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.
"From the Hardcover edition.