“I DON’T want my restaurant to be a place where people sit and eat. I want people to sit at that table and be sick with longing.”

If I were picking up the bill at a restaurant where those words described the chef’s ambitions, I’d dine somewhere else. The speaker is Adam Jones, whose reputation as a chef de cuisine precedes him from Paris where his bad personal behaviour has done little to reinforce the clout that comes from having been awarded two Michelin stars for his cooking.

Adam comes to London to persuade the assessors from the Michelin guide that yes, he does deserve that climactic third star.

Steven Knight’s screenplay epitomises him as difficult to like, narcissistic, violent, a bully to subordinates, selfish and ultimately a physical coward. Bradley Cooper plays him with great energy and conviction.

Sienna Miller plays single mum Helene, also a talented chef, who wants to further her own career under Adam’s tuition. “Burnt” wisely keeps romance between the pair firmly in hand.

The film’s principal relationship involves Adam and effete maitre d’hotel Tony (Daniel Bruhl), each finding himself increasingly dependant on the other for career survival.

The screenplay pays little attention to the economic consequences of Adam’s behaviour – hurling expensive crockery against kitchen walls, binning expensive ingredients that he considers team members have not prepared to his standard. Director John Wells emphasises those behaviours to a degree that some might consider unnecessary but others, reading between the lines, might see as making a statement less about haut cuisine than personal aggrandisement and fame.

At all cinemas