Seated next to a waitress on the flight to New York, Reichl learns that the city's restaurants have been on the lookout for her in her newly powerful role and she finds that she receives special treatment as a consequence.

In order to visit restaurants without being recognized, she enlists Claudia, an acting teacher and friend of Reichl's late mother, to help her devise disguises.

They visit high-end restaurants like Rocco DiSpirito's Union Pacific as well as less recognized cuisine, exploring the Chinese food of Flushing, Queens.

The book concludes with Shaw's death and Reichl's departure from the Times to become the editor-in-chief role at Gourmet magazine in 1999, ending her days as a restaurant critic.

"[3] In The Guardian, Jay Rayner praised Reichl as "a writer who happens to be filing dispatches on food, rather than a restaurant expert who happens to have been given the opportunity to write about them.