Book Review: "Service Included"

"Service Included: Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter" by Phoebe Damrosch (William Morrow, $25)

The sub-title refers to the four stars that the New York Times awarded the New York restaurant, Per Se. Per Se is the East Coast effort of Thomas Keller. He is famous in culinary circles for his Northern California restaurant, The French Laundry.

After reading this book I had a few questions. Why was it written? Why would a serious publisher accept it? Why did I read it? Let’s look for the answers.

The book provides a waitress’s view into Per Se and, by inference, The French Laundry and their competitors in the fine dining market. You will not feel the color and emotion of the restaurant business that permeates the writings of Bill Buford or Antonio Bourdain. There is enough interesting material here for an article in Reader’s Digest but it is puffed up by the inclusion of a memoir of the author’s 20-something life.

The sad point is that the book could have been a valuable addition to a culinary library. Thomas Keller’s success with The French Laundry and Per Se make him a "Person of Interest". His history, ideas, and philosophy could be interesting. We never even learn why he really opened Per Se. It can’t be the money. Ferrying staff back and forth across the coast and all the incidental cost has to be tremendously expensive. Also he closed The French Laundry for a while to do it. Why? We can suspect it’s personal with Keller but we never learn.

The book describes the front operations at Per Se during its first year. There are no "secrets" revealed and there appears to be no "eavesdropping" by this young waitress, the author. These operations are incompletely covered. Restaurateurs will not learn enough to copy the success of Per Se. They may learn enough to be discouraged from trying. The author appears to make no effort to learn anything that did not fall within her purview directly or indirectly.

The book runs 226 pages; it would be a better book at 75. Be prepared to skip, skip, and skip. Her boring reflections and descriptions of her private life are of no interest and, at the same time, not interesting. She puts her boyfriend, a wine steward at Per Se, on a pedestal: Why? We never know and after a while we don’t care. She appears to want to model her private life after a character in Sex and the City. In the end her personal life is interesting only to her family and friends. One observation: Her overly-long description of a six-hour meal she and her boyfriend have at Per Se (after she has quit) makes me not want to eat there. Who could be worthy? Keller’s signature dish (mentioned several times in the book), Oysters and Pearls is one course. This dish is a sabayon of pearl tapioca with Malpeque oysters and Osetra caviar. You can read the recipe here and draw you own conclusions.

You can calculate the amount of time you will waste reading this book by the speed at which you read and your ability to skip long passages and return to the meat or should I say foie gras of the story.

Anyway, this is a minor book which will be read by the employees of Per Se including Keller, the competitors of Per Se and The French Laundry and maybe culinary school students.

Her writing style is simple and clear: I wish she had written my VCR manual.

As it is we are left with an incomplete story of the front operations of a fine restaurant and fodder for a Cosmo article.

Returning to our questions; we know why she wrote it. She tells us: She wants to be an author. William Morrow’s interest: Only conjecture, maybe they are fans of the restaurant. The third: Why did I read it? It was free and I am interested in food and restaurants. Mostly, it was free.

P. S.: No Stars.


If you wish to read Frank Bruni's New York Times' review of Per Se go here