Rating: 
Summary: Interesting but frustrating
Review: Lots of interesting details about running a high quality restaurant in New York, but overall the content is a bit thin. The book is very padded with many blow by blow accounts of a typical dinner or lunch service at Daniel. It's interesting the first few times or when the author recounts a dinner for President Clinton, but by the tenth dinner you begin to flip the pages. I was disappointed that there was almost no insight into Daniel Boulud, how he and his staff create new dishes, what actions he took to elevate the restaurant to 4 stars or what really sets his restaurant apart from other top quality restaurants in the US. The nugget for a good book is here, but I think the author skimped on her research and simply transcribed her tape recordings from a year of standing in the kitchen.
Rating: 
Summary: A great companion to Letters to a Young Chef
Review: Such a joy to read. Opening the pages and reading is like opening the kitchen or dining room door at Daniel and working there. I am one of a few fortuneate to have "staged" at Daniel in 1995. Reading the book took me back and opened once agian the intense sense of cooking with Daniel Boulud and Alex Lee. Two of America's Crown Jewles in the Culinary World. The book is written as it should be, honest, insitefull and sometimes brash.
The writer creates a wonderful work from her notes and daily visits to the kitchen and dining room. Only Michael Ruhlman, (6 time author) could have done a better job. Chef Bob Vaningan
Rating:
Summary: A great companion to Letters to a Young Chef
Review: Such a joy to read. Opening the pages and reading is like opening the kitchen or dining room door at Daniel and working there. I am one of a few fortuneate to have "staged" at Daniel in 1995. Reading the book took me back and opened once agian the intense sense of cooking with Daniel Boulud and Alex Lee. Two of America's Crown Jewles in the Culinary World. The book is written as it should be, honest, insitefull and sometimes brash.
The writer creates a wonderful work from her notes and daily visits to the kitchen and dining room. Only Michael Ruhlman, (6 time author) could have done a better job. Chef Bob Vaningan
Rating:
Summary: Perfection in the Kitchen
Review: The Fourth Star is a great book for gourmets, gourmands, and anyone else who loves to eat and cook wonderful food. If you've ever eaten at Daniel in Manhattan or at any other world-class restaurant, you know what a sublime experience it can be. The service is flawless, the food transports you to a level you never thought possible, the atmosphere is at once soothing and thrilling. Perfection, of course, does not come easily as Brenner so capably reveals. She spent a year observing and deconstructing the workings of this famed restaurant, from the front desk to the back pantry, from the wine cellar to the skybox from where Daniel commands the troops when he's not personally preparing a special dish for a VIP. With her keen eye (and remarkable ability to take shorthand!) Brenner has produced a detailed chronicle of modern-day high-stakes cuisine. She logged countless hours in the kitchen and much of the book is dedicated to capturing the rapid-fire precision with which Daniel Boulud and crew turn out one delectable dish after another, night after night. One warning though: Eat before you read-her lush descriptions of the food will make you ravenous after just a few pages.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting topic, content a bit low
Review: The premise of this book is a year in the life of a great restaurant at a time when the pressure is on to get a fourth star from the NYT food critic. Sounds pretty good, huh? Well, it really isn't.Good things can be found here; for example culinary nuggets scattered through the book about how to cook bacon, prepare citrus zest etc are interesting and useful. A glimpse at the business side of the restaurant is novel but underdeveloped. My major criticisms are three...I didn't get to know Daniel Boulud at all. Many opportunities to flesh him out were missed...there are a zillion frequently seen people in the kitchen, but most are so undeveloped that I couldn't keep 'em straight....There is far too much random kitchen chatter reproduced. It is mostly a distraction and is thoroughly boring. "Fire 35...merde! zut alors! putain!"
Rating: 
Summary: A book for foodie-geeks
Review: The subject matter of this book had great potential, but about one-quarter of the way through it (and as much as I wanted to love it) I had to face the fact that, well, it really isn't a very well-written book. The "behind the scenes in the kitchen" dialog is interesting, but gets very tiresome - how many pages of "Fire 23!", "Where's the terrine for 12?", etc. can one read? The parts about the front of the restaurant were far more interesting - the real scoop on how reservations are alloted is daunting, to say the least. Overall, I'd say that this book would have been better if it had been severely pared down and presented as an article in The New Yorker.
Rating:
Summary: Should have been a long article, not a book
Review: This book is a year-long, behind-the-scenes look at a New York restaurant, DANIEL, whose chef/owner, Daniel Boulud, was attempting to re-gain his four-star rating from the New York Times. I read this after watching the series "Restaurant" and it was a good follow-up to the show. They are entirely different restaurants, but had many things in common and it was easy for me to picture the goings on at DANIEL. Brenner covered both the "front of the house" and the area behind the kitchen doors. We met reservationists, the maitre de, Daniel, waiters and bus boys, chefs and line cooks. We learn about VIP seating, wine buying, and much about the backbreaking and stressful jobs involved in running a fine restaurant. The best parts were what I would call the gossipy stuff and the food descriptions. Unfortunately, this book should have been a long article. It was incredibly repetitive and the author's bias toward (adoration of?) Boulud was very distracting.
Rating:
Summary: Not worth buying, better invest in food...
Review: This book should have at the most 100 pages, the writing should have been more concise, deviations are plentiful. It is obvious, the writer tried hard to come up with her 300 pages. Why do I have to read about the travels from the assistant pastry chef? The many repetitions of what's going on in the kitchen, how the service, etc. are organized, are quickly tiresome.
The only good thing: one admires even more the excellent food at Daniel and realizes, that the prices are not high considering what all goes into one single dish.
Rating:
Summary: Our Pate, which Art on Table
Review: This is a book by and for foodies. As such it is filled with a lingo that may require some translation for the uninitiated. Even so, it is both an intriguing tale (how he got the fourth star) even as it contains some of the best behind-the-scenes restaurant action ever written. One grasps the passion, the obsession, the degree to which the performers immerse themselves in every aspect of food from both the "business" end (running a restaurant) and the "artistic" end (selecting, preparing, cooking). Just reading through one of those hectic nights is exhausting but the author seems to have been in the pits with the major players. The outtake vignettes such as the episode on making reservations or on the quirky but faithful customers are sheer joy. And who has not imagined such a dinner as the one that finally concluded the book. Bravo for such an effort as this one!
Rating:
Summary: Our Pate, which Art on Table
Review: This is a book by and for foodies. As such it is filled with a lingo that may require some translation for the uninitiated. Even so, it is both an intriguing tale (how he got the fourth star) even as it contains some of the best behind-the-scenes restaurant action ever written. One grasps the passion, the obsession, the degree to which the performers immerse themselves in every aspect of food from both the "business" end (running a restaurant) and the "artistic" end (selecting, preparing, cooking). Just reading through one of those hectic nights is exhausting but the author seems to have been in the pits with the major players. The outtake vignettes such as the episode on making reservations or on the quirky but faithful customers are sheer joy. And who has not imagined such a dinner as the one that finally concluded the book. Bravo for such an effort as this one!
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