From Publishers Weekly
With a cooking class and a Dean & Deluca's prep gig under his belt, DeLucie left behind a comfortable finance career for the cutthroat culinary industry of 1990s New York City. Eventually, he'd become a celebrity chef with his own destination restaurant co-owned by Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter. Beyond talent and drive, DeLucie had the requisite outsized ego to make it in the NYC culinary scene, persevering despite the staggering number of failures (some almost immediately, and sometimes on the word of a single reviewer) he helps open. Readers may find DeLucie's self-important prologue hard to stomach, but if they're willing to humor him they'll find a genuinely good story as well as a survey of celebrity eating habits, drawn from his popular Greenwich Village restaurant The Waverly Inn (after his visit, Karl Lagerfeld sent out for "just our roasted carrots...every day for a week"). When he puts aside his ego, DeLucie provides an excellent balance of personal details and authentic backstage culinary tales. For all the name-dropping, DeLucie's is a satisfying triumph of hard work and sticktoitness.
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Review
“DeLucie provides an excellent balance of personal details and authentic backstage culinary tales. . . . DeLucie’s is a satisfying triumph of hard work and stick-to-it-ness.” (Publishers Weekly )
“This dishy read is an insider’s look at what it takes to stay on top of the high-pressure, high-profile culinary world and what really goes on in the kitchen.” (Bon Appétit )
“It’s the rare behind-the-scenes glimpses into the Waverly’s clubby quarters that make this book different from other chef memoirs and their typically debauched tales.” (New York Post )
“THE HUNGER entertainingly describes one of those wonderfully unlikely bizarro career arcs that can only happen in the restaurant business...A terrific first person tour of the best and worst of the back-of-the-house New York restaurant world with an all-too rare happy ending.” (Anthony Bourdain )
“Hot grease, sharp knives, infidelity, and white truffles. . . . The Hunger has all the right ingredients. John DeLucie has lived the life and now he tells the tale.
The Hunger is the best memoir by a chef since
Kitchen Confidential.” (Jay McInerney )
John DeLucie has given me so much pleasure at The Waverly Inn, and now he has written this delightful book, as well! I recommend it to anyone interested in good food—and good stories.” (Salman Rushdie )
“In a bowl, stir gently, one part Hard Work, two cups True Grit, and a dash of Restaurant Glamour, and you get the perfect recipe for Chef John Delucie’s everyday life... I couldn’t put it down.” (Bobby Flay )
