In 40 Years Young, César is a chef who enters into a culinary competition with his best friend and business partner Paolo. It is a contest shrouded in excitement, anticipation, and opportunity for the pair until César’s personal life is rocked by a series of shocking revelations, which all threaten his participation in the competition.
When César finds out that Naomi is on her way back to Chicago with Selina, he drags Paolo to the airport with him in an attempt to talk her into staying in Cancún a while longer so that their holiday romance doesn’t have to come to such an abrupt end. Whilst Naomi insists on heading home, she does leave César with some parting words of wisdom; however, given the hard time he’s been having of late, this wasn’t the outcome he was hoping for.
Despite the sweetest of goodbyes, César is still knocked by Naomi’s departure, and as such struggles to compete in the final round of the culinary competition, leaving Paolo to fend for the pair of them, only turning up with his head back in the game for the dessert portion of the meal.
The two of them try their best to recover the ground lost in César’s absence, but they, unfortunately, don’t make the cut, landing in second place rather than glory-coated first, and missing out on the prize money that Paolo was so desperate for. However, something has changed in César — he has a more positive outlook on life again, so whilst he may have missed out on the coveted trophy, he has won in other ways that were more desperately needed.
Back home after the competition, he works on patching up the life that had imploded before he left for Cancún, working with his ex Amelia so that he can still be a dad to Enrique even if he is not his biological father, with the new outlook that life may not be as bad as he’d feared it would be.
