MY PLACE AT THE TABLE

A redoubtable restaurant critic and 30-year resident of Paris sets the table with an enticing menu of memories.

Currently a contributing editor at Saveur, Lobrano has written for nearly every prestigious magazine in the field, and he has won several James Beard awards for his work. Though he suggests that freelancing or being point man for a handful of culinary bibles could be a prodigious struggle, in some respects, he was well connected as well as talented and adroit at making friends. Success did not come easy, however. Beginning (unhappily) as a fashion and high-society journalist in Paris, Lobrano worked hard at his transition into food, and he continues to do so, enthusiastically expanding and refining his expertise. Both consistently engaging and highly observant, the author’s autobiographical tale follows him from his Connecticut boyhood to his early career in New York City and instant evolution into an ardent Parisian (with a fleeting recollection of a year in London). As he chronicles his own development, Lobrano assays the gradual innovations and tectonic upheavals in French cuisine over a three-decade span, not least the bistro revolution and its relaxed, unpretentious, internationalizing effect on Western cooking. Loosely woven throughout the text is a matter-of-fact thread about his romantic life, but this book is all about the wonderful sensuality of food and eating, from simple to grand. He offers spicy recollections of luncheons with the lions of gastronomy, of extraordinary dinners, of chance encounters and the whims of literary fortune, good and bad. Like the great food-centric movies, Lobrano plates highly visual descriptions of high-wire gustatory adventures and everyday pleasures. At the end of the book is a special bonus: “My Little Black Book,” featuring his 30 favorite restaurants in Paris, “a selection that ranges from wallet-walloping special-occasion splurges to bistros I go to often, plus some simple places for an affordable casual meal.”

Lobrano writes with mouthwatering elan, dash, and feeling.