Ratatouille hidden details: easter eggs, chefs and real rats

The dish was designed by Thomas Keller

Producer Brad Lewis interned in Thomas Keller's kitchen at The French Laundry. Keller suggested the layered version of ratatouille that Remy serves Anton Ego in the climax, a refined variation called confit byaldi, with thin slices of vegetables arranged in a spiral.

Bird, Lewis and members of the crew also spent a week in Paris eating at top restaurants, and animators took cooking classes at Bay Area culinary schools so they could get knife work and kitchen movement right.

Easter eggs to look for

Pixar's usual hidden references are all here.

• The Pizza Planet truck from Toy Story crosses a bridge over the Seine during Skinner's chase of Remy
• A113, the CalArts classroom number, is hidden in the film; one French guide places it on a tag clipped to a lab rat's ear
• Bottles named after crew members include Lasseter Cabernet Sauvignon and Chateau-Bird Champagne

Anton Ego's design

Peter O'Toole voices the food critic Anton Ego. His look was inspired by the French actor Louis Jouvet, and original director Jan Pinkava said Ego was designed to resemble a vulture.

Look at his office from above: it is shaped like a coffin, matching his reputation for killing restaurants with a single review.

Real rats in the studio

A vivarium of pet rats stayed in a Pixar hallway for over a year so animators could watch how rats move, eat and groom. Rat expert Debbie Ducommun also consulted. When Bird took over, he made the rats less human in their movements, with Remy the main exception because he walks upright to keep his paws clean for cooking.

The film nearly looked very different

Jan Pinkava conceived the film in 2000 and created its first designs and story, but Pixar's leadership lost confidence in the direction and brought in Brad Bird. Bird rewrote the story, killed off the chef Auguste Gusteau and expanded Skinner and Colette. Pinkava kept a story credit.

Gusteau, voiced by Brad Garrett, was inspired by the chef Bernard Loiseau and partly by Paul Bocuse. His motto, "Anyone can cook", drives the plot and is the line Ego reinterprets in his final review. The release was originally planned for 2006 but moved to make room for Cars.

Ratatouille hidden details on a rewatch

Watch the climax with Keller's dish in mind: the thin, layered vegetables are a deliberate contrast with the rustic stew Ego expects, and the flavour sends him straight back to his mother's kitchen. Look at the bottle labels in the kitchen scenes for crew names, and follow Skinner's chase across the Seine to catch the Pizza Planet truck.

Pay attention to how the rats move as well. Most of the colony runs on all fours in the way animators observed from the real rats in the studio, while Remy stands upright, which marks him as different from the others before the story spells it out.

Finally, listen to Ego's closing review, which reinterprets Gusteau's motto: not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere. It is the line the whole film has been building towards.

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