Service Not Included: A life in restaurants

Take a splash of Italian, a dash of Polish, and a hint of Normandy, and you have me. A mutt seasoned with salted butter. Stubborn, proud, hard-headed, and vindictive. Perfumed by the smell of French baguette and bad intentions, my life adds up to bad decisions, countless mistakes, and an inconsistency that borders on genius.Model at 20 years old, restaurant GM at 30, executive chef at 40, writer at 50... In between: drugs, alcohol, car crashes, spectacular resignations, and relapses.That's my story-the journey of a magnificent idiot who wasn't looking for a job. but a shelter. A family... And I found it in hospitality. This is thirty years of my life in restaurants on both sides of the Atlantic-Paris, London, Saint-Barthélemy, and Miami-with multi-million-dollar restaurants that close after six months, influencers who photograph but don't eat, and people allergic to happiness. All told, without anesthesia and music running through it all. Because food is music you chew. No glitter. No Netflix. Just my truth-raw with a lot of guitar. The quest of a man searching for his dignity, the kind you lose in drugs and booze and stitch back together with the tip of a chef's knife.¿Bring your broken hearts, your ridiculous demands, and your bullshit requests. The chef is waiting, knives sharpened.