synopsis

This intimate film about Danny Meyer, one of America's preeminent restaurant owners, opens in the dining room of Eleven Madison Park in December, 2009. Meyer confides to the camera: "After Tabla and Eleven Madison Park opened, I was convinced I'd made one of the worst professional mistakes of my life." Fade to a vast, concrete space, January, 1998. A much younger-looking Meyer, with Tom Colicchio (chef of Gramercy Tavern), enters the site; Meyer gives him a tour of his hopes and dreams. We follow the restaurateur and his team for a year as they experience gut-wrenching construction delays, miss deadlines, and fire a chef. Danny Meyer bares all in this portrait. Watching him and his inner circle, we witness first-hand how difficult it is to create a world-class restaurant.