I'M NOT TRYING TO BE DIFFICULT

A restaurateur’s amiable memoir of being mostly in the right place at mostly the right time.

Nieporent got his first taste of restaurant life by accompanying his father, a liquor inspector who “would make a buck on the side by taking a restaurant’s application from the bottom of the pile and moving it to the top” and dined free to boot at storied places like Dubrow’s Cafeteria and Paul & Jimmy’s. Lacking the money and the academic record to go to a top-flight hotel school in Europe, he enrolled at Cornell—but not before logging time at a McDonald’s, of which he writes, “To this day, it’s one of the greatest gigs I’ve ever had.” Other great gigs followed, from waiting tables on a Scandinavian cruise ship to founding the legendary Nobu chain of restaurants. Along the way, very much in the spirit of Anthony Bourdain (albeit with fewer hangovers and parallel lines), Nieporent dishes out secrets of the trade: If you have a small kitchen, then have a small menu, which allows you to “control food costs, prep work, and the timing of cooking and service”; don’t ask a customer whether everything is all right, which “implies that something might be wrong”; don’t do a deal with Donald Trump (“I could barely get a word in edgewise”); and, above all, “Just do your job, and do it well.” A bonus in this lively memoir, which pairs well with a robust red or an egg cream, is some well-placed name-dropping, with the likes of Robin Williams, Ruth Reichl, partner Robert De Niro, Bruce Springsteen, and Spike Lee popping up at turns. The takeaways are many, but perhaps the most memorable is one that anyone who’s worked on the line will know: If you’re in the restaurant business, your life is not your own.

Foodies and celebrity watchers alike will enjoy Nieporent’s culinary adventures and misadventures.