A Waiter in Paris: Adventures in the Dark Heart of the City

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The waiter inhabits a world of inhuman hours, snatched sleep and dive bars; scraping by on coffee, bread and cigarettes, often under sadistic managers, with a wage so low you’re fighting your colleagues for tips. This astonishing book describes a cruel, feral existence and is worthy of standing on the shelf next to George Orwell's Down And Out In Paris And London (1933) as another classic about human exploitation.' - Daily Mail Right at the centre of this giant wheel that is Paris is the Bistrot de la Seine. A microcosm of the city, of the country as it is today. Replete with a defined social hierarchy cemented neatly in place by the physical layout of the restaurant. On the surface all is light, but the deeper one travels, the darker things become. Inspired by George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London, A Waiter in Paris is a brilliant portrait of the underbelly of contemporary Paris through the eyes of a young waiter scraping out a living in the City of Light. The waiting job was finished, I knew it. The minute I missed my next shift, it was over. In the sense that was a good thing, I had achieved what I came to do: I had become a Parisian waiter, I’d been accepted. My experience with these people had changed me. I had discovered a world hiding in plain sight; one we interact with daily, but care little for. It was the one that Orwell had written about; the very same world, for it has changed so little.

Orwell created the template. Anthony Bourdain put his hilarious spin on it. More recently, The Bear dramatized it brilliantly for the small screen. Chisholm carries the mantle, and he more than does the genre justice. -- Jon Hart * Book & Film Globe * I loved this book for many reasons. Paris is my absolute favorite city in the world and I always enjoy books that take me there. I worked as a waiter in college, though under much different conditions, so I could relate just a little. This memoir was so riveting it read like fiction. The “cast of characters” was varied, fully fleshed out, and hugely interesting. There were comrades, criminals, friends, villains, and more. All that made for a great reading experience.⁣⁣ Waiting tables is physically demanding work, frequently humiliating, and incredibly competitive. But it doesn’t matter because you’re in Paris, the centre of the universe, and there’s nowhere else you’d rather be in the world.If you’ve ever been to Paris and you’ve eaten in a restaurant, you’ll likely have no idea what goes on behind the kitchen door but there’s a whole other world there with its own hierarchy and rules that, unless you really understand how it works, can be impossible to break into (especially as a foreigner). This book lifts the curtain on all that in a gritty, utterly fascinating tale of a whole other world!

A waiter’s job is to deceive you. They want you to believe in a luxurious calm because on the other side of that door… is hell. An evocative portrait of the underbelly of contemporary Paris as seen through the eyes of a young waiter scraping out a living in the City of Light.

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An English waiter's riveting account of working in Paris restaurants (...) a searing account of what life is really like 'at the bottom of the food chain', Chisholm's prose positively delights in describing the graffiti, sodden cardboard boxes and litter-strewn pavements. (...) This astonishing book describes a cruel, feral existence and is worthy of standing on the shelf next to George Orwell's Down And Out In Paris And London (1933) as another classic about human exploitation. -- Roger Lewis * Daily Mail * Edward Chisholm’s spellbinding memoir of his time as a Parisian waiter takes you below the surface of one of the most iconic cities in the world and right into its glorious underbelly. There, Chisholm inhabits a world of inhuman hours, snatched sleep, and dive bars. He scrapes by on coffee, bread, and cigarettes, often working under sadistic managers, for a wage so low he’s forced to fight his colleagues for tips. And these colleagues — thieves, narcissists, ex-Legionnaires, paperless immigrants, wannabe actors, and drug dealers — are the closest thing he has to family. Edward Chisholm's spellbinding memoir of his time as a Parisian waiter takes you below the surface of one of the most iconic cities in the world and right into its glorious underbelly.

Running through the book, of course, are the stories of Chisholm’s fellow waiters, and they’re not exactly having a good time either. In fact, many move from restaurant to restaurant, looking for a better position, for promotion to head waiter, or just for slightly improved money or conditions. It’s a febrile world, full of uncertainty, and the living conditions of these waiters are often not much above destitution. Chisholm It’s 2012, and after graduating from university, the young Chisholm moves to Paris with his girlfriend, Alice. They’re living on a shoestring, with Chisholm determined to try to make it as a writer. However, he’s hampered by a number of things, not least his inability to speak French; and when the relationship falls apart, he’s left with little alternative but to try to get a job in a restaurant. It’s here he finds out that the Parisian waiter is a breed apart, and it becomes clear that he may not have what it takes to make the grade. But winter is cold, he needs a job to pay for somewhere to Chisholm succeeds in his aim to become a waiter, but inevitably things come to an end when he suffers an injury and moves onto a new job. His experience has changed him, though, and he moves on to write about his subterranean experiences in Parisian restaurants. As he notes in the quote above, so little has changed since Orwell’s time, and you can’t help wondering what any Health Inspectors think of these conditions! This tough little book documents the experience of being a foreign worker, lost in the understrata of the often exploitative industry from which we benefit. It seems glib to compare it to Orwell when it's more universal, or Bourdain when it doesn't glorify the mess. Not exactly a jolly read, but important. -- Tim Hayward * Financial Times * This is more a memoir of the author as a young man -- twenty something, an aspiring journalist with no gritty life experience to reveal. His months as a Parisian waiter (actually, mostly as a "runner", aspiring to be a waiter) provide the robust, colourful and often treacherously difficult writer's fodder. Indeed, if you are looking for the glamour, sweetness and beauty routinely associated with this European city, this bio is not going to provide it. However, if you are looking for an authentic experience as well as some beautiful character creation (with a side of personal growth ), you will absolutely enjoy this.

A Waiter in Paris

And it never even crossed my mind to work in a Paris restaurant - ever. This (fill in. your own blank) book confirms my decision on that score. I don't think this is a book everyone will read or if they do, will love. Too bad, because Chisholm tells a tale of determination, endurance, fortitude and daring that blew me away. He climbed his own Mt. Everest; no sherpas, no map, no modern equipment. No frills. There were no frills I could find anyway. Words that come to mind are cliched, but they fit; raw, grimy, smelly, vicious, relentless and nowhere do these bon mots: 'liberte, egalite, fraternite' crawl in. Want an adventure? Do you have dream that must be realized? Don't we all? My advice - in case it's working off the books in a glamorous foreign city, READ THIS BOOK. A waiter's job is to deceive you. They want you to believe in a luxurious calm because on the other side of that door...is hell.