After being appointed to the Académie française, Duchemin decides to retire as a restaurant critic and trains his son Gérard (Coluche) to continue the family business.

However, unbeknownst to Charles, Gérard is more interested in his true passion—working as a clown in a small circus which he has co-founded and supports financially.

Duchemin fears that customers will be misled into eating low quality food at Tricatel-owned restaurants.

A short time later, an operative hired by Tricatel enters Duchemin's offices and tries to steal the almost finished restaurant guide from this year.

Duchemin is able to trick the operative into stealing last year's data and, together with Gérard, follows him to watch him hand over the files to Tricatel's assistant Lambert (Daniel Langlet).

He then orders his staff to obtain incriminating information on Tricatel which he plans to use during the talk show confrontation.

On the day of the talk show Charles and Gérard, with Marguerite's help, infiltrate Tricatel's food factory to obtain incriminating evidence.

Charles lets Gérard perform the blind tasting demanded by Tricatel, who does a good job until the last challenge: a red wine.

The film ends with Gérard handing in his resignation but reconsidering when he finds out that Marguerite will continue to work for the company.