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batrock 's review for:
Accidentally on Purpose
by Kristen Kish
Kristen Kish’s memoir is an engaging enough story of how a combination of hard work and serendipity has brought her to the success she has now achieved.
As these things go, it loses a bit of its appeal when Kish finds the stratospheric success that eludes so many; she talks about how money was never important to her and then acknowledges she has a fair amount now that allows her freedoms she had previously never dreamed of. That isn’t really a problem.
The harder part to swallow is that Kish talks about the sexism in the restaurant industry and the reckoning of #MeToo, but she was famously mentored by Barbara Lynch, who, to put it delicately, was #MeTooed to Hell. According to Wikipedia, all of her restaurants closed in 2024 and the proceeds from their sales went towards $1.7m in unpaid taxes owed to the city of Boston.
Obviously Kish is not guilty by association, but Lynch is featured in the acknowledgments, and when Kish does (to her credit) acknowledge that not everyone’s experience with Lynch was as positive as hers, she says “I can only speak honestly of my own experience."
It’s an awkward sort of note to the book, not incomparable to Bill Buford’s mentorship from Mario Batali in the otherwise excellent Heat, which was not published with the benefit of hindsight allowed here. Still, Kish can’t be blamed, and her life was undeniably shaped by Lynch’s involvement.
As Top Chef related memoirs go, Accidentally On Purpose certainly isn’t bad, and it isn’t shallow, but there are definitely areas where you would like to know more, and there’s that undeniable funk about it from the parts you know are elided. Still, Kish is a good and confident guide (there’s a reason that Restaurants at the End of the World worked so well), so you should most enjoy her company.