Spinning Plates

The documentary is about three separate restaurants and the people who keep them going. The first is an inventive place counted among the best in the world, whose chef is also dealing with a serious illness. The second is a family restaurant a hundred and fifty years old, still standing because of its bond with its town. The third is a newly opened Mexican restaurant whose owners have staked everything they have in order to provide for their young daughter. The film runs the three stories side by side. That food ties people to one another is the work’s case, and that assessment is its own. That keeping a business alive often has little to do with the food is the real subject. Grant Achatz and Thomas Keller appear in Joseph Levy’s ninety eight minute American documentary, completed in 2013.