THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE & HER LOVER

English gangster Albert Spica has taken over the high-class Le Hollandais restaurant managed by French chef Richard Boarst. Spica makes nightly appearances at the restaurant with his retinue of thugs. His oafish behaviour causes frequent confrontations with the staff and his own customers, whose patronage he loses but whose money he seems not to miss.

Forced to accompany Spica is his reluctant yet elegant wife, Georgina, who soon catches the eye of a quiet regular at the restaurant: bookshop owner Michael. Under her husband's nose, with the help of the restaurant staff, Georgina carries on an affair with Michael. Spica soon learns of the affair, forcing Georgina and Michael to hide at the book depository where Michael works a side job. Boarst sends food to them through Pup, a boy soprano who sings while working. Spica tortures Pup before finding the book depository's location written in a book the boy is carrying. Spica's men raid the book depository while Georgina is visiting Pup in the hospital; they torture Michael to death by force-feeding him pages from his books. Georgina discovers his body when she returns.

Overcome with rage and grief, Georgina begs Boarst to cook Michael's body, and he eventually complies. Together with all the people that Spica wronged throughout the film, Georgina confronts her husband finally at the restaurant and forces him at gunpoint to eat a mouthful of Michael's cooked body. Spica obeys, gagging. Georgina then shoots him in the head, calling him a cannibal.

Georgina forces Albert Spica to eat the cooked flesh of her murdered lover in front of their assembled guests, then shoots him, declaring him a cannibal.

The finale completes the film’s themes of excess, cruelty, and poetic justice as the abused wife seizes power in the most literal way possible. By making Spica consume the consequences of his own violence, Greenaway delivers a darkly operatic, allegorical punishment, blurring the boundaries between revenge, art, and horror. The closing moments cement the film’s reputation for audacious narrative choices and unforgettable imagery.