The Table Comes First - Softcover

'Like the Argentinian [Lionel Messi], Gopnik is always worth watching' Telegraph. (Telegraph)

'He may be the best food writer there is. He's certainly the most thoughtful - the most philosophical' Evening Standard. (Evening Standard)

'Extraordinary' GQ. (GQ)

'Brilliant ... flamboyant and greedy' Independent. (Independent)

'Gopnik, a brilliant writer on the New Yorker, makes a passionate case for the centrality of the table to our lives, and the binding force of sitting down to the 'nightly miracle' of dinner' Sunday Times. (Sunday Times)

'Gopnik writes beautifully ... this is a lovely history of the way we think about all sorts of things' William Leith. (William Leith)

'His writing here is a high-glazed wonder' Kathryn Hughes, Guardian. (Guardian)

'These are personal essays in the fullest sense of the word, sieving the big subjects of the book's subtitle - family, France, food - through one man's well-furnished mind' Guardian. (Guardian)

The Table Comes First is at once a celebration of the rituals of eating - the scene of families, friends, lovers coming together, or breaking apart, the core of our memories - and an exploration of the extraordinary transformations that our notion of what makes food 'good' has undergone. Taking the reader from the birth of the restaurant in 18th century France to the molecular Meccas of Barcelona The Table Comes First is the delightful beginning of a new conversation about the way we eat now.