Best Served Hot — Books, Beauty, & Buys

By: Amanda Elliot
Published Year: 2023
Publisher: Berkley Books
Pages: 352

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This in no way shape or form influenced my opinion of this novel.

Summary (Provided by Goodreads): By day, Julie Zimmerman works as an executive assistant. After hours, she’s @JulieZeeEatsNYC, a social media restaurant reviewer with over fifty thousand followers. As much as she loves her self-employed side gig, what Julie really wants is to be a critic at a major newspaper, like the New York Scroll. The only thing worse than the Scroll’s rejection of her application is the fact that smarmy, social-media-averse society boy Bennett Richard Macalester Wright snagged her dream job.

While at the Central Park Food Festival, Julie confronts the annoyingly handsome Bennett about his outdated opinions on social media and posts the resulting video footage. Julie's follower count soars—and so does the Scroll’s. Julie and Bennett grudgingly agree to partner up for a few reviews to further their buzz. Online buzz, obviously.

Over tapas, burgers, and more, Julie and Bennett connect over their shared love of food. But when the competitive fire between them turns extra spicy, they'll have to decide how much heat their relationship can take.

First Impressions

Elliot’s debut novel, Sadie on a Plate, was one of my top reads of 2022. When I was given the opportunity to read and review her second novel, I accepted without a second thought. Admittedly, the cover isn’t my favorite. I think it’s much cuter after you’ve read the story, but I don’t know if I would’ve picked it up based off of the cover alone.

What I thought

Elliot is starting to cement herself as one of my auto-read authors.

Julie is a food review influencer. Or at least, she’s trying to be. She has a solid following, but not enough to only review full time. She applies to be a reviewer for a newspaper, but loses out to a rich white male who she immediately decides she dislikes. When she runs into him at a food festival, she gives him a piece of her mind. Her friend records their fight, and Julie decides to post it to point out the disparity growing between food critics and food influencers. The fight goes viral, leading the newspaper to want to capitalize on the publicity and have Julie and Bennett complete reviews together.

This book has a bit of a different vibe from Sadie on a Plate, but it does exist within the same universe which I always love. There is less of a Jewish influence in the story, but it is mentioned a handful of times that Julie is Jewish. I always love a good enemies to lovers trope and I think Elliott handled it well. A lot of the dislike comes from Julie’s side, which helps to make their eventual liking of each other a lot easier to handle. I never found him to fall into the “I like her so much so I must be mean to her” type of situation which can sometimes happen.

I did love the food based storyline and loved reading about all of the different types of restaurants Julie and Bennett got to review. I did find that towards the end it got a bit much and I found myself skimming Julie’s thoughts on everything that she ate as she described it.

I was intrigued by the supposed beef between food critics and influencers. I never would’ve thought about it or any issues it caused, but it made a lot of sense. Food critics are known for being stuffy old men, so I loved reading about how women and women of color were making their way into the industry by their own rules.

Of course, most importantly, I loved the chemistry between Bennett and Julie. It was believable and I liked both of them. I think it could’ve been easy to make Bennett dislikable or make him fall flat, but I enjoyed him, though I do wish we could’ve gotten a little bit more depth of character.