The Hunger: A Story of Food, Desire, and Ambition [Kindle Edition]

John DeLucie (Author), Graydon Carter (Author)

Book Description

“Hot grease, sharp knives, infidelity, and white truffles….The Hunger has all the right ingredients….The best memoir by a chef since Kitchen Confidential.”
—Jay McInerney

 

The Hunger is the page-turning memoir from John DeLucie, chef of THE celebrity hot spot restaurant in New York City, The Waverly Inn. With an introduction by Graydon Carter, legendary Editor of Vanity Fair, The Hunger is an unabashed celebration of hard work and the good life that Anthony Bourdain fans will simply eat up—a feast for foodies that author Salman Rushdie calls, “A delightful book….I recommend it to anyone interested in good food—and good stories.”

Editorial Reviews

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.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

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.”

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• File Size: 302 KB
• Print Length: 258 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0061579297
• Publisher: HarperCollins e-books; 1 edition (May 12, 2009)
• Sold by: HarperCollins Publishers
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0028MVHD2
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Not Enabled
• Lending: Not Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #367,789 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A tale of ambition, perseverance, and personal growth narrated with humor, humility, and honesty May 19, 2009

By Techie Evan

Format:Hardcover

This tale of ambition, perseverance in times of adversity, and personal growth begins in the present with the author, now the successful executive chef and part owner of the Waverly Inn in New York, working his buns off yet again, manically multitasking to keep his gastronomic creations flowing, staff hopping, and A-List customers happy. How he got started in the restaurant business, what motivated him to make the "plunge", the disadvantages and challenges he had to overcome, lucky breaks, wise and not so wise moves, people he worked with and what he learned from them as well as from each previous job, and some of the prices he has had to pay on the way to building a solid reputation are all narrated next with humor, humility, honesty, and effective use of flash backs and forwards as the main storytelling device. The author paints a vivid picture of the world he lives in (yes, there's drugs, sex, booze, betrayal, and loves lost), and although accounts of the ups and downs in his life did not always have the force of an intense drama (the narration had a few dead spots here and there), I still think this first-time author did a pretty good job and I thank him for sharing many of his eye-opening experiences with us.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Surprisingly Personal May 14, 2009

By Geri Donenberg

Format:Hardcover

I've been to the Waverly Inn and bought this book expecting a celebrity tell-all. I was quickly and immediately surprised to be drawn into a story about one man's change in career. Mind you, Delucie certainly dishes with great humor throughout the book, but my favorite parts were the very human stories reflecting his challenges and struggles in the food business mixed in with the glitzy Waverly chapters. I loved the stories of his mother and grandmother's influence on his career choice and his recipes. I found the tales of his wives touching and real. Between the excitement in the kitchen and his personal life, I couldn't put it down. A real 2-sitting read.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars a Must Read May 23, 2009

By Camilla Barungi

Format:Hardcover

I started reading this on my flight from JFK to LAX. I was instantly cast into the kitchen, the dining, the celebrity life, the Insurance company. John has a way of telling his story, where you immediately become his teammate. You are dependent on him winning.
I got to my destination and had to meet friends, but I was sneaking my reading in the car, on the way to dinner. I loved the realness, the passion, the journey and I'm looking forward to more from John Delucie; be it books, food, more restaurants..I am a fan forever.

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