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Service Included: Four-Star Secrets Of An Eavesdropping Waiter

Warning: May contain material offensive to vegans, pharmaceutical lobbyists, and those on a low-sodium diet. Animals were harmed during the writing of this book.While Phoebe Damrosch was waiting for life to happen, she supported herself by working as a waitress. Before long she was the only female captain at the four-star New York City restaurant Per Se during its first year. Service Included is the story of her obsession with food, her love affair with a sommelier, and her amusing, eye-opening, and sometimes shocking experiences in the fascinating, frenetic, highly competitive world of fine dining.Sitting down at a restaurant table will never be the same.

Paperback: 240 pages

Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks; Reprint edition (October 7, 2008)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 006122815X

ISBN-13: 978-0061228155

Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 0.5 x 8 inches

Shipping Weight: 7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (94 customer reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #303,636 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #96 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Humor > Cooking #175 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Regional U.S. > Mid Atlantic #467 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Professionals & Academics > Culinary

Phoebe Damrosch is an impeccably educated English major who fancied herself an artist and loathed the thought of taking a job as a drone in a publishing industry to ensure a steady paycheck. She writes, "eventually I had to accept that I wasn't working in restaurants to support my art like most of my co-workers; I was posing as an artist to justify my work as a waiter." When she failed to find solid work utilizing her degree, Damrosch joined a hellish underground bootcamp to score a job in one of New York's most elite restaurants (a place at which a party could easily drop $20,000 on dinner, and the service captains made six digit salaries).During her year working at Per Se, Damrosch memorized the life stories of the ingredients in every dish in the restaurant, became well-versed on the architecture visible from the restaurant's windows, and learned to anticipate the needs of her guests before the guests themselves voiced them. She worked eight to ten hour shifts on her feet, juggling the needs of her tables and the whims of her guests while appearing calm and composed. She was one of the only female captains the elite circle of NYC 4-star restaurants.Service Included is a secret window into the world of ultra-high-end hospitality, and a foodie's delight. It is not, however, an "eavesdropping" tale. Damrosch would have done well to title her memoir more accurately, because it stands on its own as a glimpse inside an unusual and elite profession. Her memoir is also unique among restaurant confessionals, because she's reporting from the front of the house, not the kitchen. The allows her to provide the reader reservations at the best seat in the house for their vicarious experience at Per Se.Service Included suffers from a lack of clear direction.

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