Life of a Restaurant: Tales and Recipes from LA Colombe D'or

It's the ultimate fantasy for the food-obsessed: opening a restaurant that embodies all the qualities you look for when you dine out, a restaurant that completely immerses you in great food and fine wines, a restaurant frequented by fascinating patrons who think of your place as their home away from home. In Life of a Restaurant, Helen Studley reveals how far afield of reality that fantasy is.
Seventeen years ago, Helen and her husband, George, opened La Colombe d'Or, a Provencal restaurant on a remote block of Manhattan's East 26th Street. In this utterly engaging volume, Helen reveals what owning a restaurant is really like: the thrill of a great review (and the near impossibility of serving the crowd that suddenly materializes) and the devastation of a bad one; the challenge of ordering, storing, and paying for all that food; the exquisite choreography of lunch and dinner service; negotiating with patrons who insist on smoking in the nonsmoking section; dealing with garbage removal, fire regulations, and laundry bills; riding out a recession; and what to do when the chef you're firing tries to take her pates with her.
Yes, there are heartaches in the restaurant business. But there also are rewards. The hard work has paid off: La Colombe d'Or is one of New York's most popular and acclaimed restaurants and the Studleys' lives have been immeasurably enriched by the things they've learned, the people they've met, and, of course, by the food they've produced. Life of a Restaurant is the story of two gourmet entrepreneurs who succeeded in making their dream a reality. Packaged in a volume that is as charming as the restaurant itself, and supplemented by more than sixty of La Colombe d'Or's most celebrated Provencal recipes, Life of a Restaurant is an armchair restaurateur that takes the reader on a wonderful and delicious journey.

Helen Studley is an noted food and wine writer who contributes regularly to national magazines and newspapers. She is also the author of The Chicken for Every Occasion Cookbook. Ms. Studley (was) a board member of the American Institute of Food and Wine and a member of Les Dames d'Escoffier. She lives in New York and Sag Harbor with her husband George.