As a young man in England, James Chatto had worked as a waiter, dishwasher, and occasional cook. As a boy, he had learned about restaurants from his godfather, the actor Robert Morley, who was also a food critic for Punch and Playboy. When he came to Canada in the early 1980s he decided to parlay his appetite and experience into a career and began writing about restaurants for Toronto Life Magazine. Since then he has spent most of his nights, and not a few of his days, in Toronto's culinary demi-monde, chronicling an ...
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As a young man in England, James Chatto had worked as a waiter, dishwasher, and occasional cook. As a boy, he had learned about restaurants from his godfather, the actor Robert Morley, who was also a food critic for Punch and Playboy. When he came to Canada in the early 1980s he decided to parlay his appetite and experience into a career and began writing about restaurants for Toronto Life Magazine. Since then he has spent most of his nights, and not a few of his days, in Toronto's culinary demi-monde, chronicling an extraordinary transformation. Over a period of twenty years, Torontonians, newly affluent and increasingly well traveled, discovered the world of food and wine. Eating out became a form of recreation. Hundreds of new restaurants opened their doors, and some of the people who created them became celebrities. In certain circles it began to matter whether you had been to Franco's new place, had tasted Sasur's latest invention, or could spell radicchio. This is a book about how the restaurant business became show business, and about the tycoons, artists, dilettantes, journeymen cooks, gifted gastronomical junkies, and ambitious entrepreneurs who made it happen. It is about fortunes made and lost, reputations built and squandered, written by a man who observed these events from the best seat in the house. James Chatto brings to his a cosmopolitan objectivity and an Englishman's irreverence. The result is a perceptive, sometimes funny, often poignant memoir in which the reader joins the writer as he makes his rounds, eating, hanging out with chefs and maitre d's, and eavesdropping on the late-night gossip of waiters. The Man Who Ate Toronto - like a fine wine oran unforgettable meal is meant to be savoured and shared.
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Seller's Description:
Simon Dorrell. Very Good in Very Good jacket. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. BOOK: Corners, Spine, Boards Bumped; Light Shelf Rub to Boards; Edges Lightly Soiled. DUST JACKET: Lightly Creased; Lightly Chipped; Light Moisture Damage (Staining); In Archival Quality Jacket Cover. CONTENTS: Acknowledgments; Introduction 1. Steak Out 2. Grand Hotel (Diversions: The Last Picture Show) 3. Separate Tables (Diversions: Salad Days) 4. Ethnicities (Diversions: Love in Idleness) 5. Calitalia (Diversions: The Call of the Wild) 6. Canadiana (Diversions: Pacific Overtures) 7. La Boheme (Diversions: On the Road Again) 8. Cocooning (Diversions: The Young Idea) 9. The F Word (Diversions: The Rules of the Game) 10. French Without Tears (Diversions: Silvarado) 11. Relative Values; Index. SYNOPSIS: One summer night in 1977, an English actor named James Chatto ate his first meal in Toronto and met the love of his life. Some years later, when he and his wife returned to Canada to raise a family, he decided to parlay his appetite into a career. As a boy, he had learned about restaurants from his godfather, the actor and food critic Robert Morley. As a young man, he had worked as a waiter, dishwasher, and occasional cook. He began writing about restaurants, first as an anonymous magazine reviewer and later as a columnist. Since then, he has spent most of his nights, and not a few of his days, in Toronto's culinary demi-monde, chronicling an extraordinary transformation. Over twenty years, Torontonians, newly affluent and increasingly well-travelled, discovered the world of food and wine. Eating out became a form of recreation. Hundreds of new restaurants opened their doors, and some of the people who created them, most of them immigrants, became celebrities, known by their first names alone. The Man Who Ate Toronto describes how the restaurant business became show business, and how a meat-and-potatoes city formerly known as Hogtown became one of the best places on earth to dine out. It is about the tycoons, artists, dilettantes, journeymen cooks, gastronomical junkies, and ambitious entrepreneurs who made it happen. It is about fortunes made and lost, reputations built and squandered, written by a man who observed these events from he best seat in the house. James Chatto brings to his subject a gastronome's knowledge of food, a cosmopolitan objectivity, and an Englishman's irreverence. The result is a perceptive, sometimes funny, often poignant memoir in which the reader joins the writer as he makes his rounds, hanging out with chefs and maitre d's and eavesdropping on the late-night gossip of waiters. The Man Who Ate Toronto, like a fine wine or an unforgettable meal, is meant to be savoured and shared. James Chatto has been writing about food and drink for seventeen years and has been the restaurant columnist at Toronto Life for the past decade. He is the author of two previously published books, A Kitchen in Corfu and The Seducer's Cookbook.
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Seller's Description:
Near Fine in Near Fine jacket. Signed by Author 357 pages including Index. Flat signed on the title page. Red board with slightly bumped head and tail of spine. A fine book in like dust jacket.