Kitchen Con: Writing on the Restaurant Racket [Hardcover]

Trevor White (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 14, 2007

Are all food critics corrupt? What's the trick for getting a table tonight in America's and Europe's most fashionable restaurants? How can we feast while half the world starves? Find out in Kitchen Con.

"Waiter and customer have a lot in common. Each lingers under the delusion that lunch is on the way, neither has more than a passing interest in the other, and both are at the mercy of an ill-tempered thug with a white toque," writes Trevor White in this hilarious account of life as a restaurant critic. Kitchen Con is his passionate, intelligent expose of the restaurant business, from the world's first restaurant after the French Revolution to today's most fashionable tables in London, Paris, and New York. With style and humor, White lifts the lid off the culinary cartel-owners, chefs, and critics-that cons diners around the globe. A scathing attack on gourmet dogma, his defiantly populist critique of restaurant culture redefines the dining room as a place in which people should be satisfied rather than frozen and awe-struck. No one-not even the author

himself-is spared in this riveting account of life at the heart of the restaurant racket.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Lauded in the U.K. as the next Kitchen Confidential (if the punny title isn't enough, "Including a conversation with Anthony Bourdain" is printed helpfully on the cover), White's occasionally thrilling and frequently rambling take on restaurant criticism-and the state of food in general-is sure to raise hackles, much as his inspiration did when it was first published in 2000. White persuasively argues that restaurant criticism has no discernable purpose other than to sell the newspapers and magazines in which they appear, that wait staff should be paid a fair wage in lieu of tips and that a steady decline in true service is hobbling an industry allegedly devoted to it. His oft-repeated remark that most European critics (and patrons) "know the taste of everything, and how to cook nothing" supports his thesis that the West has bred a world of consumers constantly hunting down the Next Big Thing, rather than appreciating (or even understanding) what's in front of them. White thoughtfully includes original drafts of his reviews alongside their heavily revised published versions, lending credence to his entertaining take-down of sacred cows like the Michelin and Zagat guides. Though incendiary passages abound-White isn't one to mince words-this volume lacks focus, making it more like a loosely-assembled essay collection than a provocative assault on the status quo.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"Kitchen Confidential fans will want to read Kitchen Con. . . . White writes with great humor." -- Manhattan User's Guide, April 3, 2007

"White, bad-boy Irish restaurant critic who thinks (aloud) like Henry Fielding's Tom Jones, writes with an edge verging on vitriolic." -- Los Angeles Times, May 6, 2007

"A foul-mouthed, free-wheeling rampage through the culinary world." -- Gawker, April 3, 2007

"Blunt and witty." -- Sacramento Bee, July 29, 2007

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 248 pages
• Publisher: Arcade Publishing (May 14, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1559708344
• ISBN-13: 978-1559708340
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 1.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,074,046 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

October 7, 2007

Kitchen Con has been largely ignored by the book-buying public in four different countries. Quite a feat. Several people have urged me to put some fake reviews on the Amazon website, where four of the six reviews by customers mention my recent notoriety in sour terms, but I cannot bring myself to undertake this elementary act of fraud. Nothing to do with morals, nor indeed false modesty; rather, a perverse attachment to the idea that talent will out. According to this delusion, it should not be necessary to cozen potential readers. In time the work will find an audience. Until then, I shall remain accursed, but also on the level. Gobshite.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars What a con that this book was published at all!, July 22, 2007

By 

Maria Mingo-ordonez "Chef, Dinner by the Dozen" (Colorado, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Kitchen Con: Writing on the Restaurant Racket (Hardcover)

This book was a rambling, non-sensical waste of time and money. Furthermore, it's proof that people with the right connections can get published, no matter what they write.
Although the premise of the book seems interesting, the author quickly starts delving on other ramblings that really don't add anything to the discussion. The whole thing about Anthony Bourdain is ridiculous and obviously a way to get associated with him for publicity reasons. For God's sake, the guy interviewed him and from the jacket you'd assumed they spent a month together cooking and discussing the food world. Not that Bourdain is a great writer anyways...
I could go on and on but I've already wasted enough time on Kitchen Con - I can't believe I read the whole thing hoping it was going to get better.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars book con, February 18, 2008

By 

lafeeverted - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kitchen Con: Writing on the Restaurant Racket (Hardcover)

This book is simply awful. Like that bad made for TV movie you convince yourself will suddenly become interesting, the book fails to deliver. Page after page of nothing worthwhile, nothing that actually seems to be insightful about what it is like to be a food critic. Nothing more than the author prattling on about himself with the occasional reference to restaurants. Perhaps it is somehow lost in translation crossing the Atlantic but this book offers little if any reason to read it. It was such a waste of time and money that I had to write this if only to save someone else the pain. Sadly I could not undo the one star selection, it deserves zero.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't waste your money on this miserable book, September 11, 2007

By 

Michael Wise "vachuru" (Petaluma, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Kitchen Con: Writing on the Restaurant Racket (Hardcover)

This author seems proud that he is a food critic, and knows virtually nothing about cooking.

He can also be proud that he's written this book and seems to know virtually nothing about writing.

Mean spirited anecdotes. Cynical but not interesting and not funny.

Not recommended...