It's very un-French, but Chef Mavro doesn't care. When he goes to a movie, he orders a tub of unbuttered popcorn.

So naturally, during an advance Honolulu screening last week of Disney's new film "Ratatouille," Mavro munched on theater comfort food while taking in the animated antics of an aspiring chef who happens to be a rat.

Mavro, whose formal name is George Mavrothalassitis, wasn't sure what to expect.

"It was a complete surprise for me," he said of the film, opening in theaters today. "I was not ready to enjoy it. I thought what is this story? I was almost suspicious. But it was great."

The story of Remy the rat and his adventures in a five-star restaurant in Paris captured the heart of Hawai'i's most visible French chef. Mavrothalassitis owns Chef Mavro and Cassis by Chef Mavro, and so, appropriately enough, he was invited by the movie studio to be "the French face" of the film.

In Disney's animated restaurant, Mavrothalassitis saw accurate portrayals of every chef he ever met, from good to bumbling to "kitchen Nazi."

"It's so real," he said. "You can feel the atmosphere in the kitchen. They are using the right tools. They even have burns on their hands."

That doesn't mean you'll find a rat in either of his kitchens, although you will find ratatouille at Cassis, where it's the plat du jour every Tuesday this summer. The dish comes with a bit of Chef Mavro twist: grilled ono on a skewer of rosemary.

Ratatouille is comfort food from his past. Mavrothalassitis was born and raised in sun-splashed Marseilles, but the dish is extremely popular all over France. It's the kind of family meal that inspires nostalgia about your mother's home cooking, he said.

"It's a summertime recipe," he said. "It's all the flavors of summer, and it's the flavors of vacation. When I used to go to my grandmother's farm, I would have this."

Ratatouille can be served hot or cold and includes chopped, sauteed tomatoes, zucchini, bell peppers and onions. Another Chef Mavro twist: He includes black olives, capers and anchovies to give the dish a Mediterranean flavor; he also drizzles it with essence of basil for a bit of zip.

The best way to prepare a ratatouille is something the chef would never explain to his busy mother, whose habit of cooking all the ingredients at once made it more of a stew.

"The best way is to do things separately," he said. "You cook them and put them on the side and at the end, you put them all together. I like to do this because it preserves the flavors."

But his mother's version of comfort food always included a key ingredient.

"I always say the best ingredient is love," he said. "You cannot beat it, and she always cooked with love."

RATATOUILLE, CASSIS-STYLE

Cassis' summer menu for lunch and dinner features a Tuesday "plat du jour" of ratatouille with grilled ono on a rosemary brochette, with essence of basil. George Mavrothalassitis, chef/owner of Cassis by Chef Mavro, and Ben Takahashi, Cassis executive chef, shared the recipe: