La cena perfetta (2022)

Carmine is a young man from Naples who, despite his good heart, finds himself caught up in the Camorra’s criminal underworld because of his ties to Pasquale Rizzuto, a feared crime boss who raised him after his father died protecting him. One evening, at Carmine’s insistence, Pasquale has him act as a lookout during an operation to recover money stolen by Giuliano, nicknamed “the ladies’ man,” a close friend of Carmine’s. Although Carmine manages to catch up with him, his good heart gets the better of him and he lets Giuliano escape with the money. Disappointed and angry about how the evening has turned out, Pasquale sends Carmine to Rome to run a restaurant that will actually serve as a front for laundering dirty money. At first, Carmine follows Pasquale’s instructions to the letter, hoping to prove that he is good at something and return to Naples soon. But when Vincenzo, the boss’s trusted henchman, who is extremely jealous of the preferential treatment Pasquale gives Carmine, makes it clear that Carmine has been sent away from Naples for good because he is considered a burden, Carmine decides to enlist the help of Consuelo, a genuine Italian-Argentinian chef—and the former owner of the restaurant later taken over by the Rizzuto clan—who is in pursuit of perfection in the kitchen. Despite her initial antagonism and reluctance, Consuelo accepts the job and breathes new life into the restaurant. This means Carmine has to invest much of his personal money and later dip into the laundered funds to pay his staff. Although things get off to a promising start, the restaurant soon finds itself short of customers, and Consuelo reproaches herself for the lack of soul in her cooking—a flaw for which critics had previously panned her and forced her to close the restaurant. However, thanks to Carmine, she manages to find a new way of looking at cooking, and after a dinner that wins praise from the critic who had previously given her a bad review, sparks fly between her and the critic. Later, Carmine finds himself in serious trouble when Pasquale notices discrepancies in the accounts and decides to send Vincenzo back to check on them. Before that happens, Giuliano unexpectedly visits Carmine and confesses that he stole the money not only to get back at the boss, but also because he loves Margherita, who has remained in Naples. Worried for her safety after the boss had two of his cousins killed, Giuliano begs Carmine to go and bring her back, even offering to pay him with some of the stolen money. Seeing a chance to square things away, Carmine agrees, but when he gets to Naples, Vincenzo and his men suddenly arrive and kill Margherita. Devastated, Giuliano still wants to pay Carmine, but Carmine refuses. Later, a package with no return address arrives at the restaurant, containing the sum Carmine had asked Giuliano for. Giuliano, armed, decides to go to Naples to take revenge. Later, during lunch at the restaurant, Carmine meets Public Prosecutor Maria Iodice, who knows about his ties to Pasquale and suspects that the restaurant is a front for money laundering. She tries to persuade Carmine to cooperate. When he is reluctant—also because he hates the police, who killed his father—the prosecutor lets slip that Giuliano was killed in an ambush in Naples the previous evening. At that moment, Carmine realizes that the phone call made from Giuliano’s cell phone that morning could not have been from Giuliano, since he was already dead. Knowing that he is implicated, Carmine decides to cooperate, using a dinner at the restaurant for the boss as bait. He keeps the rest of the staff and Consuelo in the dark; when she discovers the truth, she leaves in outrage. Carmine stays behind to cook with his trusted friend Rosario and welcomes Pasquale, Vincenzo, and the other henchmen into the restaurant for dinner. Despite Vincenzo’s growing impatience, the evening proceeds as planned, apart from Consuelo’s sudden arrival: despite everything, she wants to help Carmine. Just as Pasquale seems to have changed his mind about killing Carmine and shows that he is proud of him, Vincenzo shoots the boss and confesses that he killed Giuliano, his cousins, and Margherita. The police then storm the restaurant and arrest Vincenzo and the others, while Pasquale is taken to hospital. Carmine, having struck a deal with the prosecutor, enters the witness protection program and leaves Consuelo in charge of the restaurant. A year after these events, Carmine is working as a cook on the staff of a prestigious restaurant in Denmark when Consuelo unexpectedly shows up. They share a passionate kiss.