Service Included
by Stephanie Damrosch
Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, which transformed food writing, was modeled on Down and Out In Paris. Stephanie Danler’s wonderful novel of working the front of the house, Sweetbitter, follows the plan of The Naked and The Dead. This account of waiting tables at Per Se is clearly Two Years Before The Mast: we were not made for this job and we never completely belong to this world, but having taken the job we are going to do our level best to make it work.