My Usual Table is a love letter to the great restaurants that have changed the way we eat— from Trader Vic’s to Chez Panisse and Spago to elBulli—and a vivid memoir of a life lived in food, from a founding editor of Saveur and James Beard Award winning writer Colman Andrews.

For reviewer, writer, and editor Colman Andrews, restaurants have been his playground, his theater, his university, his church, his refuge. The establishments he has loved have not only influenced culinary trends at home and abroad, but represent the changing history and culture of food in America and Western Europe. From his usual table, he has watched the growth of Nouvelle Cuisine and fusion cuisine; the organic and locavore movements; nose-to-tail eating; and so-called “molecular gastronomy.”

In My Usual Table, Andrews interweaves his own story—from growing up in the sunset years of Hollywood’s golden age to traveling the world in pursuit of great food—with tales of the restaurants, chefs, and restaurateurs who are emblematic of the revolutions great and small that have forever changed the way we eat, cook, and think about food.

Now out in paperback, a vivid portrait of a life lived in food from renowned food writer and critic Colman Andrews, a founding editor of Saveur and multiple James Beard Award winner

For food writer and magazine editor Colman Andrews, restaurants have long served as a playground, a theater, a university, a refuge. In My Usual Table, Andrews interweaves his own story with tales of the seminal restaurants and the great restaurateurs of our time who are emblematic of the revolutions that have transformed the way we eat, cook, and feel about food.

Tracing the evolution of our food culture from glamourous Old Hollywood's Chasen's to the "ethnic" food movement of the psychedelic '60s to the influence of family-run cafés and trattorias in Europe, Andrews arrives at the rise of game-changing restaurants like Eleven Madison Park and elBulli.

Andrews has watched the growth of nouvelle and fusion cuisine; the explosion of the organic and locavore movements; and the rise of nose-to-tail eating and so-called molecular gastronomy. The restaurants he has loved have not only influenced culinary trends at home and abroad, but represent the changing culture of food in America and Western Europe. And all along, Andrews has been there right there in the dining room, menu in one hand and notebook in the other.

"Andrews' eloquent food writing might as well be its own romance language.. the relationship Andrews has with restaurants and the comfort and thrill he experiences each time he sits down at the table - akin to an actor taking the stage - will make you want to join him." -LA Weekly