Novels Set in Restaurants

Book Summary

In 1943, the Italian people are overjoyed when Mussolini is forced out of power, but they also fear who will take his place.

In the small village of Amantino in Umbria, the di Lucas and the Capaldi families have jointly run the local trattoria for generations. In recent years, Sophia di Luca has been helping her father run the restaurant. She’s a brilliant cook, so when he dies, she expects to be the one to take over the operations. But instead, her father leaves the trattoria to Giorgio Capaldi, who returns from Rome to run the restaurant.

Sophia and Giorgio clash at work, but the town, which has fallen under Nazi occupation, has bigger concerns. The Allies work to establish a Resistance effort in the region, but Giorgio’s feelings on the matter are complicated by his past. No one knows who to trust, and the restaurant becomes the center for secrets, dangerous passions, and ultimately betrayal.

Book Summary

Sabrina has spent the last 15 years of her life rotating through a variety of fine dining restaurants around the world, secretly gathering experience to qualify for her dream job as a MICHELIN Guide Inspector. Because the identity of the Inspectors must be secret, her family doesn’t know she has this higher goal, and her mother doesn’t understand why she won’t settle down and find a spouse to start a family like her siblings.

After a particularly difficult family argument at her sister’s engagement party, Sabrina heads to the Burbank airport without a clear direction. As she stands at an airline counter trying to decide her next move, she has an unexpected opportunity. A lovely ticket agent offers her the chance to go back and re-live small decision points in her life. This little touch of magical realism creates a beautiful story of self-improvement. On each of her trips to the restaurants she’s worked in around the world, she’s able to see her experiences from a fresh perspective and can react with the hard-earned wisdom she’s gained over the years.

Which of these trips will lead to the best version of herself?

Book Summary

In this novel, a young graphic design student struggling with a gambling addiction takes a job as a dishwasher at a fancy Montreal restaurant in an effort to pay off his debts and keep himself out of trouble.

He finds himself thrust into a chaotic world where many of his coworkers are addicted to alcohol, drugs, or both. It sounds like a recipe for disaster, but for better or worse, they must all depend on one another night after night.

Book Summary

Waking up in 2021 from a two-year coma, Jack’s world is drastically different than the one he remembers. He’s now in his 30s, but he no longer has a job in advertising, his Manhattan apartment, or the love of his life. It had been ten years since he’d seen his family, but with nowhere else to turn, he reluctantly returned to his hometown. Back in the bustling Korean American enclave of Fort Lee, New Jersey, his parents welcome him home as if he never left. Now he can take over the family sushi restaurant just like they always planned.

His days now consist of picking up crates of tuna on bleary-eyed 4 a.m. fish runs with his father, working behind the omakase counter while his mother tallies up earnings from too few customers, sparring with his recovering alcoholic brother, and attempting to be the sage uncle for his gangly teenage nephew. Jack also finds that he can’t get one particular man out of his mind – the nurse who cared for him throughout his coma, whom he’s realizing he has romantic feelings toward.

Is all of this exactly the second chance Jack needed, or will he once again find himself drawn away from the life his family has laid out for him?

Book Summary

While the long-term plan is for Claire to return home to run her family business, she’s currently enjoying carving her own path to success in the Paris restaurant scene. She’s been there for four months, and things are perfect. She gets the best ingredients at the market each morning, along with her daily croissant and espresso. Plus, in this dreamy location, it’s easier to forget about family expectations and her cheating ex-boyfriend.

And then Chef James arrives from America as the new head chef. She’d be distracted by his overwhelming attractiveness if she hadn’t sworn off workplace romances, and he wasn’t so critical of her food.

Book Summary

After spending half a dozen summers working in exotic resort towns, Adrienne decides to spend a summer in Nantucket. Her past experience is in hotels, but the only job offer she gets in Nantucket is at a restaurant. Not just any restaurant, though. The Blue Bistro is the hottest on the island, and the same could be said of the owner, Thatcher. 

After getting a crash course in the restaurant business, she’s ready to take on the job. But as the summer goes on, Adrienne has many questions. Why is the successful restaurant in its final season before closing for good? Does Thatcher feel the same attraction to Adrienne that she feels for him? And if so, why does he seem so easily distracted by the chef, Fiona?

At the end of the summer, will Adrienne move on like she normally does? Or this time will she decide to open her heart to the island of Nantucket and its people?

Book Summary

This historical fiction novel unfolds across two timelines that are linked by secrets, survival, and the power of food.

In 1943 France, Manon Altier is the head chef at a famous restaurant, Château du Broutel, which is frequented by the Nazis occupying their country. She cooks by day while secretly aiding covert operations by night. When Kat, an American, arrives at the restaurant claiming to work for the Resistance, Manon worries they have a mole and a traitor amongst them. Every meal and every movement could mean life or death.

In 1952, newlywed Kat is back in Paris, and she enrolls in a cooking class taught by Julia Child. She soon finds that the class unearths the tangle of gut-wrenching war memories, as well as questions about the high-ranking society husband whose past is as murky as her own. When the puzzle pieces start to come together, her carefully crafted Paris world begins to fall apart. Kat must confront her own secrets against the mounting suspicions of the husband she thought she knew.

Book Summary

At thirty-two, Lolly still reflects on how her life is different from what she planned each day as she whips up lemon meringue pies. Ten years ago, when her mother died, she had to abandon her dream of opening her own restaurant. Instead, she assumed care of her younger sister, grieving father, and their struggling Seattle diner.

As her birthday approaches, Lolly’s quirky great-aunt gives her three lemon drops, each of which allows her to live a single day in a life that might have been hers. Each experience helps Lolly reconcile her life and what could have been, but also gives her the courage to embrace her current life.

Book Summary

Newly divorced mom Rosalie had to return to her small Louisiana hometown after the end of her marriage. She finds a job as a waitress to help make ends meet, but discovers that Ady’s Creole Cafe is on the verge of closing. Her only chance of keeping her job is to find a way to save the restaurant.

Nicholas is in charge of Ady’s after his mother’s passing, and his grief has impacted business. He didn’t expect Rosalie to stir the pot when he hired her, but soon realizes she is determined to stop his failure.

Book Summary

Zoe has always wanted to own her own restaurant, but after being passed over for a promotion, she has to rethink the path to get there. Taking a leap of faith, she trades in her fancy digs for a fixer-upper diner in a shady part of town. To fund the renovations, she buys a used food truck to serve the downtown and waterfront areas of Mobile.

From her kitchen on wheels, she serves up classic Southern food and her specialty: deep-fried biscuit bowls that are far superior to traditional bread bowls. Things are off to a good start until someone tries to rob the cash register. Then she’s threatened by the owner of a competing food truck who accuses her of taking their spot. When the competing owner winds up dead in her rolling restaurant, she’ll have to find the real killer before the murder gets pinned on her and her sole employee.

Book Summary

Noor has lived in San Francisco for thirty years and has a complicated relationship with her Iranian heritage. She even instructs her daughter not to tell anyone that she is of Iranian descent. But when Noor’s marriage hits a rough patch, she finds herself really missing her family, especially her beloved father, Zod, back in Iran.

With her stubborn teenage daughter, Lily, in tow, she returns home to Tehran and to Café Leila, the restaurant her family has owned for three generations.

Many things in Iran have changed over the years, but Café Leila remains a refuge of laughter and solace for all who gather there.

As Noor revisits her Persian childhood amid the beauty and brutality of Tehran, she finds herself reassessing not only her cultural identity but also her roles as a mother, daughter, and wife.

Book Summary

Anna Kate’s grandmother owned the Blackbird Cafe in the small town of Wicklow, Alabama. When Granny passes away, Anna Kate returns to Wicklow to settle her estate. She intended it to be a very quick trip, but for some reason, she finds herself drawn to the quirky town that her mother ran away from many years ago. She wants to get to know the people of Wicklow, including her father’s side of the family, and learn more about the mysterious blackbird pie everyone is talking about.

As she discovers the truth about her past, Anna Kate will need to decide if this lone blackbird can finally take her broken wings and fly.

Book Summary

Twenty-four-year-old Hana Khan is a young Muslim woman born and raised in Toronto, Canada, to immigrant parents. Like many 20-somethings, she works numerous jobs while trying to make her own dream a reality. Hana interns at a local radio station, runs a podcast anonymously, and works part-time at her family’s struggling halal restaurant. However, her true ambition is to host her own radio show to highlight the life stories of her fellow Muslims.

When a new family with a handsome son named Aydin arrives in town with plans to open an upscale halal restaurant that threatens to put her family out of business, Hana is determined to do whatever it takes. In a You’ve Got Mail-esque storyline, she turns to one of her podcast listeners for advice.

Things are further complicated by a hate-motivated attack on the neighborhood and by Hana’s growing attraction to her rival, Aydin.

Book Summary

This novel centers around three friends from very different backgrounds who share an apartment above a Paris bookstore.

Margot is a 22-year-old Australian who is falling in love with Paris for the second time. She yearns to feel like a real Parisian and to catch the eye of Peter Mountbatten, a distant cousin of the Queen. She’s certain a Dior gown could help her achieve both.

Gina hails from a blue-blooded American family that has recently fallen on hard times. She runs away to Paris, where she works in the bookstore by day while writing a novel of her own at night. When she receives an invitation to a high-society ball at the American Embassy, she needs a stunning gown to impress the man who jilted her, who is also on the guest list.

French chef Charlotte grew up with brothers and is one of only a few women working in a male-dominated restaurant industry. While she dreams of her own three-star restaurant, she’s working at the family brasserie for the foreseeable future.

Margot proposes a plan for the three roommates to share the cost of one stunning Christian Dior gown. Each contributes from her savings, and they’ll all get a turn to wear the gown. None could have predicted how this dress would change their lives.

Book Summary

Lia and Anna are friends who opened a cafe near a seaside town in New Zealand. They’re spending all their free time working, planning Anna’s wedding, and trying to get Lia’s ex-boyfriend to understand that it’s over.

Then, one night, a gorgeous stranger appears at Lia’s window in the middle of the night. Is it worth fitting a new relationship into her already hectic life?

Book Summary

Jane had dreams of being a writer, but feels her whole life is in flux after her one published work sold only 500 copies. She also believes her husband of 19ish years, Dan, is cheating on her. When they go to an upscale restaurant for their anniversary, it seems like a good time to tell him she wants a divorce.

But before the second course arrives, an underground climate activist group bursts into the dining room, taking the whole restaurant hostage…in a bumbling sort of way. Jane is shocked. Not because she’s suddenly a hostage, but because everything the activists say and do is straight from the pages of her novel. This means she knows what is going to happen next, and it’s up to her to stop it.

Book Summary

This novel is set in 1985 Alabama as gray-haired Mrs. Threadgoode recounts her younger years to middle-aged Evelyn. Her stories transport you back to the 1930s when her friends Idgie and Ruth opened a cafe in tiny Whistle Stop, Alabama. While serving up good coffee and barbecue, the café was a place for friendship … and the occasional murder.

Book Summary

Ever since losing his father when he was just 10 years old, Konstantin (Kostya) has been haunted by ghosts. He can’t see them, but he knows they are present when he can suddenly taste the flavors of their favorite foods. Even in meals he’s never eaten himself.

After years of keeping this experience to himself, Kostya decides to act on what he’s tasting. He discovers that by preparing a dish for someone inspired by their lost loved one, he can reunite them for a brief moment in time while offering a bit of closure. But offering this gift to the world will require that Kostya up his kitchen skills, so he enters the cutthroat New York culinary scene, which some might describe as a fiery ring of Hell.

He’s playing a dangerous game, though, even if he doesn’t know it yet. As his kitchen skills catch up to his ambitions, a catastrophe looms in the Afterlife. To complicate matters further, the one person who sees the writing on the wall also happens to be falling in love with him.

Book Summary

Sophie has a big dream. She wants to join the 1% of female chefs running a Michelin-starred restaurant. 

While she was born in France, Sophie grew up in America and attended the CIA (Culinary Institute of America). She’s on track for her goal when two events collide to change her path forever. First, a fellow chef sabotages her career. But even worse, her beloved grandmother, who originated Sophie’s love of cooking, had a stroke. 

Sophie takes a red-eye back to France to get to her grandma. While she’s been in America, the quaint French home she remembers has turned into a luxury hotel, vineyard, and restaurant. It’s the perfect opportunity to rebuild her career and learn some things about herself along the way.

Book Summary

Fifty-two-year-old Jack has been responsible for his family’s Rehoboth Beach restaurant, Schmidt’s, since his father died, but despite the picturesque location, he can’t remember the last time he has relaxed on the beach for even a moment.

The DelDine group has been purchasing similar eateries along the coast, and Jack is tempted by their offer. It could give him a chance to have a personal life for the first time. But can he trust the claims that they would keep the restaurant staff and retain the family’s legacy in town?

Book Summary

This dark and witty novel about the Winter family follows their dissolution after a line is crossed at matriarch Maren Winter’s annual New Year’s Eve party.

Maren is a world-renowned restaurateur who leads an empire, but is close to retirement. Her three daughters all work for her and are watching closely for the opportunity to step into her powerful role. Will one of them prevail, or will their narcissistic mother continue making their lives difficult?

Book Summary

Kamilah Vega’s family runs a Puerto Rican restaurant in a Chicago neighborhood that is quickly gentrifying. In order for the restaurant to survive, Kamilah knows it needs some updates. She also wants to enter the Fall Foodie Tour. But convincing her family is another story. Her blackmailing abuelo (grandfather) says that he’ll only let her change his restaurant if she agrees to marry his best friend’s grandson – a man she can’t stand.

Irish American Liam Kane has spent a decade building up his family distillery, and he and his grandfather are on the verge of winning a national whiskey competition. Then he learns that his Granda (grandfather) has cancer. His dying wish is to see Liam married. But not just to any girl. It has to be Kamilah.

If Liam and Kamilah refuse, their grandfathers intend to sell the building that houses both of their businesses. So the pair decides to try to outfox the octogenarian duo by faking an engagement.

Book Summary

Lila has just returned from her life in Chicago to help her Tita Rosie’s restaurant, which is struggling. Things take a turn when Lila’s ex-boyfriend, an annoying food critic, visits the restaurant and dies in his dessert shortly after an argument with Lila.

She’s the prime suspect, and to clear her name, she’s determined to find out what really happened. The Filipino food descriptions incorporated throughout the book will make your mouth water. The characters also visit other restaurants in town, and the author provides detailed descriptions of their meals as well. Each restaurant represents a different culture, so it’s a bit of a culinary tour of the world as Lila tries to uncover the murderer.

Book Summary

While this book is fiction, it’s written in the style of a memoir from the main character, Dana, a food writer, restaurant critic, and active member of a progressive Unitarian Universalist church.

As Dana wraps up a book tour and struggles to come up with her next book idea, the church asks her to join the search committee for their next minister. In a stroke of genius, she decides to quietly write a memoir that will include recipes and follow both the committee and candidates.

She couldn’t have dreamt up a better cast of characters for her book. From a microbrewer to an environmental warrior, the committee has a big decision about the future of their congregation. Along the committee’s journey, you’ll read about many delectable meals.