99 Fun Facts About Ratatouille

In Ratatouille, what job does Remy's father give him in the rat colony?

Poison checker is the job: Remy's nose can tell which scraps are laced with rat poison, a talent his father prizes far more than his son's dream of cooking.

In Pixar's Ratatouille, what job does Alfredo Linguini hold at Gusteau's when Remy first catches him ruining a leek soup?

Garbage boy Linguini is rescued by a rat: Remy secretly fixes the leek soup he ruined, and the accidental hit earns him a place in Gusteau's kitchen.

How does Remy control Linguini's movements while hidden under his toque?

Pulling his hair: Remy discovers that tugging a tuft of Linguini's hair jerks his arm like a marionette string, and the pair turn that into a way to cook together.

What is the three-word motto of the late chef Auguste Gusteau?

Anyone can cook is Gusteau's motto and the title of his cookbook; the critic who scorned the idea ends the film writing that he finally understands what the chef meant.

Colette Tatou is notable in Gusteau's kitchen for being what?

The only woman in Gusteau's kitchen, Colette is assigned to train Linguini, persuades Skinner to keep him, and the two eventually fall for each other.

What secret about Linguini does Skinner try to keep hidden from him?

The late chef was his father: a letter from Linguini's mother Renata shows Gusteau fathered him, making him the rightful owner, so Skinner hides the proof until Remy snatches it.

In Ratatouille, head chef Skinner cashes in on Gusteau's name and face by selling what on the side?

Microwave meals are Skinner's side business: he has an ad man dress up Gusteau's image to sell frozen food, cashing in on the name the chef built.

The ratatouille variation Remy serves Anton Ego is called what?

Confit byaldi swaps the chunky stew for paper-thin rounds, the answer the film's food adviser gave when asked how he would serve it to the world's top critic.

What nickname has the feared food critic Anton Ego earned in Ratatouille?

The Grim Eater plays on the Grim Reaper, and the name fits: Gusteau died soon after one of Ego's scathing reviews of his restaurant.

Which American chef let Ratatouille's producer intern in his kitchen and devised the film's climactic dish?

Thomas Keller also taught the filmmakers how a French kitchen runs, and they gave him a cameo: he voices one of the diners in the restaurant.

What becomes of Gusteau's restaurant at the end of Ratatouille?

It is shut down once the health inspector reports the rats; Ego loses his job and reputation for having praised it, then backs the small bistro the friends open next.

What name do Remy, Linguini and Colette give the bistro they open together?

La Ratatouille is the name over the door; Ego, no longer a critic, invests in the place and eats there happily, while the rat colony moves in upstairs.

Brad Bird won his first Best Animated Feature Oscar for which Pixar film, three years before Ratatouille?

The Incredibles made Bird an Oscar winner, and he did more than write and direct it: he also voiced its tiny fashion designer, Edna Mode.

Which Pixar filmmaker, an Oscar winner for the short Geri's Game, originally conceived Ratatouille?

Jan Pinkava was replaced on the film in 2005 and left Pixar, yet his story credit still made him an Oscar nominee when the screenplay was nominated.

Which comedian provides the voice of Remy?

Patton Oswalt won the part after the film's director heard his stand-up routine about Black Angus steakhouse ads and liked its mix of passion and humour.

The waspish food critic Anton Ego is voiced by which actor?

Peter O'Toole, eight times an Oscar nominee without a win, at first asked the Academy to hold his honorary award until he was 80 in case he won one outright.

Which Lord of the Rings actor voices Skinner, the hot-tempered head chef in Ratatouille?

Ian Holm, Bilbo in The Lord of the Rings, voices a chef named as a sly joke after B. F. Skinner, the psychologist famous for his experiments on rats.

Colette is voiced by which comedian and actress?

Janeane Garofalo voices Colette, who walks out with the rest of the staff when Linguini reveals his rat, then is the only one to come back and cook.

In Ratatouille, what does Remy's father show him to prove that humans are dangerous?

An exterminator's shop window, hung with rows of dead rats, is his father's warning, yet Remy refuses to accept it and walks back to the restaurant.

Who wrote the score for Ratatouille and earned his first Oscar nomination for it?

Michael Giacchino lost that first Oscar race to the score of Atonement, then won the award two years later for another Pixar film, Up.

The film's French-language theme song, 'Le Festin', is performed by which singer?

Camille was found online: the film's composer searched for a 'female French vocalist', heard the songs on her website and loved her voice.

Ratatouille won the Animated Feature Oscar over Surf's Up and which black-and-white French film?

Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi's memoir of growing up in Iran, lost on Oscar night; months earlier Iran had sent France a letter of protest over its screening at Cannes.

Which film beat Ratatouille's script to the Oscar?

Juno won it for Diablo Cody, who had written the comedy over coffee in the café of a Target store in suburban Minnesota.

Which 2007 animated film alone outgrossed Ratatouille worldwide?

Shrek the Third took about $800 million to Ratatouille's $620 million, but the ogre's sequel was not even nominated for the animation Oscar the rat went on to win.

Which celebrity chef voices the health inspector in the UK release of Ratatouille?

Jamie Oliver's cameo was one of several the filmmakers gave to real chefs as a salute to the profession; in the French dub, chef Guy Savoy plays a diner.

To research Ratatouille, what did Pixar keep in a studio hallway for more than a year?

A vivarium of pet rats sat in the hallway so animators could watch how noses, ears, paws and tails moved as the animals ran.

Which Pixar short about a trainee alien botching an abduction played before Ratatouille in cinemas?

Lifted ends in a wreck: allowed to fly the ship home, the trainee drops it on the house, leaving the sleeper's bed perched on a pillar of earth in a crater.

The title of Ratatouille works as a pun on the French dish and on what?

The species of its hero: the word hides 'rat', and Disney so feared audiences couldn't say it that the posters spelled out the pronunciation.

Where is Remy's colony living at the start of Ratatouille, before it has to flee?

An old woman's attic in the countryside is home until she discovers the rats, and in the scramble to escape Remy is cut off from his family.

The real dish ratatouille comes from which region of France?

Provence is its home, and Nice claims it as a signature dish; it began as peasant cooking, a thrifty way to use up a glut of summer vegetables.

The name ratatouille is built on the French verb touiller, which means what?

To stir or toss is the idea: the word began in the 1700s as a put-down for any rough stew, long before it named this vegetable dish.

According to purists, how should the vegetables in a ratatouille be cooked?

Separately, then combined: chefs such as Joël Robuchon sauté each vegetable on its own before simmering them together, so that each keeps its own flavour.

Which vegetable joins tomato, zucchini and bell pepper in a classic ratatouille?

Eggplant completes the quartet; for all its rustic image the dish is younger than it looks, with no recipe on record before the 19th century.

On which platform did Emily Jacobsen post the Remy song that began Ratatouille the Musical in 2020?

TikTok: Emily Jacobsen's 'Ode to Remy' went viral there in August 2020, and Daniel Mertzlufft's orchestrated arrangement set off a wave of fan-written numbers.

In the January 2021 benefit concert of Ratatouille the Musical, who played Remy?

Tituss Burgess led the one-off streamed concert, staged while the pandemic kept theatres dark, to raise money for The Actors Fund.

The Ratatouille the Musical concert was directed by Lucy Moss, co-creator of which hit stage musical?

Six, the pop-concert musical about Henry VIII's wives, began as a student show that Lucy Moss and Toby Marlow wrote at Cambridge for the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe.

Remy's Ratatouille Adventure, the ride that shrinks guests to rat size, first opened in 2014 where?

Disneyland Paris opened the ride in its Walt Disney Studios Park; Disney later built a copy in Florida, enlarging Epcot's France pavilion to house it.

What is unusual about the vehicles on Remy's Ratatouille Adventure?

They run on no track: the rat-shaped vehicles glide freely across the floor, so riders scurry through an oversized kitchen like rats fleeing the cooks.

Before Ratatouille, its director made which 1999 animated film that flopped in cinemas but became a cult classic?

The Iron Giant sank at the box office because Warner Bros. barely marketed it, with no time left to line up toy tie-ins, before home video won it a following.

As of 2026, Ratatouille's Metacritic score of 96 ties it with which film as Pixar's best-reviewed feature?

Toy Story shares the 96; the New York Times critic called Ratatouille a nearly flawless piece of popular art and ended his review by simply saying thank you.

Which actor, Pixar's good-luck charm, voices Ratatouille's waiter Mustafa?

John Ratzenberger became a fixture after voicing the piggy bank Hamm in the studio's first feature and befriending its director, appearing in 22 straight films.

How do the rats stop Skinner and the health inspector from ruining Ego's dinner?

Tie them up in the pantry: the colony binds and gags the pair, leaving Remy free to cook for the critic with his father's whole clan working the stoves.

According to Ratatouille's original designer, the critic Anton Ego was drawn to resemble which bird?

A vulture was the model for a critic whose reviews can kill a restaurant, though he ends the film as a happy regular at the friends' new bistro.

On the night Anton Ego comes to dine, how does Linguini manage to wait every table by himself?

On roller skates: after the staff walk out and the rats take over the cooking, Linguini glides between tables as the restaurant's only waiter.

How did a Pixar staffer in a chef's uniform help animators study Linguini's soaked clothes?

Jumped in the studio pool: a staffer in a full chef's uniform took the plunge so animators could see which parts of the suit clung and which turned translucent when soaked.

A bite of Remy's ratatouille sends Anton Ego back to which memory?

His mother's cooking as a child: one bite carries Ego back to her kitchen table, and the astonished critic asks to meet the chef.

Remy and Emile's DVD short Your Friend the Rat was made mostly in which animation style?

2-D hand-drawn: director Jim Capobianco turned the crew's rat research into a jokey film in the style of a 1960s classroom reel, with Remy and Emile presenting in CGI.

Ratatouille's planned 2006 release slipped to 2007 when which Pixar film was moved into summer 2006?

Cars was moved from late 2005 to summer 2006 so it could open in the school holidays, and the then-untitled rat film slipped a year to 2007.

In 2007 Disney scrapped plans for which Ratatouille-branded product at Costco after a trade group objected?

A French wine with a cartoon rat on the label was dropped after California's Wine Institute cited its code against characters that could appeal to under-age drinkers.

To save time, Pixar designed and animated every human character in Ratatouille without which body part?

Toes were skipped on every human to save time. The effort went into the food instead: animators took cooking classes at San Francisco-area culinary schools.

In Everything Everywhere All at Once, Evelyn misremembers Ratatouille as a film about which animal?

A raccoon called Raccacoonie hides under a teppanyaki chef's hat in the 2022 film. The joke is said to come from a producer's father, who kept getting film titles wrong.

Which Everybody Loves Raymond star voices the late chef Auguste Gusteau in Pixar's Ratatouille?

Brad Garrett, a three-time Emmy winner as Robert Barone, mostly plays Gusteau as a figment of Remy's imagination who talks the rat through his doubts.

In Ratatouille, Linguini ends up soaked after jumping into which river to fetch Remy?

The Seine dunking is one of many scenes set outdoors: the filmmakers took every chance to move the action out of the kitchen and into the streets of Paris.

The second Remy's Ratatouille Adventure opened in 2021 at which resort, on its own 50th anniversary?

Walt Disney World opened the ride in the France pavilion on October 1, 2021, a year later than first announced because of the pandemic.

In Ratatouille, how do Gusteau's cooks react when Linguini reveals that a rat does the cooking?

They all walk out, leaving Linguini without a kitchen brigade on the very night the critic Anton Ego arrives. Remy's clan steps in to do the cooking.

How did Ratatouille's posters and trailers handle a French title Disney feared audiences would not know?

Spelled it phonetically, as "rat-a-too-e": Disney and Pixar worried that audiences, children above all, would not know the word or how to say it.

In France, Ratatouille broke which blockbuster's record for most consecutive weeks at number one?

Titanic had ruled the French box office longer than any film before a cooking rat overtook it. Ratatouille also set France's record debut for an animated film.

Which Kitchen Confidential author called Ratatouille by far the best film about restaurant food?

Anthony Bourdain said in 2011 that Pixar got the food and the reactions to it right, down to the barely noticeable pink burns on one cook's forearms.

In Ratatouille, which two unusually sharp senses set Remy apart from the rest of his colony?

Taste and smell also drive the film's oddest visuals: when Remy savors food, abstract shapes by animator Michel Gagné dance on screen to show the flavor.

In Ratatouille, Linguini takes credit for Remy's cooking at what event, sparking their falling-out?

A press conference turns Linguini's head just as the critic Anton Ego announces he will come back to review the restaurant the following day.

What does critic Anton Ego lose at the end of Ratatouille after his glowing review of Remy's cooking?

His job and his reputation both go once the rats at Gusteau's come to light. A happier Ego then puts money into Remy's new bistro and becomes a regular.

In Ratatouille, what does Skinner order Linguini to do with Remy after spotting the rat in the kitchen?

Kill him is the order, but once the two are alone Linguini realizes that Remy understands him, and talks the rat into helping him cook instead.

Which fictional eatery's delivery truck, hidden in most Pixar films, crosses a bridge in Ratatouille?

Pizza Planet's truck is briefly seen crossing a bridge while Skinner chases Remy. It turns up in most Pixar features, a tradition each new film tries to keep.

Which American Idol runner-up played Remy's brother in the 2021 Ratatouille the Musical concert?

Adam Lambert sang the part in a pandemic-era concert whose performers were never in the same room. It streamed for 72 hours from New Year's Day 2021.

The dish ratatouille is most closely tied to which southern French city, which lends it a longer name?

Nice gives the stew its fuller name, ratatouille niçoise. The dish is younger than it looks: a modern version did not appear in print until 1930.

Ratatouille the Musical inspired an unofficial musical based on which Netflix period drama?

Bridgerton got its own fan-made songs from Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear, who turned them into a concept album based on the show's first season.

After falling out with Linguini in Ratatouille, how does Remy take revenge on the restaurant that night?

Raids it with his clan, emptying the food stores. Linguini arrives to apologize, finds the rats at work, and furiously throws every one of them out.

Before taking over Gusteau's in Ratatouille, Skinner held which kitchen rank under its founder?

Sous-chef to Gusteau himself, Skinner went on to turn what had been a temple of culinary art into a profitable but soulless luxury meal machine.

In Kingdom Hearts III, Remy from Ratatouille runs the kitchen of a bistro owned by which Disney character?

Scrooge McDuck owns the bistro, where the rat is only ever called Little Chef: he cannot speak to the heroes, so he never gets to tell them his name.

Linguini's flat in Ratatouille was imagined as the cheapest in Paris, with which one redeeming feature?

A stunning city view is its one luxury. The designers piled on every inconvenience they could, including four flights of stairs to climb with a bicycle.

Ratatouille's tyrannical chef Skinner was named after a famous American scientist from which field?

Psychology gave the chef his name: B. F. Skinner studied how animals learn, using a lab chamber for behavior experiments that is still called the Skinner box.

Which Arrested Development actor voices Horst, Ratatouille's German cook with an ever-changing backstory?

Will Arnett, best known as Gob Bluth, lends his deep baritone to Horst, who gives a different account of his past every time anyone asks about it.

Which Pixar in-joke code is printed on the ear tag of Git, the former lab rat in Ratatouille?

A113 is a classroom at CalArts, where Brad Bird and other animators trained. Bird was the first to hide it, on a car license plate in a 1987 TV cartoon.

Which talking dog from the later Pixar film Up appears as a shadow on a wall in Ratatouille?

Dug's shadow is cast against a wall as Remy runs through Paris, a cameo that came two years before the dog's own film reached cinemas in 2009.

Skinner's scooter from Ratatouille makes a background cameo in which Pixar film released a year later?

WALL-E hides the scooter among the junk its robot hero sorts. The favor ran both ways: the robot himself makes a cameo in a short on the Ratatouille DVD.

Ratatouille's credits carry a Quality Assurance Guarantee that it was made without which technique?

Motion capture was the target: Brad Bird added the pledge because he was proud the film had been animated frame by frame while performance capture was spreading.

Ratatouille's first trailer showed Remy caught sampling what in the dining room, a scene not in the film?

Cheese on the restaurant's trolley is his downfall in the teaser, which cuts between his narrow escape and Remy telling the audience why he takes such risks.

Ratatouille was only the second Pixar film whose music was not composed by a man with which surname?

Newman was on every earlier Pixar score but one: Randy or Thomas Newman wrote them all, apart from a 2004 superhero film by Ratatouille's own composer.

Ratatouille's score missed out on the Oscar but won its composer his first trophy of which kind?

A Grammy for Best Score Soundtrack Album went to the Paris-flavored music, which leans on accordion, jazz guitar, violin, clarinet and piano.

In Your Friend the Rat, Emile says a man named Jack Black caught rats for which British monarch?

Victoria's self-styled royal rat-catcher was a real Londoner who did more than kill: he bred unusually colored rats and sold them as pets, helping to domesticate them.

Ratatoing, a 2007 cartoon branded a rip-off of Ratatouille, was made by a studio in which country?

Brazil's Vídeo Brinquedo, based in São Paulo, built a business on cheap lookalikes of hit animated films from Pixar, DreamWorks and other big studios.

Busy with Ratatouille, Brad Bird could not direct which other 2007 animated film, as its makers had hoped?

The Simpsons Movie was a natural fit: Bird had been a creative consultant on the show for its first eight seasons and directed two early episodes.

Ratatouille's stay at number one in North America was ended within days by which 2007 blockbuster?

Transformers took the top spot within days. Ratatouille's $47.2 million debut was Pixar's smallest since 1998, yet it went on to earn $623.7 million worldwide.

Which burly actor, the small-town sheriff in First Blood, voices Remy's father in Ratatouille?

Brian Dennehy, who broke through hunting Rambo as Sheriff Will Teasle, gives the rat patriarch the gruff authority of a father who wants Remy kept well away from humans.

Which Wayne's World star turned down a role in Ratatouille because he was busy raising his children?

Dana Carvey, the film's Garth, was approached by Pixar but said no. The actors who did sign on strove for French accents that were authentic yet understandable.

How did Ratatouille's art department make sure the rats' compost pile would look realistic on screen?

Photographed rotting food, fifteen kinds of it: apples, berries, bananas, mushrooms, oranges, broccoli and lettuce were all shot as they decayed.

Ratatouille's designers gave Paris sewers the grandeur of The Phantom of the Opera and which other musical?

Les Misérables and Phantom set the tone because the real thing disappointed: the Pixar team toured the tunnels and found them less evocative than hoped.

The 2021 Ratatouille the Musical concert raised about $2 million for which charity during the pandemic?

The Actors Fund received about $2 million. Tickets were sold on a contribute-what-you-can basis, from $5 to $100, and some 350,000 people watched.

Brad Bird gave himself a small voice role in Ratatouille as Ambrister Minion, who works as what?

Anton Ego's butler is a tiny part, and other bit parts stayed in-house too: Pixar character designer Teddy Newton voices the lawyer who works for Skinner.

Which Pixar production designer, an Annie Award winner for his art, voices Linguini in Ratatouille?

Lou Romano joined Pixar in 2000 as a production designer. As the voice of Linguini he signed autographs on the San Francisco leg of the film's promotional tour.

Which Pixar artist, later the director of Elemental, voices Remy's brother Emile in Ratatouille?

Peter Sohn also lent Pixar his looks: Russell, the boy who tags along on the flying-house adventure in Up, was based on his appearance.

On a research week in Paris for Ratatouille, how did Brad Bird and his crew tour the city?

By motorcycle, and by fork: the group also ate at five top restaurants, all in pursuit of the lush, romantic Paris that Bird wanted on screen.

Ratatouille's score was nominated for an Oscar but lost to the music from which 2007 drama?

Atonement won for Dario Marianelli's score. Ratatouille converted just one of its five nominations that night, taking the award for best animated feature.

Which game publisher, holder of a four-film Pixar license, released the Ratatouille video game in 2007?

THQ won the rights in 2004 to games based on Pixar's next four films. Its Ratatouille game shipped nearly 4 million copies and won an Annie Award.

Gusteau in Ratatouille echoes which real French chef, who died amid rumors of losing a Michelin star?

Bernard Loiseau ran La Côte d'Or, one of the restaurants Brad Bird's team visited in France. In the film, Gusteau likewise dies soon after a critic costs him a star.

Which French chef, later head of the Connaught's restaurant in London, inspired Ratatouille's Colette?

Hélène Darroze worked for Alain Ducasse for three years, then won her first Michelin star in Paris in 2001 before taking over the Connaught's kitchen in 2008.

Ratatouille premiered at which Hollywood venue, where it won its Oscar eight months later?

Kodak Theatre, now the Dolby, hosted the premiere on June 22, 2007, and then the 80th Academy Awards on February 24, 2008.

Which Let's Make a Deal host played Remy's father in the 2021 Ratatouille the Musical concert?

Wayne Brady won particular praise from viewers for his commitment to the part of the rat patriarch, whose big number is called Trash Is Our Treasure.

Ratatouille: Food Frenzy, a 2007 collection of cooking minigames, was released only for which handheld?

Nintendo DS owners got the spin-off in October 2007, four months after the main tie-in game. Its story picks up shortly after the events of the film.