Rating: 
Summary: A page-turner, though heavy on the lingo
Review: An exceptionally thorough account and a thoroughly engaging read about a man's passion and the challenges of leadership and loyalty at any price.Though I fear the topic may chase non-foodies away, I'd recommend this to anyone who can understand how desire for perfection can drive a person's vision. My only complaint? In an attempt to re-create the behind-the-scenes atmosphere, Brenner repeatedly quotes the orders placed during lunch and dinner service. At first, it's a great device to show the frenzy and the mad pace that's required. Eventually, I found it overwhelming and repetitive. You should still read this book, however. Just feel free to skim when the foie gras and truffles start to fly.
Rating: 
Summary: A Star is Born
Review: As mouth watering and mentally nutritious as tripe! Finally a book with substance that I can sink my teeth into. I eagerly wait the companion text "Latté and Biscotti Demystified" documenting life at an over priced coffee shop.
Bon appetite!
Rating:
Summary: Essential reading for would-be chefs and all food-lovers
Review: As one who abandoned a graduate degree in English in order to pursue a career as a chef, I can't recommend this book more highly: it provides an invaluable glimpse into a world most culinary students can only imagine, and usually romanticize. I would make it required reading at all culinary schools. Daniel Boulud is the best in his field, both as a chef and as a restaurateur, and The Fourth Star gives us an amazing opportunity to witness just how he does it. From a literary perspective, the characters are as fascinating as those in a good novel, and the relentless pursuit of excellence (and of course the attempt to gain a fourth star) that goes on in the restaurant makes for a compelling read. This was one of those books that I was sorry to see end.
Rating:
Summary: A Year to Grasp That Elusive Missing Star
Review: Brenner scopes out one of the world's finest eateries as it pursues the missing star--the fourth from food reviewer Wm. Grimes. In this we see the top of the culinary world in action, amazingly from an unencumbered inside view. Boulud allows the author pretty much free access to the internal workings of Daniel. What is reported is a calculated mad dash at service time to prepare amazing dishes on time to serve them so that it appears to the customer as seamless and enchanting how this marvelous food appears. The controlled chaos that is observed among the army of cooks, the pass and wait team is of a world and language even many of us home gourmets are unaccustomed to. Fire this and where's this and too much of this, etc. Having cooked for hundreds on an evening, this appears to be nothing compared to this monumental complex of intricate, complex gourmet construction. It was most useful to hear from the reviewer Grimes at the end why he initially gave three stars and then changed it to four. Further, his explanation as to what each star meant was enlightening. For us gourmands and those in or interested in entering this field, this is captivating reading. For even those who just enjoy superior dining, this is revelation of the highest from one of the world's best.
Rating:
Summary: Good
Review: I dined at Daniel for the second time last week, and read this book since then, thus finding it of great interest. If you haven't eaten at Daniel, your enjoyment of the book will certainly be lessened, but I think you'll still find it of interest. Daniel IS an experience, and the best meal I've ever had (the next best meal was at the Chevre d'Or in Eze, France), and so it's worth peeking behind the scenes to see how the magician prepares his magic. One shocker was to read that Daniel Boulud has installed 16 cameras throughout the restaurant so he can spy on you to see how you are enjoying (or not!) your fare! But I guess I can't quibble when the results are so spectacular.
Rating: 
Summary: A big disappointment
Review: I love everything about food so was really looking forward to reading this book. Unfortunately, I found it to be a huge disappointment. While there are certainly some very interesting anecdotes on how elite restaurants operate as well as some great cooking tips and ideas, the vast majority of the book is dull and repetitive. The books is effectively a journal of daily life in the restaurant and the author is probably the only person not to realize that most days in a kitchen (just like at any job) are pretty much the same. Nonetheless, she doesn't hesitate to point out each time a customer order a soup or if (brace yourselves) a table of four decides to order five appetizers.
Rating:
Summary: Five Stars for The Fourth Star
Review: I loved this book--and I'm not even a "foodie!" The Fourth Star reads like a well-crafted novel, with great characters, intricate relationships, and delicious tidbits about who gets what table, about the frenzied goings-on behind the kitchen door, and about what it's like when the President of the United States shows up at your restaurant for a meal. It's full of information I never realized I wantd to know, such as where the staff buys their stylish but extra-comfortable shoes, what the restaurant mark-up is on a bottle of water, how the timing works so that all the entrees arrive at the table at the same time, and just what goes into making a sublime dish. It's a fascinating read. I'd recommend this book to anyone.
Rating: 
Summary: Waiter, there's a hair in my book . . .
Review: I was willing to overlook some annoying problems in the beginning of the book. Such as the use of last names for some people and first names for others and no names for still others, the complete misuse of culinary terms, for example: "nothing was 86" meaning nothing was out of stock, which should be "nothing was 86'd", the translation of of some french sentences and not others, the ridiculous structure of her dialoge which was suposed to show the frenetic energy in the restaurant but which ended up just not making any sense at all. I was willing to overlook all of these faults as the obvious shortcomings of a book by a non-foodservice person and continue on in order to get to the "meat" of the matter. But, I was stopped in my tracks, and rendered completely helpless with laughter at the sentance on page 279 which reads: "He's been replaced by Mike McGhee, until recently executive chef of Stone Mountain Resort in Burlington, Vermont." The restaurant in question is the Stowe Mountain Resort in Stowe, Vermont about 45 minutes from Burlington. The fact that an factual error of this size appears in a book like this (a supposed expose) destroys for me all credibility that the author might have built up until this point. Which arguably was not whole lot. The fact that Burlington, Vermont a mere 5 1/2 hours from NYC by car and less than a hour by plane just makes the author look even more foolish. There is no reason to read this book considering other excellent titles for "behind the scenes" restaurant writing such as Kitchen Confidential, The Soul of a Chef, and If you Can't Stand the Heat.
Rating:
Summary: Intensity of the Kitchen
Review: If you ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes in a great restaurant, this book is for you. The intensity required to bring haut cuisine to the dining room tables is breathtaking. About the only jobs I can think of with constant higher stress are military combatant and air traffic controller. The book will also be of some interest to anyone who cares about the pursuit of excellence, whatever one's work, although the descriptions will be harder to follow without some background in cooking. One negative is the frequent verbatim quoting of "salty" language among the kitchen staff. I believe it would be possible for a great writer to have eliminated much, if not all, of that language, while still conveying the "pressure-cooker" atmosphere. Instead, the author took the easy way out.
Rating:
Summary: 5 Star Story
Review: In this delightfully readable book, Leslie Brenner invites the reader into one of New York's finest restaurants, Daniel, then serves up a tale of spice, staples and sauce. As with the nuts beside the martini, I had to have more. Characters and events compelled me to turn the page almost before I'd finished it, and not a single word left a sour taste. Many passages are memorable, none moreso than the incident mentioned on page 134. 'It was April 14, 2001, and Julia Roberts was having a clandestine supper with Ozzie Osbourne. Daniel Boulud came to their table and suggested to Ozzie that he have the 'Seinfeld Special'. Feigning intelligence, Ozzie opened his eyes momentarily and said, "No thanks. I'm a vegetable."
Boulud was bemused. "Don't you mean vegetarian?"
"No he doesn't," Julia said, adjusting his tie and oxygen mask. "But I'll try it. If it's anything like the show, then I'll love it."
"Honey," Ozzie said, drifting in and out of insensibility, "if it's anything like the show, it'll repeat on you at least three times a day for the next fifteen years and in every town and city you visit."
Julia laughed so much that she almost knocked her Oscar off the table. Ozzie slid under it. As lasting friendships go, this one did.' If you enjoy good food, interesting people and wonderful literature, 'The Fourth Star' is an essential experience.
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