Off Menu

Starred review from October 1, 2024

Gr 9 Up-Seventeen-year-old Soup has always known life at the Brazen Manticore, the bustling restaurant where she was found as an infant. The restaurant is run by Trysil Heldritch, a celebrity chef with questionable morals and a habit of bullying. When she learns that his domineering ways extend beyond the restaurant and into the local market, which he is trying to shut down as part of his grand expansion plans, Soup knows something has to be done and challenges him to a cooking contest. If Soup wins, she inherits the restaurant and saves the village. If Heldritch wins, Soup will leave town and the chef can expand at everyone's expense. Soup's colleagues and neighbors rally around her, but Heldritch is a bad guy and if he won't play fair, so Soup and her best friend Clarion may have to get their hands a little dirty for a good cause. This cozy fantasy has all the best elements: a cooking contest, a sweet developing romance, and a cast of fantastic characters, including elves, fae, goblins, and an adorable dishwater elemental. Silva's illustration style is like a hug, with warm earth colors, delicious-looking fantasy foods, a charming local market, and a restaurant that manages to be homey while capturing the hustle and bustle of a busy professional kitchen. VERDICT Readers will love the themes of found family and burgeoning love. Don't miss this one.-Rosemary Kiladitis

Copyright 2024 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2024
Grades 7-12 Soup loves to cook tasty food and desserts, and she's great at it. She finds inspiration all over town, especially at the food market, and creates new and original dishes. But when Soup tries to update the menu at the restaurant where she cooks, her boss, Trysil, loudly scolds her. Soon after, she notices Trysil's patterns of abuse not only in the kitchen but throughout the entire town, and she decides to challenge him to a cook-off. If she wins, Soup gets the restaurant; if she loses, she has to leave forever. As she prepares for the competition, however, she discovers how deep Trysil's corruption goes, and it will take more than just her superior cooking skills to find the courage to face him in competition--before long, she's embarking on a quest into the wilderness to uncover her confidence and a supportive community. Gerlach playfully sets the sizzle of the restaurant industry in a magical world filled with fae, elves, and goblins, and the soft colors and figure designs add lots of fantasy atmosphere. A good choice for readers who like Delicious in Dungeon.

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July 1, 2024
Soup works in a kitchen under a horrible boss in this world inhabited by fantasy creatures. When she learns that the boss has also been stealing ideas from the other food vendors in the market in town, she challenges him to a cook-off for the restaurant. Though some of the illustrations are a bit lackluster, they are sprinkled with inventive details (a cute "dishwasher elemental" sidekick; creative interpretations of fae). A low stakes cozy fantasy read with welcome queer representation (e.g., Soup's best friend, Clarion, is nonbinary and Soup imagines falling in love with "some beautiful boy or...a breathtaking girl").

(Copyright 2024 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)