Li Meihui, a Jiangnan cook with a family recipe book, marries Yang Dali, the son of a butcher renowned for his mastery of fire. The couple make a name for themselves at a small restaurant in the capital with their signature dish, fish fillets in fermented rice wine, but are unexpectedly caught up in the palace's selection and summoned to the Imperial Kitchen. New to the inner palace, Meihui amazes everyone with her delicate knife skills and precise sense for seasonal ingredients, while Dali uses his rock-solid command of the stove to give home cooking a royal flair. But every step along the imperial chef's path is fraught with danger. As they compete for the head chef's place at the Longevity Banquet, a colleague poisons her and ruins her voice. A bowl of bird's nest soup angers a fallen concubine, nearly getting them exiled. And when the dynasty changes, they are ordered to cook the Founding Banquet, facing a battle of tastes between old and new powers. With recipes as their shield and their understanding of each other as their blade, the couple guard their hearth and one another in the palace kitchen's deadly world. They simmer the mist and rain of Jiangnan and the harsh winds of the north into every pot and pan, turning the warmth of everyday life into a golden legend through the passing seasons of the capital.
