My Place At the Table

April 15, 2021
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.

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Starred review from May 3, 2021
In this rich debut memoir, food writer Lobrano (Hungry for Paris) traces his lifelong love affair with food. He begins his story with a tender ode he penned in the second grade to “the most perfect sandwich,” the BLT. “What I didn’t know then was that food would become my muse,” he writes. After a memorable trip to Paris with his parents at age 15, he became swept up in the fantasy of leaving his Connecticut home to live there. That dream came true in 1986, when a friend helped him land a job writing about food for Women’s Wear Daily in Paris. Tucking into meals in cafés, bistros, and private homes, and perusing markets throughout France, Lobrano immersed himself in the nation’s cuisine, “sort of a big casserole of all the country’s regional kitchens.” Meanwhile, he witnessed the birth of the modern bistro, with its “vivid and nimbly creative cooking.” When his writing caught the eye of Gourmet’s then-editor Ruth Riechel, she hired him in 1999 to be the magazine’s Paris correspondent. Appended with a selection of his favorite restaurant reviews, Lobrano’s story is inspiring, and his prose lush and inviting. Readers will savor every last page. Agent: Jane Dystel, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret.

Starred review from July 1, 2021

Most people would be daunted by the prospect of taking a job as a men's fashion editor at the Paris office of Women's Wear Daily, while knowing only a smattering of French and even less about fashion. Not Lobrano, who made it work and eventually pivoted to his area of interest: fine dining. This memoir covers his 35 years in France; after WWD, he became a freelance writer, then a restaurant critic, food writer, and editor at numerous publications (including the French edition of Gourmet magazine in its final decade of publication). Between highlights from Lobrano's career (an interview with Giorgio Armani; dinner with Julia Child), his memoir recounts growing up in Connecticut as a solitary, white, gay child who was fascinated with food. The memoir's highlights are Lobrano's graceful writing, deliciously detailed memories of meals and restaurants, and recollections about friends, colleagues, and chefs. VERDICT If the main thing you remember about a trip is what you ate, this is the book for you. This combination of food writing and armchair travel will spark interest from start to finish.--Susan Hurst, Miami Univ. Libs., Oxford, OH

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