For Colman Andrews, restaurants have been a playground, a theater, a university, a church, a refuge. From his Hollywood childhood through his days in the music business, his first forays into restaurant reviewing, and his ever-evolving career as a food writer and magazine editor--not to mention throughout the course of his obsessive traveling and complicated personal life--Andrews has seen the world mostly from the dining room. In My Usual Table, Andrews interweaves his own story with intimate tales of the seminal restaurants of our time and the great chefs and restaurateurs who are emblematic of the revolutions large and small that have forever transformed the way we eat, cook, and feel about food.



In sixteen chapters, each anchored by the story of his love affair with a cherished restaurant or two, Andrews evokes the unforgettable meals he has eaten over a lifetime, and the remarkable people with whom he has shared them, tracing the evolution not just of our restaurants but of our whole food culture.