At The Chef S Table

This book is about the creative work of chefs at top restaurants in New York and San Francisco. Based on interviews with chefs and observation in restaurant kitchens, the book explores the question of how and why chefs make choices about the dishes they put on their menus. It answers this question by examining a whole range of areas, including chefs' careers, restaurant ratings and reviews, social networks, how chefs think about food and go about creating new dishes, and how status influences their work and careers. Chefs at top restaurants face competing pressures to deliver complex and creative dishes, and navigate market forces to run a profitable business in an industry with exceptionally high costs and low profit margins. Creating a distinctive and original culinary style allows them to stand out in the market, but making the familiar food that many customers want ensures that they can stay in business. Chefs must make choices between these competing pressures. In explaining how they do so, this book uses the case study of high cuisine to analyze, more generally, how people in creative occupations navigate a context that is rife with uncertainty, high pressures, and contradicting forces.

Chef Evan Stanford steadily climbed New York City's culinary ladder, earning himself the Rising Star James Beard award and an executive chef position at an acclaimed restaurant. But in his quest to build his reputation, he forgot what got him there: the lessons on food-and life-from a loving hometown neighbor. Patrick Sullivan is contented keeping the memory of his grandmother's Irish cooking alive through the food he prepares in a Brooklyn diner. But when Chef Stanford walks in for a meal, Patrick is swept up by his drive, forcing him to reconsider if a contented life is a ful-filled one. The two men begin a journey through their culinary histories, falling into an easy friendship. But even with the joys of their burgeoning love, can they tap into that secret recipe of great love, great food and transcendent joy?

Very few areas in the world offer more diversity than the San Francisco Bay Area, a place that is without a doubt, “foodie central.” One reason for the major influx of the finest chefs and their restaurants here is perhaps twofold. First, the resident foodies love to eat out, not to mention the 16 million tourists that also visit here with food at the top of their to-do list. The second reason is perhaps the fact that the Bay Area offers chefs an incomparable proximity to fresh, local, and organic ingredients with which to cook, which anyone who cooks can tell you make all of the difference in the end result. With recipes for the home cook from over 50 of the area's most celebrated eateries and showcasing over 200 full-color photos featuring mouth-watering dishes, famous chefs, and lots of local flavor, San Francisco Chef's Table is the ultimate gift and keepsake cookbook for both tourists and locals alike.

Though the West was won years and years ago, the pioneer spirit lives on in Salt Lake City (SLC). The local food scene is ripe with opportunity and alive with food entrepreneurs filled with ideas that many thought would never take off in Salt Lake City?let alone fly. Salt Lake City may be known for a world-renowned choir and the Transcontinental Railroad’s Golden Spike, but it’s a modern, vibrant city that has held on to its pioneer spirit. And nowhere is that force stronger than in the local food scene, ripe with opportunity and ingenuity. The foodie community embraces collaboration and generosity, so local restaurants, bars, and suppliers—pardon the pun—feed on each other to reach greater heights. Entrepreneurs are serving everything from bone marrow to tumbleweed, while foraging for mushrooms and new ideas to elevate SLC and its culture. With 76 recipes for the home cook from the area's most celebrated eateries and showcasing over 200 full-color photos featuring mouth-watering dishes, famous chefs, and lots of local flavor, Salt Lake City Chef's Table is the ultimate gift and keepsake cookbook for both tourists and residents alike.

Celebrating Seattle’s best restaurants and eateries with recipes and photographs Hot chefs are setting the Seattle restaurant scene ablaze. With innovative ideas and culinary surprises, the city’s most heralded restaurants and eateries continue adding spark to an already sizzling food scene. From James Beard winners Holly Smith and Maria Hines to Chris Mills, who competed on the original Japanese Iron Chef in Tokyo, and restaurants like Volterra, which Rachael Ray named one of her “favorite restaurants in the world,” the Emerald City is filled with celebrity chefs, heralded restaurants, and Food Network star eateries that serve up delicious cuisine to locals and tourists. Seattle Chef’s Table is the first cookbook to gather Seattle’s best chefs and restaurants under one cover. Profiling signature “at home” recipes from almost fifty legendary dining establishments, the book is also a celebration of the growing sustainable food movement in the Pacific Northwest. With full-color photos throughout highlighting fabulous dishes, famous chefs, and Seattle landmarks, it is the ideal ode to the city’s coveted food culture and atmosphere.

“Not since Michael Pollan has such a powerful storyteller emerged to reform American food.” —The Washington Post Today’s optimistic farm-to-table food culture has a dark secret: the local food movement has failed to change how we eat. It has also offered a false promise for the future of food. In his visionary New York Times–bestselling book, chef Dan Barber, recently showcased on Netflix’s Chef’s Table, offers a radical new way of thinking about food that will heal the land and taste good, too. Looking to the detrimental cooking of our past, and the misguided dining of our present, Barber points to a future “third plate”: a new form of American eating where good farming and good food intersect. Barber’s The Third Plate charts a bright path forward for eaters and chefs alike, daring everyone to imagine a future for our national cuisine that is as sustainable as it is delicious.

In Washington, DC, political rivals disagree on just about everything, but there is widespread bi-partisan support for the city's restaurant scene. The nation's capital and neighboring suburbs boast premier restaurants and inspired chefs who bring even the most hardened adversaries, to the table. Now, everyone, inside and outside the beltway, can savor a taste of the best Washington has to offer. With tantalizing recipes from more than 50 of the capital's most celebrated chefs and 100 beautiful full-color photographs, Washington, DC Chef's Table is a feast for the eyes as well as the palate.

Thousands of years before Hendrik Hudson sailed his Half Moon up to modern day Albany in 1609, the glaciers that once blanketed the Hudson Valley retreated to the Arctic. What the ice left in its wake was a soil so rich that, in global satellite images taken today, the trench of its path still shows up as a jet black streak. Lured by this soil’s fertility came the family farmers of the Hudson Valley, who, over time, learned to glean the finest products that the land could provide. Today the Hudson Valley is an area rich in history and art, antiques and architecture, charming towns, and farms that produce bountiful local produce. America’s history comes alive here as does its beauty. Naturally, Hudson Valley restaurants boast outstanding chefs with a deep and growing commitment to supporting local agriculture. Hudson Valley farmers and artisans fill out the menus with sustainable raised produce, meats, poultry, eggs, cheese, wine and other fine foods. It’s creative cuisine at its best With over 80 recipes for the home cook from the state’s most celebrated eateries and showcasing full-color photos featuring mouth-watering dishes, famous chefs, and lots of local flavor, Hudson Valley Chef’s Table is a feast for the eyes as well as the palate. The delicious dishes featured here are personal histories––stories of people and place. Each recipe, chef profile, and photo tells its part of the story and magic of the Hudson Valley.