-centric productions have emerged — including The Menu and The Bear. While The Menu is mostly a satire about class with a superficial focus on food, The Bear really is about working chefs and the pressures and stresses they face as their profession seeps into their personal lives. There's almost no doubt that Bourdain would have enjoyed it.
💡 Why This Still Matters
Ratatouille is now nearly 20 years old. Bourdain died in 2018. And yet the pairing of the two — the hardest of hard-edged food critics and the most gentle of animated fairy tales — continues to feel like a revelation every time someone encounters it for the first time.
It matters because Bourdain's endorsement is a reminder that the best art is not always the most obvious art. The most accurate portrait of professional kitchen life did not come from a gritty, realistic drama about burnt-out chefs. It came from a studio that took the time to get the burns on the wrists right — and from a rat who just wanted to cook.
You can watch Ratatouille now on Disney+.
📊 Key Facts
- 🎬 Film: Ratatouille (2007) — Pixar/Disney
- 🎬 Director: Brad Bird
- 🐀 Lead voice: Patton Oswalt (Remy)
- 🏆 Oscar: Best Animated Feature Film 2008
- 📅 Bourdain's first praise: July 2007 (weeks after release)
- 📰 EW interview: 2011
- 👤 Anthony Bourdain: Celebrity chef, author, CNN Parts Unknown host — died June 2018
- 🎖️ Bourdain's role: Consultant — thanked in end credits
- 📺 Where to watch: Disney+
- 💬 Bourdain's verdict: "Quite simply the best food movie ever made"
📡 Sources: The Takeout (April 2025), Yahoo Entertainment (April 2025), Far Out Magazine (May 2025), My Modern Met (May 2025), SlashFilm (December 2021), BroBible (June 2021), The Digital Fix (March 2024), The Mirror US (July 2025) — all citing original Bourdain quotes from Entertainment Weekly (2011) and Michael Ruhlman's blog (2007).
🔖 Tags: Anthony Bourdain Ratatouille, Best Food Movie Ever, Pixar Ratatouille, Parts Unknown, Anton Ego, Bourdain Film Picks, Entertainment Weekly, Food Movies, Disney Plus, Celebrity Chef
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