Boiling Point (2021)

Andy Jones is the co-owner and Head Chef at a fine-dining restaurant with an open kitchen layout. He is late for opening during the Christmas period and rushes to the restaurant. He makes a call to his ex-wife and profusely apologises for missing his son's swimming race, suggesting the long-standing neglect.

When he arrives at the restaurant, he discovers that they have an unannounced health inspection. The Health Inspector meticulously finds faults in all of the restaurant's operations - including cross-contamination, a cook washing her hands in the food preparation sink, the safe temperatures of different meats and structural damage. During the meeting with the Health Inspector, Andy ignores that the main faults with the restaurant were due to his lack of documentation. Instead, Andy blames his staff members for the infringements. Meanwhile, the senior staff, Carly and Freeman, defend themselves by pointing out Andy's faults in the lead-up. Once Andy realises his mistakes, he apologises and the kitchen continues with their preparation despite being scarce on ingredients for an overbooked night of service. Andy has been behind on many aspects of his health, managing his staff's requests and sorting restaurant administration. Throughout the night, Andy is seen drinking from a white bottle with an unknown fluid. During the staff meeting, they are informed of a guest planning a marriage proposal, a celebrity chef attending and the constant swearing of the staff affecting the dining experience. Andy is nervous about the fictional celebrity chef, Alastair - his former boss, arriving and attempts to leave but is stopped by his staff. Alastair arrives with a surprise guest, a notorious food reviewer, as a veiled threat to Andy. Andy frequently checks on his staff members during the night and chastises the dish-washing staff for being behind on their work which was due to the co-worker being late. Andy visits the dessert chefs and educates them on how to balance the acidity of their lemon curd. It later discovered that one of the chefs suffers from anxiety, depression, and self-harm. The other dish-washing staff finally arrives late where his main role is to acquire drugs for Andy. Throughout the night, the kitchen deals with issues such as misunderstandings due to language barriers, short-staffing, having a shortage of ingredients, slack front-of-house staff, pandering to social media influencers, arrogant guests, an overbearing yet underqualified Maître D and food being sent back due to unreasonable requests. A guest reminds the front-of-house staff of an allergy, which is haphazardly passed down to the kitchen. Pent-up frustration between front-of-house and back-of-house staff leads to Carly exploding and berating the Maître D, Beth, in front of everybody. Behind closed doors, Beth has an emotional breakdown and admits she does not know what she is doing in her job. Afterwards, she resumes her stoic appearance in front of guests. Alastair later accuses Andy of taking a £200K loan from him and that Andy has been avoiding him ever since. Alastair begs Andy to pay back the loan or allow him to be a partner in his restaurant, as he is going broke. Shortly after, a guest at the restaurant has an allergic reaction and an ambulance is called. As Alastair now has a vested interest in the restaurant's reputation, he orders Andy to blame Carly for the allergy mishap, where Andy is reluctant. After an emergency staff meeting, it is discovered that Andy unknowingly gave the order to use a salad dressing containing the allergen. Tempers flare where Freeman finally screams at Andy for his ongoing incompetence in management and his drug and alcohol addiction. Carly also reaches her limits where she chooses to quit after the night due to stress from running the restaurant from Andy's absenteeism. Andy goes to his office to calm down, where he fills his white bottle with alcohol and snorts cocaine. He makes a sobering call to his ex-wife, begging her to allow him to remain involved in his son's life and that he will attend rehabilitation for his addiction. Andy disposes of all his alcohol and drugs, hoping to make a change after hitting rock bottom. As Andy walks back into the restaurant, he collapses from an apparent overdose. Moments later, the staff find him and frantically seek help to save his life not knowing whether it is too late.