The Restaurant

Three sisters. An inherited Nantucket restaurant. One year before they can sell. Jill lives a glamorous life in Manhattan as a co-owner of a successful executive search firm. Never married, she is in her mid-thirties and lives in a stunning, corner condo with breathtaking views of the city and Hudson river. Everyone thinks there's something going on with her partner, Billy, because as a workaholic, she spends more time with him than anyone else. There never has been, but Jill is starting to wonder if there could be. Emma lives in Arizona and is an elementary school teacher and an aspiring photographer. She met her college professor husband, Peter, in grad school and they've been married for fifteen years. In recent years, she's noticed that Peter has grown distant. But when he shares a surprising secret, she doesn't see it coming and her world is turned upside down. Mandy has two children and is married to her college sweetheart, Cory, who runs a wildly successful hedge fund from Nantucket. Now that the children are older, Mandy has more free time and is eager to do more than just volunteer with local charity events. But Cory doesn't want her to work. He thinks it doesn't reflect well on him and appearances are everything to Cory. Though when Mandy finds something unusual in his gym bag, she begins to question what is really going on. The girls are stunned when they learn about the restaurant, Mimi's Place and the condition their grandmother added to the will, leaving the restaurant equally to Mandy, Emma, and Jill--and also to Paul, the chef for the past twelve years, and Emma’s first love.

AS READ ON BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK. The fascinating story of how we have gone out to eat, from the ancient Romans in Pompeii to the luxurious Michelin-starred restaurants of today. Tracing its earliest incarnations in the city of Pompeii, where Sitwell is stunned by the sophistication of the dining scene, this is a romp through history as we meet the characters and discover the events that shape the way we eat today. Sitwell, restaurant critic for the Daily Telegraph and famous for his acerbic criticisms on the hit BBC show MasterChef, tackles this enormous subject with his typical wit and precision. He spies influences from an ancient traveller of the Muslim world, revels in the unintended consequences for nascent fine dining of the French Revolution, reveals in full hideous glory the post-Second World War dining scene in the UK and fathoms the birth of sensitive gastronomy in the US counterculture of the 1960s. This is a story of the ingenuity of the human race as individuals endeavour to do that most fundamental of things: to feed people. It is a story of art, politics, revolution, desperate need and decadent pleasure. Sitwell, a familiar face in the UK and a figure known for the controversy he attracts, provides anyone who loves to dine out, or who loves history, or who simply loves a good read with an accessible and humorous history. The Restaurant is jam-packed with extraordinary facts; a book to read eagerly from start to finish or to spend glorious moments dipping in to. It may be William Sitwell’s History of Eating Out, but it’s also the definitive story of one of the cornerstones of our culture.

Restaurants are one of the most frequently started businesses, yet they have a high failure rate. A study has shows that it is 57% and 61% after three years. Don't be a statistic on the wrong side, plan for success. This is the only book of its kind with insider secrets. Here are given real life examples of how successful restaurant operators avoid the pitfalls and thrive. Hundreds of tricks, tips and secrets are given on how to make money with your restaurant.

“I know of no other book that offers its readers the opportunity to learn how to remain healthy without giving up the pleasure that dining out brings.” —Monty Preiser, veteran food & wine writer This is the ultimate guide for people who want to dine out guilt-free! In The Restaurant Diet, author Fred Bollaci, who lost 150 pounds from 330: • Teaches readers how to read a menu • Explains how to ask important questions of the restaurant staff • Gives guidance on how to have food customized to your dietary needs • Provides insights into converting this into healthy eating at home As Fred teaches readers how to eat out and lose weight, he reveals the real secret: It’s not about preparing “clean” food at home, or going “whole” and excluding wheat, sugar, and dairy. Nor is it about counting calories or grams. It’s about WHY one overeats in the first place. After trying every fad diet, Fred devised a four-phase eating and exercise plan with the help of his doctor, a nutritionist, a trainer, and a psychologist. Featuring recipes from America’s most noted restaurant chefs, as well as original recipes from Fred’s own kitchen, The Restaurant Diet is for the nineteen million Americans who love to eat out on a regular basis—and the 38 percent who are overweight. “The Restaurant Diet, with its smart, educated choices, will revolutionize the world of dieting. As a chef and restaurant owner, I am excited to be part of this game-changing book and way of life—where fine-dining restaurants are a conscious dieter’s friend.” Gabriel Kreuther, Michelin star chef and James Beard Award winner

At the Restaurant Activity Book is a fun-filled book of restaurant-themed activities designed to keep children entertained and amused when out and about.

Andrew Delaplaine is the ultimate Restaurant Enthusiast. With decades in the food writing business, he has been everywhere and eaten (almost) everything. “Unlike the ‘honest’ reviews on sites like Yelp, this writer knows what he’s talking about. He’s a professional, with decades in the business, not a well-intentioned but clueless amateur.” = Holly Titler, Los Angeles “This concise guidebook was exactly what I needed to make the most of my limited time in town.” = Tanner Davis, Milwaukee This is another of his books with spot-on reviews of the most exciting restaurants in town. Some will merit only a line or two, just to bring them to your attention. Others deserve a half page or more. “The fact that he doesn’t accept free meals in exchange for a good review makes all the difference in his sometimes brutally accurate reviews.” = Jerry Adams, El Paso “Exciting” does not necessarily mean expensive. The area’s top spots get the recognition they so richly deserve (and that they so loudly demand), but there are plenty of “sensible alternatives” for those looking for good food handsomely prepared by cooks and chefs who really care what they “plate up” in the kitchen. For those with a touch of Guy Fieri, Delaplaine ferrets out the best food for those on a budget. That dingy looking dive bar around the corner may serve up one of the juiciest burgers in town, perfect to wash down with a locally brewed craft beer. Whatever your predilection or taste, cuisine of choice or your budget, you may rely on Andrew Delaplaine not to disappoint. Delaplaine dines anonymously at the Publisher’s expense. No restaurant listed in this series has paid a penny or given so much as a free meal to be included. Bon Appétit!

Winner of the Louis Gottschalk Prize Winner of the Thomas J. Wilson Memorial Prize “Witty and full of fascinating details.” —Los Angeles Times Why are there restaurants? Why would anybody consider eating alongside perfect strangers in a loud and crowded room to be an enjoyable pastime? To find the answer, Rebecca Spang takes us back to France in the eighteenth century, when a restaurant was not a place to eat but a quasi-medicinal bouillon not unlike the bone broths of today. This is a book about the French revolution in taste—about how Parisians invented the modern culture of food, changing the social life of the world in the process. We see how over the course of the Revolution, restaurants that had begun as purveyors of health food became symbols of aristocratic greed. In the early nineteenth century, the new genre of gastronomic literature worked within the strictures of the Napoleonic state to transform restaurants yet again, this time conferring star status upon oysters and champagne. “An ambitious, thought-changing book...Rich in weird data, unsung heroes, and bizarre true stories.” —Adam Gopnik, New Yorker “[A] pleasingly spiced history of the restaurant.” —New York Times “A lively, engrossing, authoritative account of how the restaurant as we know it developed...Spang is...as generous in her helpings of historical detail as any glutton could wish.” —The Times

The deliciously cosmopolitan story of the restaurant from eighteenth-century Paris to El Bulli What does eating out tell us about who we are? The restaurant is where we go to celebrate, to experience pleasure, to see and be seen - or, sometimes, just because we're hungry. But these temples of gastronomy hide countless stories. As this dazzlingly entertaining, eye-opening book shows, the restaurant is where performance, fashion, commerce, ritual, class, work and desire all come together. Through its windows, we can glimpse the world. This is the tale of the restaurant in all its guises, from the first formal establishments in eighteenth-century Paris serving 'restorative' bouillon, to today's new Nordic cuisine, via grand Viennese cafés and humble fast food joints. Here are tales of cooks who spend hours arranging rose petals for Michelin stars, of the university that teaches the consistency of the perfect shake, of the lunch counter that sparked a protest movement, of the writers - from Proust to George Orwell - who have been inspired or outraged by the restaurant's secrets.