
who prepare it, serve it, and eat it." - GQ Heat is a sumptuous meal." - The New York Times "A delicious history of Italian cooking, with a twist: Buford, an amateur cook, entered the kitchen of one of New York City's hottest restaurants as a full-time employee, and us a story of Italian cuisine through the many characters. "Buford develops a superbly detailed picture of life in a top restaurant kitchen. The result is a hilarious, self-deprecating, and fantasically entertaining journey into the heart of the Italian kitchen. Throughout, Buford stunningly details the complex aspects of Italian cooking and its long history, creating an engrossing and visceral narrative stuffed with insight and humor. His love of Italian food then propels him further afield: to Italy, to discover the secrets of pasta-making and, finally, how to properly slaughter a pig.

Bill Buford was a highly acclaimed writer and editor at the New Yorker when he decided to leave for a most unlikely destination: the kitchen at Babbo, one of New York City's most popular and revolutionary Italian restaurants.įinally realizing a long-held desire to learn first-hand the experience of restaurant cooking, Buford soon finds himself drowning in improperly cubed carrots and scalding pasta water on his quest to learn the tricks of the trade.


The book that helped define a genre: Heat is a beloved culinary classic, an adventure in the kitchen and into Italian cuisine, by Bill Buford, author of Dirt. About the Book Expanding on his August 2002 "New Yorker" article, Buford now offers a richly evocative chronicle of his experience as "slave" to Mario Batali in the small, chaotic, highest-standards kitchen of Batalis three-star New York restaurant, Babbo, and of his apprenticeships with Batalis former teachers.
