One mystery of The Menu has never been revealed, namely what chef Slowik may be hiding behind the silver door in his island restaurant.
“Something very special” is hidden behind the silver door in The Menu, the film directed by Mark Mylod, yet he has never made it clear exactly what. Anya Taylor-Joy and Ralph Fiennes lead this intriguing dark comedy thriller as respectively Margot and chef Julian Slowik.
Slowik is a world-renowned chef, known for creating extraordinary culinary experiences, and this is far from an exception, he has now become empty, devoid of his old passion for cooking and is trying to make those responsible for the his inner decline.
The menu satirises how food relates to elitism and how consumerism degrades art leaving it devoid of any true love or devotion despite its good looks.
The Menu is among the new movies and TV shows currently streaming on Disney+ as well, and it’s certainly an entertaining and complex thriller, as the story progresses, Slowik intentionally reveals more and more backstory, motivations, and quirks. In the end the situations are set out quite clearly, but there are still some unanswered questions.
A big question mark concerns what Slowik whispers to Tyler, played by Nicholas Hoult, to force him to commit suicide, another refers to the mysterious silver door that Margot notices inside the restaurant and why it connects to an identical door in Slowik’s private residence.
What is behind the silver door of chef Slowik’s house restaurant?
When allowed to venture out of the restaurant, the protagonist chooses to learn more about the crazed kidnapping chef, NoEven his most trusted employee, Elsa, is not allowed into Slowik’s house. Once inside it turns out to be an exact copy of the restaurant they were in before, including the special silver door.
After a violent brawl that ends with Elsa stabbed in the neck, Margot discovers what is behind that door: a room dedicated to Slowik’s past where restaurant reviews, photos of what appears to be a family and a photo of him are displayed. like while the very young works in a fast-food restaurant. That discovery is the key that will allow her to secure a ticket to freedom.
Even if the two silver doors are deliberately identical, logically, it would not make sense that behind the one of the restaurant there is the same thing as the one found in the house, a particular fact is that the door was unlocked and probably Margot could have opened it. Maybe it was just another outing or given the potential cannibalistic take on the ending, it could be a horrible pantry for human flesh.
Most likely, though, despite Elsa’s statement that she’s hiding behind it “something very special”, it’s nothing really important given the context. Had it been important or housed something valuable, it would have been held in higher regard.
Why won’t the silver door be opened and what does it really mean?
The silver door to the restaurant is supposedly a riddle that didn’t need solving. Its narrative purpose was to make Margot want to go through the same door in the Slowik residence to discover “something very special”.
As such, the door to the restaurant was not opened by any of the other guests as the question of what it was hiding was unnecessary to the real mystery of The Menu. As the film progresses, it reveals how and why these guests would die and if Margot would also survive, cleverly playing with classic horror stereotypes revealing his truth halfway through the menu.
Lillian, the distinguished food critic, describes the dining experience in a Slowik restaurant by saying: “He’s not just a chef. He’s a storyteller. The game is trying to guess what the general theme of the whole meal will be. This is the real mystery of The Menu: not what Slowik is hiding behind an ornate silver door, but rather what he had planned for his special guests and why.
Although all the answers come in a simple direct way and while this question may linger, the unfiltered nature doesn’t make The Menu any less interesting and intriguing.
