Cafe Zsa Zsa

Restaurants, Art, and ‘The Phoenician Scheme’ | Eater

"Presented at the end of the film as the place where Anatole “Zsa-Zsa” Korda (played by Benicio Del Toro) and his daughter Liesl (played by Mia Threapleton) work as chef and waitress, this humble bistro on a gray streetcorner stands in stark contrast to Korda’s former life of mansions and scheming. It’s not a grand place: “It’s crowded and everyone is sweaty and stained,” and, as Liesl notes, everyone is happy. Liesl pulls Korda back from moral rot, insisting the laborers must be paid and that the brothers be raised in the same house as their father; she compromises, saying the scheme “may be a sizable step backwards for civilization,” says Liesl, “but it will produce some good works, I’m sure of it.” Korda admits to Liesl he’s always been a good cook, having learned in the kitchen with his childhood nanny, and the family chooses to serve the same roast pigeon that Korda once served to guests in his mansion earlier in the film — service now without self-importance, fewer resources, and perhaps better for it. The essay notes that a neighborhood restaurant is not inherently the antithesis of corruption and greed: Korda and Liesl are not made good simply by giving up money and washing dishes, but they are no longer beholden to investors or governments, and whatever they decide to put into the world is their choice alone — an honest, modest legacy rather than a grand, compromised one." - Jaya Saxena