'Test Kitchen is phenomenal - a mad, magical, ten-course feast of a novel, gorgeously written, totally original, packed with ideas and invention. Incredibly ambitious too - so many characters, so many stories, all of it choreographed so expertly. I have no idea how Neil Stewart did it, even after reading it twice. It deserves to be a massive success. Three Michelin stars' Paul Murray, author of The Bee Sting
'An amazing novel . . . Veering from humorous to horrifying, Test Kitchen shows real insight into the mildly unhinged nature of both high-end restaurants and their diners - with wit, lyricism and a killer turn of phrase' Marina O'Loughlin
'A gorgeous tasting menu of a novel, a glittering mystery as sharp as a paring knife and as artfully constructed as its fictional restaurant' Lauren Beukes, author of The Shining Girls
Welcome to a Tuesday night at London restaurant Midgard. The kitchen is buzzing. The tables are set. And the staff and guests take their place.
...The maître d' caught up in a conspiracy... ...The precocious young foodie with an axe to grind... ...The nervous new sous chef... ...The anonymous influential food critic... ...The patisserie chef stalked by her ex-lover... ...The wayward son of a dangerous family... ...The enigmatic head chef with the past she won't discuss... ...The lone diner with the terrible wound to his face...
Watching everything from her hidden vantage is Marley, the restaurant's newest waitress. She alone knows bad things are about to unfold - but she is powerless to intervene.
Tonight, everyone has a story. Is it too late to change how this one ends?
Tense and moreish, Test Kitchen is a darkly funny and often macabre story about the culture of food, of dining and eating, about feeding and nourishing, about mothers, mortality and magic.
