The Seaside Café Metropolis - by Antanas Sileika (Paperback)

About the Book

In this comic novel about drawing warmth from food and company, a Canadian restaurateur, trapped in Soviet Lithuania with his staunchly socialist mother, navigates the repressive communist regime while opening a fashionable bohemian restaurant -- while KGB spies listens in from the basement.

Book Synopsis

In this comic Cold War novel, Canadian restaurateur Emmet Argentine is trapped in Khrushchev-era Vilnius, Lithuania, under the tyranny of two equally formidable forces: the Soviet Union, and his staunchly socialist mother.

Raised in the kitchens of Toronto's Royal York Hotel, Emmet's got a talent for hospitality that catches the attention of a high-ranking architect, who hires him to helm a magnificent new restaurant. Under Emmet's direction, the Seaside Café Metropolis, though located neither by the sea nor in a major metropolitan area, attracts a colourful cast of bohemian artists, writers, and philosophers, including a visit from Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir -- all while kgb operatives listen in from the basement via microphones in the bread baskets.

Through guile, wit, and charm, Emmet, his staff, and other restaurant regulars strive to make rich lives for themselves in the heart of the repressive Soviet regime, drawing warmth from good food, good humour, and even better company.

Review Quotes

"Emmet Argentine is a Canadian restaurateur tapped to open a different kind of dining spot in Khruschev era Lithuania. His flair for food service in a time when Soviet sensibilities are perhaps thawing just a bit make for a comic novel with culinary know how, dry wit and a smart take on that which can bring disparate peoples together. Garty Shteyngart has make a career covering this beat, but Antanas Sileika does it as well or better. This was a delight, and one of my favourites for the year."--David Worsley, Words Worth Books (Waterloo)

"A delicious peek into the world of spies, artists and food at the fringes of the Soviet Union. Sileika's prose is wry and wise, and conjures up a place and time that glimmers like a bittersweet memory."--Trevor Cole, author of Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour-winning Practical Jean

"Antanas Sileika has invented a new genre: the culinary picaresque. Throw in the Cold War, dissident shenanigans, an ideologue mother, knife-fighting love story, iron curtain Bohemians, and more than half a dozen traditional and innovative Lithuanian recipes and you get a sense of the many flavors Sileika blends to perfection in this sad, funny, insightful, propulsive banquet of a novel. This is a rare dish served by a master chef."

--Tamas Dobozy, author of the Governor General's Award-shortlisted and Writer's Trust Fiction Prize-winning Siege 13