Product Description

Where great chefs go to eat and gain inspiration . . .
For the country's leading chefs, experiencing restaurants fully from the diner's side of the table is crucial to their creative and professional development. Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page present the wisdom of the nation's top chefs about their favorite places to eat across America.
With opinions about four-star restaurants as well as favorite neighborhood haunts, 100 of America's top chefs-including Rick Bayless (Frontera Grill, Chicago), Daniel Boulud (Restaurant Daniel, New York), Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken (Border Grill and Ciudad, Los Angeles), and Lydia Shire (Biba and Pignoli, Boston)-share their insights about where to dine and how to maximize the dining experience in more than twenty-five of the top restaurant cities across the country. Renowned photographer Michael Donnelly captures the adventures of these leading chefs.
The book includes a special section entitled "10 Steps to Educating a Palate", which will make anyone a better diner-and even a better cook-and also features sidebars which provide readers with special insights into local and ethnic cuisines, matching foods with the best wines, ordering more creatively and knowledgeably in any type of restaurant, and much more.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #727062 in Books
• Published on: 2001-01-30
• Original language: German
• Binding: Paperback
• 340 pages

From Amazon.com
From the authors of Becoming a Chef, which won a 1996 James Beard Book Award, comes this clever guide to neighborhood restaurants. Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page interviewed over 100 top chefs in 28 cities across the country, from Miami and Boston to Seattle and Honolulu, with plenty of stops in between, and asked them where they eat when they aren't cooking for themselves.

Chef's Night Out is the fourth book from Dornenburg and Page, and, like their previous work, it was conceived primarily for people in and interested in the restaurant business, aspiring chefs, and food lovers. The basic premise, explain top chefs like Bob Kinkead (from Washington, D.C.), Rick Bayless (Frontera Grill in Chicago), and Suzanne Goin (Lucques in Los Angeles), is that dining out is one of the best ways to learn about food. But whether you're looking to learn or just looking to eat well, this book is great fun to read, and particularly useful for travelers.

Divided into chapters by city, we are introduced to some local top chefs with their own award-winning restaurants who explain their food philosophies and then offer a short list of their favorite local haunts--everything from fine dining to bakeries, coffee shops, and fast food. Sean Kelly (Aubergine in Denver) loves the Vietnamese curried shrimp and potatoes over rice noodles at New Saigon Restaurant and the "great raw bar" and "happening" bar scene at Jax Fish House. Sanford D'Amato (Sanford in Milwaukee) loves the thin, crispy pizzas from Zaffiro's Pizza and Bar. And Tom Colicchio (Gramercy Tavern in New York City) raves about the constantly changing menu at Etats-Unis, the razor clams in a light white bean broth at the Red Cat, and everything at Daniel and Jean-Georges.

Looking for recommendations in your hometown? Planning a trip and want to know where to go? Here's your chance to find out where the chefs go and why they go there. With help from greats such as Loretta Keller (Bizou in San Francisco), Thierry Rautureau (Rover's in Seattle), and Jimmy Schmidt (The Rattlesnake Club in Detroit), you can't possibly go wrong! --Leora Y. Bloom

From Publishers Weekly
The incisive, hip writing team of Dornenburg and Page (Becoming a Chef, etc.) style their sophisticated yet democratic guidebook to chefs' favorite restaurants as a peek into today's great culinary minds, but at times it comes off as mutual back-scratching as chefs name one another's restaurants and even, in the case of Daniel Boulud, their own. Dornenburg and Page's purpose is to inform devoted foodies how to savor a meal the way the big boys (and gals) do and why it is critical for would-be chefs to do so. Then, arranged alphabetically by city (there are 28 in all) in a format that can make skimming a tad confusing, chefs offer their candidates for the best in popular categories pizza, bagels as well as where they like to catch a quick bite after a long, hard day or luxuriate on their day off. Although there aren't many discoveries here, the concept is original. Sidebars and personal stories are the real gems, such as Rick Bayless's sweet tale of saving money when he was 12 to go eat at a fancy Oklahoma City restaurant. (Mar.) Forecast: With a $100,000 marketing budget, this book is getting a full-court press with author appearances in five prominent cities and major TV promotion. Additionally, the featured chefs plan to do tie-in events at their restaurants. Dornenburg and Page's books sell well, and this one should be no exception.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Chef's Night Out, by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page, records celebrity chefs' picks of their personal favorite restaurants in America's major cities. A boon for the foodie traveler, this guide reflects what chefs admire most in one another. It's not always the critically acclaimed places that get chefs' notice; these professionals appreciate the kinds of foods that have local importance, good eats not duplicated elsewhere. But the guidebook suffers from a reader's suspicion that the in-crowd of master cooks treats one another with deference and never publicly criticizes its peers' work. Mark Knoblauch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Where the best chefs eat and why!
Chef's Night Out by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page tells you where the best chefs across America like to eat and why. This simple idea packs a lot of information into it. It's not just a list of four-star restaurants. You also find out where they go for burgers and oysters and pizza and steak and in the process you find out what they think makes for a great burger and oyster and pizza and steak. It's an education just to read about why they like these places and the food they serve, even if I never make it to half these places (which are in cities from New York to Los Angeles, but also cities I never go to like Atlanta and Baltimore). There are also a lot of interesting articles on things like what kinds of wine to drink with different ethnic foods, which is worth the price of the book in itself. This book is a must for any professional chef who wants to know how the top 100 chefs think about food (and who they are).

Insider's guide to where the best chefs eat out in the U.S.
"Dornenburg and Page have once again unearthed the secrets of the restaurant business and made every reader an insider." --PHYLLIS RICHMAN, THE WASHINGTON POST

"This book may be the ultimate insider's guide to eating out. A copy of Chef's Night Out will live in my carry-on to deip into while in transit and to feast from when I arrive." --LYNNE ROSSETTO KASPER, THE SPLENDID TABLE

"Chef's Night Out answers, beautifully, my favorite question for fellow chefs: Where do you like to eat, and why?" --MARIO BATALI, BABBO, ESCA AND LUPA

"An utterly engaging and comprehensive view of dining for pleasure. Chef's Night Out is a must for every discerning diner." --ALAIN DUCASSE, ALAIN DUCASSE (NYC AND PARIS)

"What a fantastic resource! These are the kinds of places where we get all our inspiration. We can hardly wait to start tasting!" --MARY SUE MILLIKEN AND SUSAN FENIGER, BORDER GRILL AND CIUDAD

"Everything they write reflects Karen and Andrew's passion for great food and their affection for the people who create and celebrate it. Where do chefs eat? Of course I want to know." --GAEL GREENE, NEW YORK MAGAZINE

"Chef's Night Out is my new reference book for dining out around the country. If you love eating out, get this book!" --CHARLIE TROTTER, CHARLIE TROTTER'S

"From San Francisco to Boston, Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page have created a must-have guide for the most discriminating palates." --MAYOR WILLIE L. BROWN JR., MAYOR OF SAN FRANCISCO

A must-own book for restaurant lovers across the USA!
CHEF'S NIGHT OUT authors Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page are hosts of a new show of the same name that is aired on TaxiVu in the backseats of New York City taxicabs. They interview top chefs about their favorite places to eat in the city, and provide insider tips on what to order when you're there and what else not to miss. This book tells where 100 top chefs across the U.S. like to eat on their nights off -- where Daniel Boulud eats in New York City, where Charlie Trotter eats in Chicago, where Nancy Silverton and Mark Peel eat in Los Angeles. I can't imagine a better book to guide me to great restaurants in San Francisco, Washington, DC, Detroit or New Orleans -- or any of the other dozens of cities covered. Even if I don't make it to all of these places, I still enjoy reading about them and learning more about how top chefs think about food and restaurants. Still, after reading CHEF'S NIGHT OUT, I'm planning a trip to New Orleans so I can check out Uglesich's (a favorite of everyone from Todd English to Anne Rosenzweig to Charlie Trotter)!!