Perrier in limelight again, and loving it

When she was 12, Erika Frankel's parents took her to Le Bec-Fin, the storied French restaurant that with its elaborate multi-course meals played a major role in establishing Philadelphia as a world-class culinary destination. Tween Frankel was not impressed.

"After the meal, my mom asked me what I thought," recalled Frankel, now 36. "I said, 'I think if you took all the food that was on each plate and rolled it into a ball, you'd have a Big Mac.' "

Frankel's appreciation for haute cuisine has grown since then. A longtime documentary producer, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the Shipley School, she spent three years filming what turned out to be the last days of Le Bec-Fin for King Georges, her directorial debut, which premiered this month at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham, N.C. If a U.S. distributor is found - close, Frankel said - King Georges could be in theaters by year's end.

Sitting next to Frankel as she told the Big Mac story at a sidewalk café in Durham, Le Bec-Fin's founder and former owner, Georges Perrier, barely batted an eye. He'd heard the story before. In fact, he had heard worse, not least from Inquirer food critic Craig LaBan, who in 2012 compared the restaurant's sausage-stuffed quail to "a bird-shaped Bob Evans patty."

Frankel, who says it took Perrier "about 30 seconds" to agree to be filmed, showed up with her cameras in 2010 after he announced he would be closing the restaurant's doors, and checked in on him periodically thereafter. A partnership with then-chef Nicholas Elmi, now of South Philadelphia's Laurel, bought him more time, but the writing was on the wall, for Perrier and the cuisine he championed.

King Georges serves as an elegy for the era of fine dining that Le Bec-Fin embodied.

"I go to restaurants now," Ed Rendell, former Philadelphia mayor and Pennsylvania governor, recalls in the film, "and I'm the only one wearing a tie." LaBan, as a disembodied voice, calls Perrier one of the greatest sauciers ever, a master of a tragically dying art. But the film also is a fond, if not overly smitten, portrayal of the charismatic, tempestuous, 71-year-old Perrier, and the passion and dedication that it takes to make a restaurant - really, any large-scale creative endeavor - work.

"It's my wife, my mistress, my burden," Perrier says in the film. His daughter, Genevieve, remembers being raised in an era when men regularly devoted themselves to their careers at the expense of their families. (Footage of Elmi spending time with his infant daughter serves as a sign that things have changed.)

In Le Bec-Fin's kitchen, where many of King Georges' most memorable scenes take place, Perrier is a terror. His screams of displeasure often traveled into the dining room among the banquettes and crystal chandeliers. "I was really a motherf-er," he said in Durham, an admission more tinged with pride than regret.

Perrier also comes off as an apparently tireless worker, pitching in with minor tasks such as chopping vegetables, even grabbing an industrial vacuum when a torrential downpour sends water into the basement Le Bar Lyonnais. He frequently refers to himself as a "cobbler," which seems to be his personal shorthand for a blue-collar craftsman.

"When I started in this business," he said, "chefs were nobody. Now, the chef is a big star. It's a whole different world."

Perrier was among the chefs who changed that, although he gives the bulk of the credit to Paul Bocuse, the influential nouvelle cuisinier who, like Perrier, hails from Lyon. As Perrier's legend grew, so did the time he spent entertaining diners even after the last dish had been served, adding hours to an already lengthy work day. But if Perrier is enjoying the release from Le Bec-Fin's unforgiving demands, it's clear that he's not done with stardom, nor is it done with him.

The audience in Durham gave Perrier a standing ovation after King Georges' premiere, and he responded with tears of gratitude. "When you're in the limelight," he told them, "everything is wonderful, and when you're not in the limelight, everything is not so wonderful." And then he turned to the movie's 36-year-old director. "Erika, you bring me back to the limelight."

Perrier could begin work on a book about his life as early as this month, and he has thought about teaching at the Restaurant School.

"I think the best thing for me is to teach young people to take the flambeau," he said, using the French word for "torch." Indeed, he now says his proudest achievement is not Le Bec-Fin itself but the successful chefs who learned under his tutelage, including Elmi and Kevin Sbraga. "I'm the only one who had two Top Chefs come out of his kitchen," Perrier said. "No one else can say that."

Even if opening another restaurant isn't in the cards for Perrier, that doesn't mean he has lost his taste for cooking. He still turns up for big-ticket collaborative dinners with other well-known chefs, and mentions opening a food truck to sell galette de crabe and boeuf bourguignon - often enough to make you think it's not just a joke. Ask for a favorite movie about food, and his answer is Chef, in which a failed restaurateur finds success selling simple, pure cuisine out of the side of a truck.

"I thought it was funny," Perrier said. "Very unrealistic, but funny."