The Restaurant

The Restaurant (Le Grand Restaurant, 1966) is a French comedy with Louis de Funès, available to watch online on iFILM. Septime runs a posh Paris restaurant and rules his waiters like a tyrant, finding fault everywhere and inventing it when none exists.

One evening turns everything upside down. Mid-dinner, a celebrated guest, the president of a foreign state, simply vanishes from the dining room. With his establishment's name on the line, Septime gets dragged into the investigation himself, half by choice and half by force. The prim restaurateur stumbles into the role of a hopeless spy, tripping over the real agents and lurching from one scrape to the next. De Funès is in his element: the grimaces, the rapid-fire muttering, the trademark eruptions of temper.

Directed by Jacques Besnard, the film runs barely over an hour, a tight little farce with no slack in it. It suits anyone who just wants to put on an old French comedy and laugh without thinking too hard. Stream The Restaurant (1966) online on iFILM.