A Dash of Love

In the circles in which she travels, Nikki Turner is seen as the best professional cook there is, regardless of she being self-taught. When her boss Gus, upon his retirement, closes the diner where she's been working as a cook, she is forced to find another job, another professional cooking job which may be hard to come by without that formal culinary training on her resume. Nikki stumbles upon an opportunity and gets hired by her idol, Holly Hanson, cookbook author, award-winning chef and owner of her own self-named restaurant, to work as her personal assistant, no cooking involved or thus knowledge of cooking needed. Nikki still sees this opportunity of being able to learn all the ropes of running an upscale restaurant. Nikki is just the latest of Holly's assistants, she forced to hire someone in this position by her primary investor, Henry Seager, who tells her that the restaurant will not survive unless Holly gets her affairs in order. Although given hints of what Holly is like by Nikki's best friend, Angela, who used to work as a server for Gus and then got a similar job at Holly's, Nikki has no idea that she is walking into a firestorm that is Holly's restaurant and working for the diva who is the owner/operator. Holly's young executive chef, Paul Dellucci, is having issues preparing what he sees as Holly's tired old and flavorless recipes, with Holly, in her "my-way-or-the-highway" mentality into which she's evolved, countering that he just doesn't know how to prepare them properly. Nikki finds that Holly is nothing like Angela said, Holly being as accommodating as she can, even letting her use the kitchen after hours. What Nikki is unaware of is that Holly, realizing that Paul is correct but not wanting to admit so and after tasting Nikki's amazing food, is only letting her use the kitchen in order to steal her recipes to use as her own for a new imagining of the restaurant. Due to circumstances and Paul also realizing Nikki's talent, Nikki and Paul decide to open a pop-up restaurant for three days at Gus' old spot just in time for Valentine's Day. As Nikki and Paul start to fall for each other, what happens between them both professionally and personally is affected by the success or failure of the pop-up, the aftermath of a personal issue with which Nikki helps Paul without his initial knowledge, and the lengths Holly will go to to protect her brand.