Claudia Bassols and Jan Cornet in Tasting Menu (Magnolia Pictures)

Restaurant owner Mar Vidal (Vicenta N’dongo) is hanging it all up—the film opens with her announcing that her world famous, book-a-year-in-advance Catalan restaurant (à la the famous El Bulli) will be serving its last meal. What follows is a night to remember, as an array of characters gather.

Beautiful novelist Rachel (Claudia Bassols) and her pediatrician ex-husband, Marc (Jan Cornet), have separated since making their reservations a year ago, but they still decide to attend. Complicating matters is the arrival of Rachel’s editor and current boyfriend, Daniel (Timothy Gibbs). Meanwhile, a pair of Japanese investors, interested in having Mar open up another restaurant, makes the pilgrimage, chaperoned by Mina (Marta Torné), an awkwardly coltish young woman who speaks no Japanese herself and who finds herself drawn to Marc.

The strange, dour Walter (Stephen Rea) presents himself as a food critic, but Mar’s manager, Max (Andrew Tarbet), doubts him, and finally there’s the Countess (Fionnula Flanagan), a wonderfully eccentric English widow who, despite having been housebound for the past few months, arrives, an urn containing her husband’s ashes in tow.

The film’s enjoyable but wafer thin plot primarily turns around the “Will they or won’t they reunite?” relationship between Rachel and Marc, and the two spend much of the lavish meal touching on their past, though there’s little acrimony or bitterness between them. Though Mina’s light flirtation and overbearing Daniel’s interruptions would seem to add up to something of a love rectangle, there’s surprisingly little tension; the bizarrely loquacious Mina barely qualifies as a romantic threat, and even loutish Daniel hardly seems like a tempting rival.

Some drama is thrown in as Max makes phone call after phone call—checking up on Walter’s credentials, then arranging for the much-anticipated dessert—and there’s plenty of humor as the unamused Japanese investors trade stiff glances while Mina makes faux pas after faux pas. Yet it’s Flanagan who steals almost every scene she’s in. Though she’s hardly breaking new ground as a lovably bizarre, occasionally overbearing, upper-class Brit and there’s little for her to do for much of the film, she never misses a beat, even if it’s only casting a sidelong glance.

However, it’s the light, bubbly, slice-of-life tone that gives it its character. The upbeat pop of the soundtrack, the novelty of the cocktails and hors d’oeuvres (a margarita served in a gigantic aloe vera leaf), the gorgeous outfits, the restaurant’s beachside locale: viewers will be immersed in a sumptuous breeziness. Dialogue that alternates between Spanish and English (and on occasion, Japanese) adds to the richness.

While these characters have heart, there’s no piercing their elegant veneer. Even a scene where a heated argument leads to Marc and Rachel leaving the table doesn’t show much messy vulnerability. Instead the two gaze moodily at the sea over a balcony while Mar sends over another lavishly prepared complimentary snack (both food and scenery porn abound nicely here). Even when it’s announced that the boat transporting the restaurant’s much heralded dessert has sunk, there’s never any real sense of danger. Almost every moment seems to suggest one more fun detail in an anecdote to be related later.

Light on drama but heavy on visuals, this one may not contain a lot of food for thought, but, like many restaurants, the ambiance makes Tasting Menu worth the price of admission.