Antoine Thomas

Antoine Thomas
Age	40 (Born 1971)
Status	Deceased
Voice actor	Scott McNeil
Notebook number	003
Notebook description	Ambitious chef, so dismayed the outbreak ruined his big chance at fame that he's cooking up horrifyingly "unique" dishes to finally top all his rivals.
Health	2200 (Dead Rising 2) 2000 (Off the Record)
Job	Chef
Weapon	Pan Plates Meat Cleaver
Location	Cucina Donnacci
Mission(s)	Tastes Like Chicken

Dead Rising 2
Cases and Missions • Characters • Weapons • Stores • Endings

"HOW DARE YOU?! I AM ANTOINE! I AM THE KING OF CUISINE!!"

—Antoine, upon hearing Chuck's criticism

Antoine Thomas, also known as Chef Antoine, is a psychopath appearing in Dead Rising 2 during the mission Tastes Like Chicken. He reappears in Dead Rising 2: Off the Record with the same role.

He is the owner of Antoine's, a cookware store in Royal Flush Plaza, and calls himself "The King of Cuisine". He was going to be interviewed by a reporter from a famous food magazine, but the zombie outbreak in Fortune City destroyed his chance at fame. Unfortunately for Chuck and other sane survivors, he is still under the delusion that the reviewer is on the way, and is using anything that the outbreak can provide to create the perfect dish.

Tastes Like Chicken

Main article: Tastes Like Chicken

Chuck Greene encounters Chef Antoine in the kitchen of Cucina Donnacci in the Food Court. Thinking Chuck is a food magazine reporter, Antoine offers him a meal made from "ingredients" nobody has dared to imagine. His preparation for his meals reveals that he has taken a bartender named Cinda Smith hostage, and hints that he plans to kill her and serve her as another dish made from human flesh. Antoine goes on to claim that Chuck's readers will love his newest dish, leading Chuck to ask who he meant. Antoine quickly realizes that Chuck isn't the reporter as he thought. Chuck insults Antoine by saying "Who the hell would want to eat THIS?!", referring to the meal the chef was preparing, likely after figuring out it's made of human meat. An enraged Antoine picks up a chef knife and proclaims that he will turn Chuck into one of his dishes, commencing the battle.

After he is defeated, Antoine attempts to back away while supporting himself on the counter, but his hand slips, plunging his arm and then his head into a fryer, resulting in him screaming in pain as he drowns in boiling hot grease. Once Antoine is killed, Chuck is given the opportunity to unlock the freezer and rescue Cinda.

Battle Style

See Tastes Like Chicken.

Sandbox Mode

Main article: Sandbox Mode

Antoine appears in his restaurant on Day 3 at 1:00 AM with the same weapons as in Tastes Like Chicken. Once defeated, he will drop his weapon and $25,000.

Notes

• The song that plays while fighting him is Own Little World by Celldweller.

Trivia

• Antoine doesn't seem to be affected by the outbreak, this could be because he was busy making his "dish" and hadn't realized, or simply is in denial.
  • His psychopath theme, Own Little World, appears to support the latter idea, as the song lyrics have themes of denial of real life over the singer's own personal world, like how Antoine seems to deny there is a zombie outbreak occurring in favor of believing that the food critic will eventually arrive, even though that person is almost certainly dead.
• His voice actor is the same one who voices Earl Flaherty.
• Antoine bears some similarities to Larry Chiang from Dead Rising, both of them being crazed food preparers with a taste for human flesh. They both also run away to heal up by eating, and they both use food as weapons (Larry tosses meat, while Antoine forces an apple down Chuck's throat).
• When Antoine is killed, a glitch will occasionally occur, causing him to fall through the floor. However, this does not affect his death scene or the game.
• He has another store in the Royal Flush Plaza called Antoine's. There is also an ad outside the Royal Flush Plaza showing his store and a picture of a young Antoine.
• He is likely a reference to the famous restaurant "Antoine's" located in New Orleans, Louisiana.
• His name may also be a reference to Marie-Antoine Carême, due to his mention of being the "king of cuisine." Carême was known as the "king of chefs, and the chef of kings". He might also be a reference to the famous Chef Boyardee, both of them being bulky and having a passion for food and cooking.
• When defeated in Off The Record, Frank sarcastically remarks "Ok that does NOT smell like chicken" referencing the name of the mission. 
• "The psychopaths gravitated towards American stereotypes. The trick was to figure out how to take those characters and figure out how they would snap in an outbreak and what they would become....So if you look at the chef in Dead Rising 2, celebrity chefs are a big thing right now and a big part of what you see on TV, so that was an obvious stereotype to go after and then figuring out how this guy has snapped. So the idea of the food critic who was supposed to come and meet him, but the food critic probably became a zombie three days ago and now the chef is capturing survivors and cooking them and serving them. So that’s sort of the process – latching onto key stereotypes and figuring out, what’s the snap."
• Fans have commented on him being "brutally difficult", he has apparently been "toned down a little bit" for Off the Record. The game's Creative Director Jason Leigh stated: "Some of the bosses that were too difficult in the eyes of fans – the chef was one example we made sure we tuned those and balanced them a little bit more."
• A death similar to Antoine's was used on the Spike TV show, "1000 ways to Die".
• When Antoine tastes his dish, he states “True what they say, tastes like chicken.” Which is a reference to the cliché of cannibals stating human meat tastes like chicken.
• In "Off The Record", instead of exclaiming that no one would want to eat the dish, Frank flatly says that he does not want to eat it, though this still enrages the chef.

Gallery

Further information: Antoine Thomas/Gallery

Further information: Tastes Like Chicken/Gallery

Antoine Thomas.

Antoine Thomas.

Antoine's death.

Antoine's head in the fryer.

Notebook Portrait.

Dead Rising 2 notebook entry.

Off the Record notebook entry.

Antoine's corpse.