Frederick Wiseman's 'Menus-Plaisirs – Les Troisgros' is a tranquil look at a Michelin-starred French restaurant

”Cuisine is not the movies,” the grandfather of chef Michel Troisgros used to tell his children in the kitchen, “This is for real.” Founded in 1930, the Troisgros family restaurant has been passed down through four generations of fathers and sons, maintaining a three-Michelin-star rating since 1968. Currently operating three upscale eateries in Central France, the family and their food are finally ready for their close-ups in director Frederick Wiseman’s “Menus-Plaisirs – Les Troisgros.”

This off-handedly mesmerizing, four-hour documentary takes us through nearly every aspect of meal preparation and service at the Troisgros' restaurants. Soup to nuts, as it were. But those coming in expecting the shouty, stressed-out histrionics of Gordon Ramsay or “The Bear” will be stunned by what a quiet, almost tranquil picture this is. The loudest thing you’ll hear in these kitchens is the deafening hush of rapt concentration. Chef Michel’s grandfather never got to meet Frederick Wiseman, but he would probably agree that his philosophies of cuisine have found their ideal cinematic interpreter in someone whose movies are also not “the movies.” They’re for real.

The 94-year-old, Cambridge-based documentarian is nearly as much of an American institution as the communities and civic organizations he’s profiled over the past six decades and 40-something features. Wiseman films are uncommonly immersive and direct. There are no interviews, nor any voice-over narration to put a frame around what we’re watching. There aren’t any title cards telling us who’s who, nor any music to instruct us how we should feel about what’s happening. The filmmaker embeds himself and a tiny, two or three-person crew within a business or an institution and lives with everybody for a few months. As do we in the audience, getting a uniquely privileged, fly-on-the-wall perspective of how and why things work. You’ll never spot any overt editorializing, but Wiseman has long been one of the canniest editors in all of cinema, constructing arguments through sly juxtapositions and finding dramatic threads within the unexceptional doldrums of the day-to-day. He once told me that he thought his mission was to be a chronicler of ordinary life.

Wiseman never forces stories upon his footage, yet they can’t help but organically emerge. Such is the case with chef Michel, a doting grandad in his 60s who we meet in the process of passing down the family business to his sons César and Léo. The kids seem to have things pretty well sorted, but the old man can’t resist butting in. Sometimes he’s a huge help with new recipes and complicated preparations, other times he’s what the French call a pain in the derrière. Michel seems to be everywhere all at once in both the kitchen and the dining room. The latter arena is where he especially shines, schmoozing with the patrons and making them feel like a million bucks. I was reminded of former Mayor Marty Walsh’s incessant public appearances in Wiseman’s 2020 “City Hall.” Because it’s not enough to create the policies or cook the food, you’ve also gotta get out there and sell them.

We follow our three chefs as they procure ingredients at local markets and organic farms, visiting vineyards and an especially captivating cheese ripening facility. The tour guides are a nifty cheat around the filmmaker’s usual no-narration rule, and the fun thing about Frederick Wiseman movies is that while watching them I often find myself fascinated by subjects I normally couldn’t care less about, such as the brushing and temperature controlled bacterial cultivation of French cheese curds. (I don’t even like cheese.) It’s telling that both the cattle farm and the wineries repeatedly point out that their real work begins with the soil, stressing that nothing truly exceptional can grow from poorly treated ground.

The Troisgros family appears to have brought that philosophy into their restaurants, cultivating a calm, supportive atmosphere in an industry that’s infamous for the opposite. When a young cook botches a batch of veal brains, Michel doesn’t scream or belittle him. The elder chef instead grabs a big, bound Escoffier volume and shows him where he made a mistake. Maybe it would be more exciting to watch Gordon Ramsay yell obscenities at the kid, but I doubt that’s how you keep a quality kitchen going for nearly a century. Besides, there’s something soothing about watching people do their jobs well, whether we’re witnessing intricate dishes of frogs and snails being plated with tweezers or something as simple as a maid service at the restaurant’s adjoining hotel. It's the attention and level of care that makes “Menus-Plaisirs – Les Troisgros” such a pleasurable way to spend four hours, even if you don’t give a lick about fine dining.

“Menus-Plaisirs – Les Troisgros” opens at the Coolidge Corner Theatre on Friday, Feb. 9.