In his August 3rd review of the book, Dwight Garner writes:
This is a slim and modest book, a volume of oral histories in the vein of Studs Terkel’s “Working” (1974), but everyone who eats out regularly should know about it. …These men and women came from all over the globe — Ecuador, Bangladesh, Peru, Egypt, Mexico, the Ivory Coast, Bosnia, the Dominican Republic, Gambia — and their accounts of getting here, and scratching out lives in New York City, are plucky, harrowing, moving and often very funny. They’ve lately become anonymous political targets, and “Voices From the Kitchen” gives them back their human faces. …“Voices From the Kitchen” is an optimistic book — it reminds you that if many restaurant careers begin that way, they don’t have to end there.
Voices from the Kitchen: Personal Narratives from New York’s Restaurant Kitchens is published in the English language by Beacon Press in North America.
Marc Meyer is a longtime New York City chef, specializing in Mediterranean-inspired cuisine and known for his commitment to sourcing locally, seasonally, and sustainably. He and his partners at the Bowery Group operate 5 restaurants in New York City: Cookshop, Vic’s, Rosie’s, Shuka, and Shukette. When not in the kitchen, Meyer donates his time to an Indigenous community center in Mexico.