A charming, high-energy romance in the city that never sleeps about a girl who can’t wait to be a part of Manhattan’s restaurant scene—and find the boy she fell for last summer. Perfect for fans of Emily in Paris!
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Anne-Sophie Jouhanneau’s French Kissing in New York, which is out January 3rd 2023!
Welcome to New York. . . . He’s been waiting for you.
Margot hasn’t been able to stop thinking about Zach, the dreamy American boy she met one magical night in Paris. In an instant, they fell head over heels in love and spent the perfect evening ensemble—sealed with a kiss and a promise: if the universe wants them to be together, fate will find a way.
Flash forward one year later: Margot has finished high school and is newly arrived in New York, ready to roll up her chef’s-coat sleeves in Manhattan’s bustling restaurant scene, celebrate her father’s upcoming wedding . . . and reconnect with Zach.
But a lot can happen in a year, and promises made in the shadows of the Eiffel Tower look different in the neon glow of the Big Apple. Margot spends the summer desperate to find Zach and enlists the help of Ben, the sweet line cook at her restaurant. Margot is convinced she found her soul mate that night in Paris . . . but what if the universe has a different plan?
Anything’s possible in New York City. Especially l’amour, American-style.
Breaking news: making everyone else’s life easy is not easy at all. I quickly learn that my weak little arms can’t carry the bins if they’re even half full. That means I have to watch the bussers like a hawk, and make three times as many trips to their station so I can grab these huge containers when I can actually lift them. Getting there is like an obstacle course past all the cooks, who are shuffling around, left to right, back to front, as they chop, sauté, whisk, and plate. If I so much as brush past them, they grunt or yell at me to keep out of their way.
It looked so big earlier, but now the kitchen is cramped, hot, and smoky. A strange mix of odors hangs in the air, fried garlic with pistachio, red peppers with orange blossom essence. It’s gross, but only if you have time to think about it.
“Hey, Bambi,” Ari, one of the cold station cooks, says behind me.
He and a couple of the older staff have been calling me that ever since the start of the shift. The dumb French girl who thought she was going to come in here and be assigned on the line because her mommy knows the chef. And they’re right: I actually believed that. I felt like I was on top of the world, with my dream job and my dream boy all within reach. Speaking of which, I’ve been dying to ask Raven when I can get off work, but it’s hard to catch her in my dark corner of the kitchen. All I know is I have time; we’re still in the thick of dinner.
“I need gazpacho bowls NOW!” Ari screams over the sound of Ben’s glazed carrots searing on the stove.
“Coming!” I say back without thinking.
But here’s the problem: I’m not entirely sure what the gazpacho bowls look like. There are so many different kinds—deep, shallow, blue . . . I haven’t had a second to pay attention to the dishes as they get plated up. What’s worse: only the shallow bowls are clean. Everything else is either in the machine or still dirty.
Ari comes over and stares at me, his nostrils flared. My heart stammers in my chest as I fish around the bin for two bowls that look like they just had gazpacho in them, but I see nothing with a red film, no sign of tomato anything. Which makes sense, because I studied the menu before coming here, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t see it on there.
Ari inches closer. “Are you kidding me? You don’t have a single clean bowl? Did you come to New York for a vacation? Is this just a bit of fun to you?”
“I’m sorry!” I say, flustered, as I keep looking through the pile of dirty dishes.
“Are you sure you’ve ever worked in a professional kitchen?” Ari spits.
“Pretty sure,” I say, feeling more snarks bubbling up in my throat.
Ari takes a deep angry breath, but before he speaks, Ben appears next to him, wiping his hand on a towel. “Hey, Ari, cool it, okay?”
None of the other cooks pay the three of us any attention.
“She’s slow AF,” Ari says, pointing his chin at me.
“Maybe you could show her what you need and save everyone time? This is her first shift. Cut her some slack.”
Ari rolls his eyes, but his face softens a bit. Finally, he gives in, rummages around the stack, retrieves two small bowls stained green, and throws them in the sink in front of me. They clatter loudly, making me jump.
“These are gazpacho bowls?” I ask, incredulous.
“It’s cucumber gazpacho,” Ari says. “Didn’t you hear Chef call out the specials? Do you know what a cucumber is? Does your mommy serve vegetables in her restaurant?”
He storms back to his station before I can respond. I’m fuming on the inside; a thousand comebacks shoot through my mind, but I bite my tongue. Instead, I turn the faucet on way too high and hot water sprays everywhere, all over me, in my hair, and up my nose. I think I hate it here.
The next three hours go on much the same, with an array of people whose names I don’t know screaming at me or complaining about something I did wrong: the missing bread plates, the “clean” knife that still had food caked on it, the rising mountain of pots. By the time Raven comes to tell me I can take a short break, I practically run through the loading dock and into the back alley.
I’m in desperate need of fresh air, but outside the night is thick with humidity. A heavy mugginess surrounds me, along with a distinct smell of garbage and urine. It’s all very disgusting, which matches how I feel perfectly.
“How’s it going out there?” a voice comes from behind me.
I turn around, bracing myself for trouble, but it’s just Ben, standing against the wall a few feet away. He’s sipping from a metal water bottle, his phone in the other hand. I still haven’t memorized everyone’s names and roles, but I’m pretty sure he’s the only person in the kitchen who hasn’t bitched about me. Yet.
“I’m doing fantastically terrible, why do you ask?” I say, attempting a laugh.
He grimaces. “We’ve all been there, you know? It’s a rite of passage. Tough, but necessary.”
“I have been there. It’s not like I’ve never washed dishes in a restaurant before, but—”
“You didn’t expect you’d have to start from scratch here?”
I walk over to lean against the wall next to him, away from the garbage cans. You can barely see the dark sky in this tiny alley. It bleeds into the top of the buildings above us.
I shrug. “Well, um, yeah.”
Ben takes a sip. “That’s what they say about New York. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done elsewhere. You get here and you’re a nobody, no matter who you think you are.”
I nod slowly. My whole body is in pain—my shoulders strained and my legs wobbly. “Lesson learned. I’m a nobody.”
Ben chuckles. There’s a warmth to his face, kindness on full display. “An essential nobody. I don’t think I need to tell you that there’s no serving food without clean plates.”
“Hmm,” I say, pouting.
Usually, I’d be the first one to agree that every step—from welcoming patrons at the door to delivering the bill at the end of their meal—is an important part of the dining experience, but shockingly, I’m not in the mood right now.
“And it’s very impressive that you studied at Le Tablier. So many great chefs have gone there.”
I can practically hear Maman’s thoughts on that. A summer course is barely enough time to learn how to chop onions. You need to spend a couple of years there and get proper training. To study cooking the old way. The slow way. The boring way. New York is not a kind place. Translation? She doesn’t think I can make it here.
Instead of saying all this, I shrug. “I only did a three-week course.”
“Still,” Ben says, his eyebrows raised.
I shake my head, trying to clear it. “Hey, do you have the time?”
I left my phone in my locker, per Raven’s instructions, but we must be getting closer to Zach Time now. I can’t believe I’m going to have to meet him like this: sweaty, with greasy hair, and smelling like dishwater.
“Sure,” Ben says, checking the watch on his wrist. “It’s 10:37.”
“Oh,” I say, breathless.
I feel dizzy, being almost there. What a day.
“Everything okay? You’ve turned really pale.”
“It’s just that I—”
I shouldn’t tell this guy—a new colleague—that I absolutely must get off in time on my first day to go meet my boy . . . I mean my . . . um, Zach. But then Ben looks at me expectantly, like he really cares, and, well, I’m going to have to figure out how I can get to Times Square by midnight. Because I have to. I have to. I didn’t come this far to miss Zach now.
“I need to meet a friend at midnight, exactly.” Ben starts smiling and my throat tightens at the thought that he may have questions about that. “I have to be there at midnight. I cannot be late.”
Ben nods, still looking amused, but with a hint of confusion, too. “I don’t think anyone expects the new girl to close up the kitchen on her first day. You’ll be fine.”
I bite my lip. Fine is not good enough.
Somehow, Ben can read my mind. “The subway is your best friend, and Google Maps is super accurate. My best tip: figure out which exit you need to get out at—east, west, north, south—and follow the signs underground before coming back up. Times Square is a bit of a maze.”
I swallow hard, because I don’t fully get what he’s trying to tell me. Kinda sounds like I should have packed a compass in my suitcase. Luz said something similar about Times Square and I’m starting to think I don’t always have the best ideas.
“Got it,” I say to Ben, when it feels like it’s been too long since he spoke.
He nods, then takes a last sip of his water and glances toward the entrance to the loading dock. Both our breaks are coming to an end.
“Thank you. You’re so—” Ben raises an expectant eyebrow while I figure out how to finish my sentence. I settle on “Nice.”
He deflates, like that’s not what he likes to hear. To be honest, it’s not really what I meant. There’s definitely more to him than nice.
I want to say something else, but, out of the corner of my eye, a black shape scurries from the opposite side of the alley to ours. I jump away from it. “What the hell was that?”
“What?” Ben says, looking where I’m pointing.
The shape moves again along the wall this time, and I take another step back. Some kind of rope trails behind it. No, it’s not a rope, it’s a tail. The tail of—
“OH. MY. GOD. IS THAT A RAT?” I’m back at the loading dock, ready to run inside.
Ben doesn’t move. “You’ve never seen one?” he says, looking scared of me. Of me! When there’s a rat right there on the street. In the middle of the city.
“Nope.” I’m almost offended. “Look! It’s massive.”
Ben raises his hands in the air like, So what? “They’re everywhere, especially in restaurant back alleys, where the good stuff is. Give it a couple more weeks and they’ll just feel like part of the decor.”
My heart won’t calm down. “They don’t show that in the movies.”
Ben laughs. “I wonder why.”
“Bambi!” Ari calls from inside. “It’s a pigsty in here. Any interest in doing your job?”
I give Ben an anxious look. “At least there’re no rats in the kitchen.”
“That you know of,” Ben jokes.
But I don’t find it funny.
New York is supposed to be magical, where even your biggest dreams can come true, and where life is larger than, well, life. Nobody said anything about the rats.
