If you like reading books about food and or travel, this is a fantastic book for you. The author is a well-known food critic who recounts his time traveling with one of the best chefs in the world and tells of the food and the people they found. It’s really interesting because this book isn’t just about travel or food it’s about how we connect to people using food or using flavors and health food is a universal part of the human experience regardless of where you live or what you do for a living.

A great book to read during this period of social distancing. It was such a treat to read Jeff Gordinier’s globe trotting food adventures with one of the best chefs in the world. Beautiful writing, could recommend more

This book is very entertaining if you're a foodie who enjoys, or gets inspired by, descriptions of dishes that you will probably never eat, and if you're curious about a specific niche in the high-end restaurant business. But it also reads a bit like the author has joined an actual cult that worships chef René Redzepi as a sort of quasi-religious figure. I'm also not sure there was really enough material here for a whole book; it comes off more like a collected series of New York Times profiles.

Food writer Jeff Gordinier's life was falling apart - his marriage had failed, he was feeling restless - when Rene Redzepi blasted into his life. Redzepi, the chef at Noma, which has been named the world's best restaurant multiple times, asks to meet Gordinier for coffee and then ends up inviting him on his trips around the world, sourcing ingredients, opening Noma popups, and tasting the best food available. This book was a fascinating glimpse into what Redzepi is like - obsessive and brilliant, he tries to get to the fundamentals of the food he serves. I didn't know much about Noma other than its stellar reputation, and I really enjoyed reading about how the menu is sourced and developed. Much of the book details the trials of putting together a pop up restaurant in Tulum, Mexico, where the price ($600 per person!) caused a lot of bad press; it also profiles some of the chefs who work with Redzepi. Reading about sourcing fresh produce and other ingredients in the Mexican jungle was so, so interesting to me. (As a side note, I think my favorite part of the book was Gordinier's first trip to Noma, when the coworker he invited gets jet lag and fails to show up.) I really enjoyed this book, but it was a bit of a puzzle to me. It was sort of memoir, sort of a longform New Yorker article about Redzepi and Noma. I couldn't quite figure out what Gordinier was doing - if the book was his idea, or if Redzepi had asked him to chronicle the evolution of Noma. It ultimately didn't matter, but I would have liked a little more clarity on the genesis of the book. Recommended to anyone interested in food, travel, or the restaurant scene.

Jeff Gordinier, food editor at Esquire and New York Times contributor, was at something of a personal turning point as his marriage dissolved. In a depressing-sounding state, he accepted an invitation from world-renowned Danish chef René Redzepi to accompany him on his ambitious culinary travels. Redzepi is the mind behind Noma, a pricey, innovative restaurant then occupying an old warehouse space on the Copenhagen waterfront. Noma's aesthetic draws from Nordic cuisine but reinterprets classic dishes using seasonal and local ingredients with an upscale twist. Reservations book years in advance, and it consistently hovered near or topped lists of the world's best restaurants.

But in 2013, Redzepi experienced a fall from grace of sorts. A bout of norovirus in Noma's shellfish turned the dining sensation on its head. It was unavoidable, and not Redzepi's fault, but it inevitably tarnished the restaurant's reputation. Refusing to wallow in the negative publicity-filled aftermath, he chose to keep moving, setting out to learn in different ways from world cuisines. This included what constitutes a big portion of the book: indulging his fascination with traditional Mexican cooking and ingredients. Gordinier joins his entourage for the ride.

"The years would unfold and I would awake to find myself in a series of unexpected situations: making tortillas with Mayan women in a Yucatan village, bobbing in a fishing boat above the arctic circle in Norway, harvesting watercress from a hillside next to Bondi Beach in Sydney, tracing the neural and molecular pathways of flavor with a pastry chef in the Bronx."

Part of what drew Gordinier to Redzepi is the difference in how the two handle sticky life and work situations. Gordinier identifies himself as easily stymied, prone to lingering and stalling instead of moving forward. "Redzepi, in contrast, was all about moving forward. When it came to escaping from ruts, the guy was Houdini." Gordinier provides a camera-like view of travels with Redzepi's entourage, which includes other chefs of the moment, and distills insights from Redzepi's explorations of cuisines and techniques.

He doesn't make it uncomfortably about himself, instead he carefully chooses what to tell of his own life troubles and how to fold them into the story he's telling about Redzepi. This kind of thing doesn't always work, but he pulls it off marvelously.

Topics range from Redzepi's ruminations about possibilities for using ingredients and their significance in the far-flung locations they're sourced from (throughout the Mexican countryside and markets, on a Norwegian fishing boat) to his dealings with setbacks and the clean slate that can provide. It ended up being deeper than it first appears. It also includes a look at Noma's changing position in the restaurant world, and how Redzepi could bend misfortune into reinvention.

"Restaurants give cities their hum. Restaurants are the ventricles through which the lifeblood of a metropolis pulses in and out."

Redzepi is near-obsessive about authentic Mexican food. It's amusing because Europe is notorious for its inability to master authentic, or even just good, Mexican food. I would imagine his region in particular might be lacking here. The pinnacle of the narrative is the opening of his Noma pop-up in Mexico, a controversial move because of the cost of producing the dinners he'd painstakingly planned (more than $600 per person) compared with Mexico's economic situation. Redzepi partnered with nonprofits and employed local talent, seemingly doing the best he could to boost the region's economy despite the juxtaposition.

As with another recent book from inside the elite world of haute cuisine, I don't particularly care for much of what's unique about the food at the heart of the story, yet I enjoyed the book anyway. I don't care much about fancy dining that's more about "experience" than the food that actually is enjoyable, and I got a sense of that from descriptions of Noma. And I don't like weird things that don't sound like they should be edible. Some of the foods or ingredients don't sound appetizing at all -- Gardinier even comments that "It's a fine line between delicious and disgusting," and I would add that considering the insects involved, it gets crossed.

And yet I still got so much out of the book and the stories. It was a fun adventure to go on, and the writing was exceptional, the kind that transports you completely and reveals so much about locations and personalities. Gordinier's descriptions are priceless. A favorite: "Los Taquitos de PM was tacky as hell --garish-- with plastic chairs and corporate cola signs and the sort of lighting that induces migraines and instant hangovers."

Intensely enjoyable, often gorgeously poetic musings offering a glimpse of haute cuisine and how it develops and changes under global influences, with a resonant message of continuing past failure.

I loved this book. It was a memoir of travel and food, two of my favorite things. I couldn't put this down. If you love either travel or food, or both, this is a book for you. The descriptions of the places traveled and tbe food are wonderful.

I would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy free of charge. This is my honest and unbiased opinion of it.

A fascinating mix for foodie fans and travelers in the hands of a fabulous writer. Highly recommend!

Jeff Gordiner has made me hungry through his engaging book Hungry. A superb overview to one of the world's top chefs.

Foodies travelers a book that takes you around the world eating in the best restaurants the hole in the wall restaurants A memoir a food lovers dream as Jeff Gordinier has the luck the privilege of embarking on this adventure. With the renowned Danish Chef the owner of the world renowned restaurant Nomo Rene Redzypie #netgalley #crown books

Part food memoir, part travelogue, this book is impossible to put down. I like to eat and I like to travel and Gordinier combines both as he travels the world, from the rain forest to the Arctic, where he meets with the people who grow, catch and prepare the food we eat. If you loved Anthony Bordain, you have a new author to look forward to