Kitchen Con: Writing on the Restaurant Racket

Published by Mainstream Press, 2006, hardcover, index, 272 pages, condition; as new.

Trevor White's hilarious account of life as a restaurant critic is also a social history of restaurant criticism and an exposé of the restaurant business. The author reveals how diners are routinely ripped off by self-styled artists and greedy restaurateurs, while arguing that anyone can become a food critic - all you need is a pen and an appetite. This defiantly populist critique of restaurant culture redefines the dining room as a place in which humans can be greatly satisfied, rather than an artist's studio. From the world's first restaurant to the most fashionable kitchens of London, Paris and New York, Kitchen Con is a book-length tribute to dinner but also a scathing attack on gourmet dogma. Written with style, humour and breathtaking candour, Kitchen Con lifts the lid on the culinary cartel in a whirlwind tour of the world's great restaurants, before turning its attention to the greatest con of the author himself. No one is spared in this riveting tale of life at the heart of the restaurant racket.