Monsieur Baudin

Monsieur Baudin presides over the kitchen with the certainty of a man who considers himself an artist rather than a servant. He is French, exacting, and quick to take offense at any suggestion that his cooking might be adjusted to suit someone else's taste. Feeding New York's grandest households, he expects reverence in return.

Douglas Sills plays him with wonderful theatrical vanity, turning kitchen politics into something as fraught as any ballroom intrigue upstairs. The comedy comes from how seriously he takes himself amid people who see him as staff—his wounded pride is funny precisely because he never once doubts it's justified.