Chop Chop

More about the book

Furiously funny, fast, surreal. The heat and the profanity feel painfully real; the prose, masterfully stylized, definitely the stuff of fiction. (Anya von Bremzen, author of Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking). Two months behind on his rent, young graduate Monocle swallows his dreams and takes the only job he can find: the lowest-rung chef in a gastropub in Camden. Here he finds himself surrounded by a group of deranged hoodlums (his co-workers) and at the mercy of an ingenious sadist (the head chef, Bob). What follows is a furiously-paced, ribald, raucous and unexpectedly touching tale of loyalty and revenge, dark appetites and fading dreams, and a young man finding his way in the world as he is plunged into the fat and the frying pan and everything else besides. Simon Wroe is a former chef who writes about food and culture for Prospect and the Economist, and has contributed to a wide range of publications including The Times, Guardian, Telegraph and Evening Standard. He is 30 and lives in London. This is his first novel.