A Michelin star can change a restaurant’s fortunes overnight, but Feast or Famine, a documentary about the pursuit of that prestigious seal of approval, is more interested in the personal cost of trying to win one. Directors Adrian Choa and Michael Boccalini split their focus between the present-day efforts of Dalston restaurant Angelina to claim its first star, and the mythic rise of celebrity chef Marco Pierre White from combustible kitchen prodigy to the youngest restauranteur to win three stars.
The result is a film pulled between two equally compelling stories: White remains a magnetic presence, with his self-mythologising and, at times, unexpectedly moving narration. His decision to hand back his Michelin stars gives the film its central tension, pondering: Why spend your life chasing an accolade bestowed by a tyre company? And yet, why does that same accolade continue to mean so much? On the other hand, the Angelina material gives that question its human weight. Co-owner Joshua Owens-Baigler and head chef Usman Haider are presented not as swaggering kitchen tyrants, but as part of a softer, more familial restaurant culture. Usman’s story emerges as the film’s beating heart, particularly in the way it connects professional ambition with familial expectation and the desire to make life as a chef feel worthy of respect.
On a formal level, Feast or Famine is less convincing. The frequent cutaways, moody tracking shots and illustrative inserts sometimes give it the slightly overworked texture of a premium YouTube documentary, when the kitchen itself is often far more interesting. The film is at its best when it simply stays with the staff during service, letting the pressure accumulate naturally. Still, there is something genuinely sweet and suspenseful here. Feast or Famine understands the seductive cruelty of Michelin, the ways it can inspire obsession and warp the lives of dreams.
