I really enjoyed reading this book, it had everything that I was looking for from this type of book. I enjoyed the culinary element and that it worked with this story. The characters were everything that I was looking for and enjoyed what I read. Timothy Taylor has a great writing style and it left me wanting to read more.

"Vous connaissez tous cet homme! Francois to some, Frankie to others." He was Frankie Formidable!

It all started in Montparnasse at Le Dauphin, a Parisian bistro where "wet behind the ears" Teo was hired by Frankie as a brasserie apprentice. It was "zero glamour...a wicked exhausting job". Francois Cote (Frankie) from Montreal was the sous-chef running a bistro for chef patrons who occasionally checked on operations. Mentored by Frankie, Teo had risen from apprentice to "the most junior of juniors- a commis."

Teo and Magnus, childhood friends, had lost touch. Magnus, having become a wealthy investor, floated an idea. "So you cook in Paris. You rise through the ranks. You learn from the best...then in a year's time...maybe two...you and me, back in Vancouver...". Magnus thought a restaurant group to be named Magic Wolf would be a sound investment. "Teo wasn't remotely ready to run his own restaurant...no one would be calling me Chef for four, five or even ten years." Teo stayed at Le Dauphin where he was nicknamed Teo Tranquille to Frankie's Formidable!

Frankie was "zealously committed to his cuisine...a whirling thing of crushing strength, blinding speed and micrometre precision...Frankie had touch. He had grace." After closing each night, the staff of many restaurants gathered at Pigalle for laughter, drinks and good times. On Sundays, Frankie's home gatherings featured "exquisite to earthly, farm-gate cuisine." Who were the diners? Chefs, butchers and bakers from all over Paris and its environs.

In Teo's words, "I was an utterly green apprentice in a kitchen...I had in front of me every single lesson in cooking that I would need to learn...speed and precision...in a rigid structure of the brigade...a uniform procedure [with] no variation at all from carrot to carrot...surviving and to be seen surviving by those who understood...including dreaded visits from chef patrons...their abuse aimed at a commis or apprentice...they liked rolling pins." After five years, Teo became chef tournant [an all-station chef]." It was time for Teo to return to Vancouver, time to create his own eatery, a French restaurant to be named Rue Veron, with Magnus as financier. Rue Veron, was publicly acclaimed, achieving excellent commercial success. Following on the coattails of Rue Veron were two other culinary ventures.

A gradual, then a sudden thundering downfall would occur. In the same way a rolling stone is said to gathers no moss, a newspaper Q & A with a poorly, off the cuff response caught the media by a storm. A hint of predatory behavior surfaced as well. The impact on business and questions of one's moral compass would be tested.

A highly recommended literary read of life as a sous-chef, mouth-watering cuisine and the brasserie/bistro life.

Thank you Dundurn Press/ Rare Machines and Net Galley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.