Rick Tramonto started as a high school dropout working at Wendy’s; he became one of the hottest celebrity chefs in the world. Yet his rise to culinary success was marked with tragedy, loss, and abandonment.

As a teenager, Rick worked to support the family when his father (who had Mob ties) went to prison. As a young adult, he struggled with a learning disability and drug addiction. Yet as a chef, he rose rapidly to culinary stardom, earning rave reviews and eventually opening the famous four-star establishment Tru. From the outside, it looked like he had everything he ever wanted; his lifelong hunger for meaning should have been more than met. But on the inside, his life and his marriage were falling apart. And then, one night, a voice on the radio changed everything.

Containing recipes and color photos, Scars of a Chef is the mesmerizing rags-to-riches memoir of one chef’s journey through the highest heights and the lowest lows of the culinary world . . . and his search for something that would finally heal his wounds and sustain him through even the darkest times.