- "Anyone can cook."
- —Gusteau's catchphrase
Auguste Gusteau is a major character in Ratatouille.
Ratatouille[]
He is a renowned and extremely talented chef who wrote the bestseller Anyone Can Cook and founded the restaurant Gusteau's, which merited five stars. His personal motto is that anyone can cook, and is prone to producing recipes with unusual flairs. He was the youngest chef in history to obtain a 5-star restaurant, and was among the finest chefs worldwide.
Gusteau is known to have entered a relationship with Renata Linguini, but remains oblivious to the existence of his son Alfredo Linguini, a fact withheld from him by Renata.
However, the restaurant lost one of its five stars one after food critic Anton Ego wrote a disrespectful review (for reasons unknown, as Ego was just one man compared to the masses who greatly admired Gusteau's cooking), and the brokenhearted Gusteau passed away shortly after this - which, according to tradition, caused the restaurant to lose a second star. Gusteau's ownership of the restaurant was handed over to his sous chef Skinner, who was not exactly faithful to Gusteau's ideals and began marketing his line of frozen foods in Gusteau's image. Nevertheless, Gusteau's will precludes Skinner from seizing his restaurant unless no biological heir appears within two years.
Inspired by Gusteu's feats, Remy aspires to develop culinary talents of his own and occasionally conjures the chef as part of his imagination.
Unfortunately, Skinner tries to sabotage Linguini's attempts to please returning customer Anton Ego by kidnapping Remy. Remy talks to Gusteau in his cage and is frustrated because he feels that all this time he has been pretending to be things he is not, like a rat for his father and a human for Linguini, and that he (Gusteau) is really there for him to talk to. In his final appearance to Remy, Gusteau tells Remy that he doesn't need to pretend, and that he never did. He was being his true self the whole time. Uplifted by these words, Remy is soon rescued by his father and brother before returning to Linguini. The two succeed in impressing Ego. Though Gusteau's restaurant is closed, his legacy lives on with them.
Trivia[]
- His first and last name are anagrams of each other.
- Auguste Gusteau is a direct tribute to the late Bernard Loiseau, a gourmet French chef and restaurateur. Gusteau's life is fully inspired from Bernard Loiseau.
- In the original screenplay, Gusteau was still alive, but Brad Bird concluded there were too many stories to tell and decided Gusteau would be dead. It would also be difficult for Remy to see Gusteau as an idol if they met in real life without creating a history between the characters like with Linguini. In the final draft, he does still speak to Remy as his "conscience". When Remy asks how a man can communicate with a rat, Auguste admits that he is a figment of Remy's imagination and it is Remy's mind that is channeling him from the great beyond.
Quotes[]
- "What I say is true, anyone can cook... but only the fearless can be great."
- —Gusteau on TV
Gallery[]
