Establishing shots of Paris at sunrise. Lumi Ray, in bed, stretches, yawns, gets up, pulls on overalls, kisses Alexis Tae, still asleep, on the cheek. CUT TO: Establishing shots of L.A. at night. Tommy Pistol, sitting at a bar, complains about incoming invoices as Nathan Bronson, behind the bar, mixes them a couple of drinks. Meanwhile, back in Paris, Ray makes a couple of wake-up drinks and takes them in to Tae, who asks, "Why are you up so early? We don’t have class until Monday." The sequence intercuts between Ray unrolling an impressive array of chef's knives and genteelly prepping an elegant breakfast, and Bronson making a poutine and having a food fight with Hollywood Cash in the restaurant kitchen. When Bronson presents the poutine to Pistol, he asks for a to-go box.

"That bad?"

"That good. I want to share it with Rosalie. She doesn’t like going out much anymore, so I want to bring the outside to her."

When Ray accepts a dinner date, Tae pouts, "I thought we had a date." Ray's dinner date is with chef/cooking school teacher Derrick Pierce, who offers her a gig as his personal assistant. She's reluctant, because she wants to continue to learn and eventually take over her dad's restaurant. When Ray tries to quietly sneak in after the date, Tae snaps on the lights and asks, "Did you fuck him?"

"What does it matter?" Ray allows that "he has a kind of panache ... and he does know food, but all the way through dinner I was thinking I'd much rather be eating with you."

"Just eating?" Tae purrs seductively.

"Maybe a few other thoughts slipped in."

They act on those other thoughts.

When Pistol's wife dies, he calls Ray to come back from Paris. The awkwardness at their grief-filled reunion after Ray's year of absence ("That has been the hardest thing about all of this. People treating me like they just can’t talk to me.") is compounded when Bronson breezes in and awkwardly says he's "not good at this emotional ... shit." When Ray agrees, he responds, "That was in high school! Get over it." And when Bronson offers Pistol some crab bisque, Ray vetoes it: "No. You're not eating that. I can see butter floating on the top. I do not want that to be your last meal." And when she tastes it, she chokes: "Hot sauce does not go in crab bisque."

"Maybe not in France."

Pistol decides Ray and Bronson should work together in the restaurant, an idea they both hate, but Pistol points out that they can help each other on their weak points. The two clash right away, when Ray (in immaculate chef's whites) places a crouton with a dollop of caviar on Bronson's bisque. "That's good, but it's not necessary."

"Like cleaning up your station?"

When Bronson and Ray confab on the restaurant's bills, sous-chef Hollywood Cash and server Rara Knupps sneak off to get busy in the pantry, and get caught—and fired—leaving Bronson to cover the kitchen and Ray to serve ... after tidying Bronson's sloppy plating as Bronson grousing, "We don’t have time for that!" When Ray preps a charcuterie plate as a peace offering for Bronson, he asks her, "You know what would kick it up a notch?"

Sigh. "Hot sauce?"

"Close. Jalapeño jelly."

A taste. A cough. "Oh my ... spicy. But good." A moment of tenderness between them is cut short by Bronson, who wants to see his girlfriend. As he leaves, she dunks a pinky in the jalapeño jelly for another taste.

When Pierce—now boisterously remaking restaurants on his own reality TV show—comes to town, Ray invites him to the restaurant, advising Bronson, "Keep a clean station and do what you do best. Cook." Pierce is ultra-critical about the restaurant and also heavily (still) interested in getting horizontal with Ray. Bronson's girlfriend (Katrina Colt), pressed into server duty, is mightily pissed that Pierce didn’t tip but Bronson makes it up to her in the pantry. A will-they-or-won't-they confrontation between Ray and Bronson in the restaurant ends badly, leading Ray to Pierce's hotel room, where she matter-of-factly states, "I know you want to fuck me, and I want to fuck a successful, attractive, influential man ... who can get me on TV": an idea that works well in bed, but falls apart on-camera when Pierce tries to paint Pistol as struggling—until Ray swooped in from Paris—and clashes with Bronson and Ray about the sandwich they serve him, leading to Bronson smashing it into Pierce's face.

Ray's haute cuisine and Bronson's hash-house esthetic finally meet when Bronson preps a baguette French toast with flambeed banana slices, strawberries and a red glaze squeeze-bottled over the top, bringing Pistol to tears because it reminds him of a special moment with his wife, a story Ray and Bronson have heard many times. Overcome with emotion, Pistol heads out for a walk and, also emotional, Ray and Bronson give in to the tension that has been bubbling between them for the whole movie. And after the video outtake of Pierce getting the sandwich in the kisser leaks out, they may get the publicity they want after all.

The meandering story fills the three-hour running time well, with grace-note sex scenes as well as hookups with the main players. Cinematography and editing are first-rate (the cooking scenes are surprisingly sexy). Lumi Ray shines center stage as the conflicted center of attention and Nathan Bronson is excellent as the cocky T-shirted blue collar antipode to Ray's Paris-trained chef de cuisine. Director Ricky Greenwood cleverly fills the frame with familiar faces from both sides of the adult camera and draws excellent performances from the entire cast. Recommended.