Cellar Rat: My Life in the Restaurant Underbelly - Hardcover

by Hannah Selinger (Author)

Kirkus Reviews's Most Anticipated Nonfiction of Spring 2025
What happens when a career you love doesn't love you back?

As Hannah Selinger will tell you, to be a good restaurant employee is to be invisible. At the height of her career as a server and then sommelier at some of New York's most famed dining institutions, Selinger was the hand that folded your napkin while you were in the bathroom, the employee silently slipping into the night through a side door after serving meals worth more than her rent.

During her tenure, Selinger rubbed shoulders with David Chang, Bobby Flay, Johnny Iuzzini, and countless other food celebrities of the early 2000's. Her position allowed her access to a life she never expected; the lavish parties, the tasting courses, the wildly expensive wines - the rare world we see romanticized in countless movies and television shows. But the thing about being invisible is that people forget you're there, and most act differently when they think no one is looking.

In Cellar Rat, Selinger chronicles her rise and fall in the restaurant business, beginning with the gritty hometown pub where she fell in love with the industry and ending with her final post serving celebrities at the Hamptons classic Nick & Toni's. In between, readers will join Selinger on her emotional journey as she learns the joys of fine fine dining, the allure and danger of power, and what it takes to walk away from a career you love when it no longer serves you.

Author Biography

Hannah Selinger is a James Beard Award-nominated lifestyle writer and mother of two based in Boxford, MA. Her print and digital work has appeared in the New YorkTimes Magazine, the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, Eater, Travel + Leisure, Food & Wine, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and elsewhere. Her 2021 Bon App?tit essay, "In My Childhood Kitchen, I Learned Both Fear and Love," is anthologized in the 2022 Best American Food Writing collection, published by HarperCollins and edited by Sohla El-Waylly.