I really wasn't expecting to be quite so gripped but the experiences that unfolded on the pages before me, drew me ever deeper. Become a Patreon member and unlock loads of Paris bonus content, including PDF itinerary guides to the city. Edward Chisholm's spellbinding memoir of his time as a Parisian waiter takes you beneath the surface of one of the most iconic cities in the world—and right into its glorious underbelly.

This book is fluently written and gives a grim view of a waiter’s job that won’t make you more disposed to enjoy your meal.

This podcast was recorded inside the restaurant, so with the background noise, you might just feel like you’re sitting there with us. in the back of his mind he knows he has an escape route (being a connected white man who is a college graduate) and is rather choosing to live the life he is and he doesn’t shy away from that fact.

Newly single, non-French speaking, he is desperate for work, and running out of everything necessary to live in Paris: money. I particularly liked the vignette of the supposed Aussie millionaire and Edward’s first attempt at being a sommelier. Beyond the wealthy neighbourhoods, with their absent oligarchs, ordinary people live in distant nightmarish ‘warrens of sloping-walled buildings with sunken floors and hovel-like rooms accessed by tilting staircases’. Nicki Minaj releases Megan Thee Stallion diss track Big Foot and hits low: 'Why did you lie about your lipo? a world of refugees, exiles, dreamers, sadistic and abusive managers, long hours, and, strangely enough, malnutrition .It is now a frontier zone full of ‘paperless’ immigrants (Chisholm is one himself), the addicted and the mentally distressed. He is also the author of A Waiter in Paris: Adventures in the Dark Heart of the City - an electrifying memoir of working as a Parisian waiter. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, even though it was sometimes hard to read – not in terms of the way it’s written but it’s a HARD life these people live and so, not your typical “City of Light” light summer read!

A Waiter in Paris charts Edward Chisholm’s jaw-dropping experiences while serving tables in the French capital, a demi-monde of sadistic managers, thieves, fighting for tips and drug dealers. Inspired by George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London, the author (know only as l’Anglais throughout) was determined to become a waiter, but speaking just a few words of French and having no experience, he knew it wouldn’t be easy. The hours are long, the work is hard, harder still if, like Chisholm, French is not a native language. Paris has not changed since its days of crooked alleyways leading to miserable kitchens and despondent chefs.The refugee Tamils washing dishes and skivvying are ‘adept at hand-to-hand combat and know how to plan and execute a guerrilla attack on an armed convoy’. This astonishing book describes a cruel, feral existence and is worthy of standing on the shelf next to George Orwell’s Down And Out In Paris And London (1933) as another classic about human exploitation. Behind the allure of luxury, behind the romance and charm, Edward Chisholm can see Paris for what she truly is during his time as a waiter.