Photographs courtesy of Getty, Celadon Books, Jamie Allen
Two new books—one a memoir, the other a work of fiction—capture the glamor and grit of the restaurant world and the often-messy lives of the folks whisked up within it.
Hunger Like a Thirst: From Food Stamps to Fine Dining, a Restaurant Critic Finds Her Place at the Table
(Celadon Books, 2025) by Besha Rodell
Atlanta has had its share of standout restaurant critics: Bill Addison, Christiane Lauterbach, and John Kessler are among the GOATs who chronicled our food landscape before moving on to other cities. And then there’s Besha Rodell.
With her badass swagger, biker boots, and long, untamed locks, she is unquestionably among their ranks, having earned her stripes while restaurant reviewing at a then-robust Creative Loafing. Before arriving in Atlanta in 2006, she’d already worked in the restaurant industry as a server, among other roles, in New York and North Carolina before making her way into food journalism and garnering attention in her corner of the South.
Along the way, before the way was even known, there was drama. It began with upheaval at a young age, when Rodell left her beloved father in Australia to come stateside with her freewheeling, literary mother. A handful of high schools followed, then love (love lost, love found), demanding restaurant jobs, drunken escapades, toxic bosses, a baby, writing deadlines, sibling reunions, marriage, ratty houses, nice houses, rent paid, utilities unpaid. Whew!
After Rodell and two other senior staffers were laid-off on the same day at the alt-weekly Creative Loafing Atlanta, she moved on (with her chef husband, Ryan, and young son, Felix) to the West Coast to fill the dining critic post at LA Weekly. It was an enviable gig but came with a less-than-welcoming start from snippy social media posters. Then there was the daunting task of filling the influential shoes of the former critic, a Pulitzer Prize winner.
Time and again, Rodell’s appetite for improving her situation through well-chosen food, drink, and words proves to be not only her salvation but also the defining thread of her vocation.
Her path eventually leads her home to Australia, where she still writes about food. While Rodell’s book tracks her own milestones, she also manages to offer insights on chef celebrity, food obsessiveness, influencers, and the changing dynamics of food journalism, both in print and online.
The Dashing Diner
(Independently published, 2024) by Jamie Allen
Long before he moved to Los Angeles, I used to see writer Jamie Allen out and about on the regular: at literary readings, biking near Edgewood, playing Ping-Pong in bars, and counting squirrels with his kids and dog in Inman Park. I had no idea, though, that he was also observing restaurant habitués and keenly following dining trends.
Allen says his novel came about while he was considering the term dining and dashing—a phrase used to describe people who eat out at restaurants and leave without paying the bill. He thought, Well, what if it’s a dashing diner? Allen started working on it as a humor piece, which eventually morphed into a short story, and later a novel.
The plot revolves around a handsome diner who begins eating at some of the city’s top restaurants, then leaving without paying his bill. He leaves behind a note inside an envelope addressed to the server before—poof!—magically disappearing. Soon the city is buzzing about the thieving, good-looking cad. Servers are flummoxed. Restaurant owners are not amused.
And with that, we are introduced to a cast of characters, including a Nigerian-born detective, a veteran magician, and the volatile three-person crew at Adeline’s, the fictional Decatur restaurant that is at the heart of the storytelling.
There is talk of hypnosis. There is heartbreak. There is a menu loaded with Cajun, Creole, and French recipes, inspired by ones collected and passed on to Allen and his sister by Allen’s dad, who spent years in Louisiana.
Allen says the novel is not necessarily about a sneaky magician running out on tabs. “It’s about the magic of food and love and giving people grace and supporting one another. The novel, to me, is about conjuring a little family, seemingly out of thin air.”
It’s a fun whodunit full of authentic dialogue, complex characters, a smidgen of sex, and storytelling that moves along at a quick clip. Much as with stories from Tales of the City author Armistead Maupin or detective novelist Sue Grafton, readers will take great pleasure in recognizing the real-life restaurants that inspired places in the pretend setting.
This article appears in our July 2025 issue.
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