The Dish: The Lives and Labor Behind One Plate of Food

by Andrew Friedman

Acclaimed “chef writer” Andrew Friedman introduces readers to all the people and processes that come together in a single restaurant dish, creating an entertaining, vivid snapshot of the contemporary restaurant community, modern farming industry, and food-supply chain. On a typical evening, in a contemporary American restaurant, a table orders their dinner from a server. It’s an exchange that happens dozens, or hundreds, of times a night—the core transaction that keeps the place churning. In this book, acclaimed chef writer Andrew Friedman slows down time to focus on a single dish at Chicago’s Wherewithall restaurant, following its production and provenances via real-time kitchen and in-the-field reportage, from the moment the order is placed to when the finished dish is delivered to the table. As various components of this one dish are prepared by the kitchen team, Friedman introduces readers to the players responsible for producing it, from the chefs who conceived the dish and manage the kitchen, to the line cooks and sous chefs who carry out the actual cooking, and the dishwashers who keep pace with the dining room. Readers will also meet the producers, farmers, and ranchers, who supply the restaurant, as Friedman visits each stop in the supply chain and profiles the key characters whose expertise and effort play essential roles in making the dish possible—they will walk rows of crops that line Midwestern farms, feel the chill of the cooler where beef dry-ages, harvest grapes at a Michigan winery, ride along with a delivery-truck driver, and hear the immigration sagas prevalent amongst often unseen and unheralded farm and restaurant workers. The Dish is a rollicking ride inside every aspect of a restaurant dish. Both a fascinating window onto our food systems, and a celebration of the unsung heroes of restaurants and the collaborative nature of professional kitchen work,  The Dish  will ensure that readers never look at any restaurant meal the same way again. 

Genres: Food, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Cooking, Labor, Food Writing, Culinary

288 pages, Hardcover

Published October 17, 2023

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Andrew Friedman is the author of Chefs, Drugs and Rock & Roll: How Food Lovers, Free Spirits, Misfits and Wanderers Created a New American Profession (2018), and producer and host of the independent podcast Andrew Talks to Chefs, currently in its sixth year. He is also the author of Knives at Dawn: America’s Quest for Culinary Glory at the Legendary Bocuse d’Or Competition (2009), co-editor of the internationally popular anthology Don’t Try This at Home: Culinary Catastrophes from the World’s Greatest Chefs, and co-author of more than twenty-five cookbooks, memoirs, and other projects with some of the United States’ finest and most well-known chefs. Additionally, he is an adjunct professor within the School of Graduate and Professional Studies at the Culinary Institute of America. An avid tennis player, he co- authored American tennis star James Blake’s New York Times bestselling memoir Breaking Back: How I Lost Everything and Won Back My Life (2007), and was for several years a TENNIS magazine editor-at-large. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Reviews

[Caleb Fogler · Rating 4 out of 5]

A journalist provides and in-depth look at the humans and their roles within a specific restaurant in Chicago. Along the way the author interviews members of the supply chain, modern farming scene, and employees of the restaurant from the head chef to the dishwasher.

The meticulous research and interviews of the author are really great in this book to show a behind the scenes of the modern dining experience in a major American city. I haven’t watched the show The Bear but this may be interesting for viewers who enjoy that show. But I think the highlights of this book, and what I found most entertaining, was the backstories of each individual person. From how a farmer who was destined to preach behind a pulpit found his calling to nourish through growing crops, to a dishwasher who immigrated to the Windy City from South America in order to provide funds for her family after her husband left, and even a journeyman chef couple. One who left cooking in New York City to cook in South Korea before being forced back to America and struggling to find his passion and his wife who competed on a celebrity cooking show in order to find her way back to the kitchen and their struggle together to support their young child while also chasing their passion of cooking and dealing with racism. The stories of the people is what makes this food book special.

[Raymond Delucci · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a worker in the food industry and someone who’s read other books by Andrew, this is by far one of his most important. It is a glimpse into the humanity, effort and sacrifice it takes to prepare food for customers day in and out. It should be a must read for anyone who dines out at restaurants. He writes it in such a gripping way and I’m sure it’s worth anyone’s time to pick up and give it a shot. Great work as always by Andrew and amazing stories by the people involved in what it took to bring this Chicago restaurant to life.

[Jessica · Rating 1 out of 5]

Andrew Friedman had the idea to write a book about the food and restaurant industry but from a different angle. He wanted to take one dish at a specific restaurant and look at every aspect of what went into that dish - where the food came from, was grown/raised/etc., the farmers, the chefs who created the dish, the servers who sold and delivered it to the guests, etc. It sounded like a very unique book but it just didn't deliver for me. There are 6 sections of the book but instead of dividing the content into these sections it just seemed like a jumble of information in each section (that I read, I didn't finish it). I think it could have been well done but just seemed all over the place. Mostly through the second section I found myself not really wanting to pick it up and keep reading so I decided to quit. I had read one of Friedman's previous books, Don't Try This at Home, and I remember liking it but it was SO long ago when I read it that I really don't remember much. And I read it pre-Goodreads so I can't go back and look at my review of it to refresh my memory. Regardless, I wouldn't recommend this one. There are a LOT of MUCH better food/restaurant books out there.

[Kim McGee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Watching THE BEAR tv series has given me a new understanding and appreciation for those Michelin star seeking crazed chefs. THE DISH has given me an appreciation and greater understanding for the massive undertaking and everyone who contributes to getting that food on the table. Looking at one Chicago restaurant, the author takes one dish and dissects the myriad of people involved to make it happen as well as their dedication, work ethic and absolute faith in creating the best. From the organic small farmers and butchers who supply the restaurant to the head dishwasher and chefs, every history and struggle is laid out on the table. We can also get a taste of what is ahead for the restaurant industry and the pitfalls of its workers. This is not just a book for foodies but should serve as a reminder to give those people behind the scenes and in front a bit of patience, understanding and a round of applause for the magic they pull off every day.
Must reading for armchair bingers of TOP CHEF and readers who live vicariously through chef's memoirs.
My thanks to the publisher for the advance copy.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book that would have been pretty enjoyable had it been set anywhere else, but I was super into it because I've eaten at that restaurant (wedding anniversary dinner, about two months after the Dish this book was based on was served)! It's a ten minute walk from my place! I get my veggies from that farm! I have never read a book, fiction or non, that was set quite this local to me and it was a cool experience. Plus, I'm fascinated by how the precisely timed and executed experience of fine dining works. I've read/watched enough food media in my life that none of the individual pieces felt really new to me, but the way they're all brought together felt fresh.

[William Ewens · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was at first caught off guard by the Steinbeck-esc writing style employed by Friedman to explore the breadth of just one of Wherewithall’s dishes. His descriptive writing continually grew on me as I made my way through this book, and left me with answers to many of the questions I might ask when I enter a fine dining establishment.

[Cade · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ehhh…It’s not that I didn’t like the book. It was well written, and I like the author’s voice. But I definitely expected more conversation on the labor issues. A little more fancy schmancy than I thought.

[Alex Pizov · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn’t want to finish this book. It was so enjoyable to see the passion behind each ingredient and step in creating a dish. Loved that it was based in Chicago gave me much more appreciation for the farms around me and the produce I get to enjoy each week.

[Chris Rock · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you’ve ever taken your first bite of a dish and closed your eyes and reflexively smiled, or appreciated how your server seemed to always bring the next course at just the right time, not too soon, not to late, you will find this book fascinating. It is a glimpse behind the curtain of what makes a great restaurant great, from farmer to dishwasher.

It is bewildering how any of this happens, and this book does an excellent job of describing it in an informative and entertaining way. My only gripe about this book was that I found the flow awkward. I felt like I was jumping from one short story to the next. Each one well written, for sure, but I wish the flow had kept me more immersed.

[Book Club of One · Rating 4 out of 5]

What does it take for a plate of food to reach the restaurant table? Much like A J J Jacobs' Thanks A Thousand: A Gratitude Journey goal to personally thank everyone who made his daily cup of coffee a possibility, Andrew Friedman researched and interviewed many of the people who make it possible for diners at Chicago’s Wherewithall to eat the final savory course of dry-aged trip loin with tomato and sorrel as was selected for that week's meal.

Wherewithall is a restaurant that offers its diners simplicity with quality. Meals are decided on a weekly basis, with key factors being what is in season and locally available. By using the meal as the key dish to investigate, Friedman is able to explore contemporary supply and distribution systems, farming and meat packing practices, kitchen training and work culture, table service practices and the challenges and infrastructure that face restaurants.

The book is organized by the process of the meal's creation. Friedman begins with an introduction explaining the parts before shifting to the patron's arrival to the restaurant and how the food is ordered and managed. From there the pattern of the book settles to detail different aspects of Wherewithall daily life or the supply chain that supports it.

Friedman is clearly a foodie and this book is rich in descriptions of cooking methodologies and the richness of ingredients blended together. While it is clear he did a great deal of research, much of the material presenting in this book is derived from direct interviews and from Friedman's first hand observations shadowing, riding-along, witnessing or attempting himself the processes that make the ingredients come together.

While the focus is primarily the food, Friedman is in-depth in the interviews. He details subjects' full lives, covering upbringing and circuitous career paths that eventual landed them in some part of the spectrum that can be described as food service. This is done for almost all the people featured in the book. This adds an extra layer of depth to the narratives giving some idea of personality, struggles and growth and especially mental health at different points.

The Dish is a delicious and detailed exploration of the people and systems that make dining possible. It truly answers the question of where did this food come from, showing the often unseen or unappreciated who, what, why and how. Recommended to anyone who is hungry, considers themselves a foodie or who's favorite part of World War Z was the interview about an apple juice ingredients list.

I received a free digital version of this eBook via NetGalley thanks to the publisher.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

This looks at a single plate of food in a Chicago restaurant run by a husband and wife team who are Michelin starter and James Beard Award-winning. The restaurant has a creative menu that focuses on utilizing local ingredients.

It is a gimic, but he does it well. You meet a cross-section of the restaurant with honest biographical sketches - from the front of the house, through the kitchen, and the dishwasher and polisher. You meet the vintners and farmers and the vegetable delivery driver.

The wife of the couple did a season of Top Chef. The husband, a very white man, went to Korea to study with a chef he admired. These people are in a different class.

You get to see the real people who were needed to make this plate of food possible. You get to feel what it is like to work in a high end restaurant. You get to understand the motivations of these people who care so much about food and feeding people.

Food is community, when it is done right. This isn't industrial food out of the back of Sysco Truck. These are menus that can change mid-service as various local products start to tune out - nothing in a deep freezer here to help them along.

I read this as a galley - the book comes out next week. I googled the restaurant to get an idea on prices and the current menu and was shocked to see that a sewer system disaster had shuttered the restaurant. I contacted the author and he advised that they plan to eventually reopen as a high-end concept restaurant riffing on traditional Ukrainian recipes which I can see being a hit in Ukrainian/Rusyn-heavy Chicago.

A great read. If you know a young person interested in the high-end restaurant business this gives a good taste of what that life entails.

[Ellen Barker · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this book about what it takes to produce one serving of one course in one over-the-top restaurant. The author goes all the way back to the farm - the many farms - that produce the food. We meet farmers and see not only how they raise the food but also how they harvest it, deliver it, and manage to make a living. In this case, the restaurant is in Chicago, so the farms are in Illinois for the most part. We also meet the staff and get a look at how they get where they are (hint: circuitously). Both kinds of backstories - the people stories and the food stories - are fascinating. The author has put a lot of time and thought into crafting this book.

I read this book immediately after reading Service Included: Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter by Phoebe Damrosch, a look into the same world but focused inside the restaurant, on all the people it takes to create the experience of a restaurant I'll probably never see the inside of.

For both of these books, it was necessary to set aside my eye-rolling response to the very concept of spending THAT MUCH money on a meal, any meal. And to boot, you get one or two exquisite bites of something fabulous - and that's it. On to the next exquisite bite.

Final note: the two books are a good pairing.

[Charlee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had to push through this book. as someone who loves food, cooking, and of course "the bear" I thought I'd enjoy this. I feel like the beginning when you learn about the farms, ingredients, and how the dish came to be so much is ignored or glossed over. they do not compare how the small farm is different from the CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operation aka large animal farm) down the street. or what about the farmers who are treated terribly at the average gig? clearly most restaurants don't operate as the one featured and I wish that was discussed more. (although maybe this wasn't the point of the book.)

some of these issues and other more serious topics are sprinkled throughout. a sentence here or there. but more concentrated at the end around social issues of the individual workers.

learning the workers' backstories is very interesting, and possibly my favorite part, but not always told in a writing style I enjoy. I did also enjoy the portion on menu creation.

I will also not I am someone who does not eat meat and there are some graphic animal scenes. however I did find the author hypocritical in the slaughterhouse moment.

this book clearly was not written for me. and I know others who enjoyed this. so I wont say it's terrible but it's not for me.

[Dennis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent book about food and restaurants. The author picked a restaurant in Chicago and a dish at that restaurant and proceeded to learn all he could about the restaurant and especially the dish. The dish he selected was a steak dish with tomato, a sauce and a few sorrel leaves. The bulk of the book describes each ingredient in the steak dish and how it came to be at that restaurant. I read about a meat processing facility, a farm which provides the tomato, another farm which supplies the herbs for the sauce and a winery which provides the wine for the sauce. Fascinating all these people providing food to restaurants and most diners never think of them but keeping restaurants supplied requires a major effort. Lots of discussion as well about the kitchen at this restaurant and the personalities and processes in them. Reading this has given me a new perspective on eating out. Hopefully I won't take it so much for granted. This is a fun and informative read so I'm giving it my highest recommendation.

[Ian]

A few years back, a skit on Portlandia begins with a couple about to order at a restaurant. They ask for details about the local organic chicken. Eventually they leave the restaurant to find out about the source, driving out to the farm to meet the farmers and observe the conditions themselves. This is the premise of Andrew Friedman’s book, The Dish: the Lives and Labor Behind One Plate of Food. Friedman sits down to eat at a dish at Wherewithall, and then sets out to look at the stories of team members and, like the characters in Portlandia, the source of the food.

Read the rest of the review here:
https://allthethingsieat.com/how-we-e...

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a worthwhile read (and, thanks to a larger font size and photos throughout, a quick one)--just go in with the understanding that as much real estate (if not more) of the book is devoted to the biographies of people who work at and own the restaurant than the "food" side of things. Those folks are also an important window on how food arrives at your table, and Friedman clearly understands the industry and can describe how they each were typical or not for the career trajectory of restaurant workers--I think I just expected the book to be more about the actual food, food systems, the restaurant industry, etc.

[Kayla Lister · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wasn’t a huge fan. I prefer fiction, but I decided to branch out. The main reason I took a chance on this is because we have an upcoming trip to Chicago, and the dish the book is about comes from a restaurant located there. I now have a better understanding about what it takes to plate a dish you order in a restaurant, and I can appreciate all of the hard work behind the scenes. However, my attention wandered quite a bit trying to get through this. The worst part is finding out at the end that the restaurant does not even exist anymore, so there is no hope of dining there when we go to Chicago later this year.

[Ty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Andrew Friedman brings a fun and different perspective to writing about food, cooking and the restaurant industry. In this book, he traces all of the components of a single dish from a high end restaurant in Chicago back through every person who has had a hand in getting it to the customer's table on the given night. We meet the farmers, the butchers, deliverymen, waitresses, cooks, chefs, even the dishwashers who were involved. And we learn a lot about how that cow gets from the barn to the plate. This is a very short book, but highly informative. Highly recommended if you are interested in restaurant stuff.

[Joanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books about the restaurant industry and culture that I've ever read. Any book that begins with a quote from Fox Mulder (yes, the X Files) has to be one that thinks outside the box! This book focuses on a particular plate of food served at a particular restaurant on a particular evening. The author then follows that dish back through all the people that made it and served it and the farmers who raised the food and the people who delivered it and then some. All written in a delightful style that any author would love to master.

[Rogue Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved Chefs Drugs and Rock and Roll and Knives at Dawn so was well prepared to enjoy The Dish. Written in the time of covid it is hard to imagine how Friedman traced the origin of one dish served at Chicago's Wherewithall restaurant. He traces the growth, supply chain, preparation and serving through the narratives of those involved. I came to really appreciate Johnny Clark and Beverly Kim, Wherewithall owners, through Friedman's writing and was sorry to see the collapse of the restaurant in the progression of covid but also as a marker of the transience of the food industry.

[Carol Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's so much unappreciated labor in this world, but none more so than in the service industry. It was heartwrenching to be reminded that over 100,000 restaurants were closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Through the lens of one restaurant that survived, Friedman creates a panoramic view of American food culture and the unsung heroes-- from farmers to hostesses to dishwashers-- that keep up the miraculous speed of service many of us take for granted.

[Mike Walter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting concept for a book. Andrew Friedman (author of Chefs, Drugs and Rock and Roll, a sort of taundry tell all about the restaurant business) takes one dish served on one night at a restaurant in Chicago and analyses everything about it. Who grew the tomato? Who slaughtered the cow? Who delivered the thyme to the restaurant? Who thought up the dish? Who cooked it? All these questions and more are answered in Friedman’s smooth and colorful prose.

[Jennifer Myers · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a “taste” (see what I did there) of one meal in one point in time in our US restaurant industry. I learned so much, especially about all the work that goes into sourcing food, planning the pieces of the meal, and the delicate dance between all the people in the kitchen. Educational read if you appreciate food!

[Paul Narvaez · Rating 3 out of 5]

The concept is to choose one entree on the menu and take it back to its source and the examine the processes that go into that one dish all before it is set before you. Interesting. There was a moment I considered becoming a vegetarian during my read. Luckily, those images have started to fade a bit.

[Alex Bielovich · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's extraordinary the lengths people go to in harvesting, delivering, conceptualising, preparing and presenting; with it all culminating on the plate. Andrew really gets in the weeds, so to speak, when researching the purveyors. The lessons in agriculture were really enjoyable.

[Rayfes Mondal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was more about people than about what they do so I didn't find this as interesting as I'd expected though I was glad they covered the story of the dishwasher from Equator. The section about the butcher reminded me that I appreciate that others kill animals so I can eat them.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This felt like a series of conversations with the author about some really exceptional (and humble) people whose work makes the “dish” possible. Well done and highly recommended if you love food and the how and why of restaurants.

[Elizabeth]

As heard on The Splendid Table: Conversations & Recipes For Curious Cooks & Eaters:
https://play.podtrac.com/APM-Splendid...

[Sheila · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading "The Dish" felt like watching a more calming episode of "The Bear." In particular, I admired the character development emphasized throughout, from the restaurant owners to all the behind-the-scenes workers who help make the restaurant

[Abbey Phipps · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed it. As a hobby homesteader and someone who enjoys cooking, this was right up my alley. The organization of the book - jumping from person to person with the same chapter - was not my favorite, but I got used to it and it wasn't too hard to follow.