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In Italy, five-star restaurants and celebrity chefs may seem, on the surface, a part of the landscape. In reality, the restaurant industry is as tough, cutthroat, and unforgiving as anywhere else in the world—sometimes even colluding with the shady world of organized crime. The powerful voice of Leonardo Lucarelli takes us through the underbelly of Italy's restaurant world. Lucarelli is a professional chef who for almost two decades has been roaming Italy opening restaurants, training underpaid, sometimes hopelessly incompetent sous-chefs, courting waitresses, working long hours, riding high on drugs, and cursing a culinary passion he inherited as a teenager from his hippie father. In his debut, Mincemeat: The Education of an Italian Chef, Lucarelli teaches us that even among rogues and misfits, there is a moral code in the kitchen that must, above all
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
December 6, 2016 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780735209091
- File size: 276599 KB
- Duration: 09:36:14
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Leonardo Lucarelli's no-holds-barred story of his slapdash journey from an unconventional childhood in India to restaurant kitchens in Rome and beyond may make listeners question the sanity of professional chefs--but not their passion for cooking. Narrator Will Damron's soft voice and casual cadence invite listeners into a world of demanding bosses and unsteady finances, grueling workdays and late-night partying. Damron's clean, clear performance is generally accent free, but his occasional Italian sounds believable and helps establish the setting of this memoir. Unlike celebrity chefs, Lucarelli's career doesn't end with a television contract; his is a less glamorous path, wrought with mistakes and bad choices as well as good luck, hard work, and supportive friends. Damron's easy-on-the-ears delivery makes this an enjoyable audiobook experience. C.B.L. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine -
November 14, 2016
Italian chef and consultant Lucarelli has worked in kitchens ranging from holes in the wall to chic Michelin-starred eateries. Though he doesn’t revisit all of them, he gives readers a glimpse at the day-to-day lives of those working the line under harsh conditions. It’s a story that’s been told, and told better, many times before. Lucarelli’s tale includes lots of drugs, cops, lurid sex, busy nights, short fuses, and high stakes. He offers insight into what it really takes to not only become a chef but sustain a career, in addition to moments of solipsistic reflection. The urge to compare the book to Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential is inevitable, and under that scrutiny Lucarelli’s work falls far short. His themes are similar to Bourdain’s, but his book is a lesser version of the same story. Lucarelli, though a talented writer, doesn’t have the same bravado and chutzpah. Those in the restaurant and hospitality industry will likely recognize themselves in some of the book’s vignettes.
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