Service Included, by Phoebe Damrosch

     "I was the only busboy not named Mohammed," says Phoebe Damrosch in the beginning pages of her lively memoir Service Included, recalling her rags-to-riches rise from a hip Williamsburg café to captain at Thomas Keller's elegant Per Se restaurant.

      Like many of America's restaurant bloggers and chef-obsessed foodies who spend hours reading and posting chef gossip on Chowhound.com and bet how New York Times critic Frank Bruni will rate a restaurant, I was expecting a juicy "tell all" book in the tradition of Kitchen Confidential, by Anthony Bourdain. After all, the subtitle of this book is "Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter," right?

      A restaurant like Per Se, filled with glamorous celebrities, heads of industry, and the usual crowd of demanding, idiosyncratic patrons who are usually found among the very rich must provide the wait staff with some Page Six worthy gossip. Yet instead of describing incidents of privileged patrons gone wild, Damrosch reveals the intense training in service, culinary arts, and fine wine servers receive at one of the most elegant and highly rated restaurants in the world.

      Phoebe Damrosch rightly presents the waiter, captain, and sommelier as heroic figures whose skill and training many patrons take for granted. At least in Thomas Keller's restaurant, servers are expected to carry plates a specific way in the dining room (at waist level with elbows at right angles), set each of the ten courses with the appropriate cutlery, and answer questions about the cuisine and wine in a specific manner in addition to a myriad of other details. Anyone who has dined at Per Se and is reading this book can testify to the excellent service and will appreciate seeing how detailed this training can be.

     Damrosch's writing style is engaging, vibrant, and lively, and her descriptions of scenes and people often laugh-out-loud funny. Service Included is a lively, enjoyable book that works on several key levels. On one hand, it's a personal narrative from the vantage point of a young woman struggling to make it in a challenging, often sexist industry. Yet at the same time, the book can also serve as a primer for how restaurants should train their staff, and should be required reading for every culinary school in America.

     If you love restaurants and ever wondered what waiters do to merit their tips, this is the book for you.

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