(courtesy Starlit Publishing)
When is a restaurant far more than eating (hopefully) great food in a public setting?
When it takes places at The Nameless Restaurant, the eponymous establishment in Tao Wong’s arrestingly involving novella which takes us to a mysterious place which offers far more than just very good food cooked to devoted perfection.
In this restaurant, which sits on a street in Toronto, unadorned by signage or social buzz, where the only sign it exists is a nondescript door hidden behind a dumpster and a fire escape and all but invisible to anyone passing by.
It wasn’t always thus; back when the restaurant was established, or at least when the chef Mo Meng began concocting his mesmerisingly delicious dishes and serving to an eager clientele, all you had to do was set up shop and wait for the people to come to you.
That was centuries ago, and the fact that Mo Meng has been in the restaurant game for that period of time tells you all you need to know about the type of eating house it is, and who it appeals to, which is not, you may guessed, ordinary mortals just passing by.
In fact, the restaurant is a victim of the increasingly complex and busy world we live in, its existence increasingly ignored by people by simple virtue of the fact that it has no digital footprint and thus, no visibility to people who live and die socially by Yelp reviews.
Silence descended upon the kitchen once more, and Mo Meng smiled to himself, lulled into the quiet serenity of work.
Ho Meng laments this near invisibility to people who are called “Mundanes” – think “Muggles” in a whole other universe – but accepts that this is the way of things and that he must adapt or face oblivion.
It’s too bad that his supernaturally inclined clientele don’t see things the same way.
To delve into that aspect of this slowly-building and emotionally rich narrative would be to venture too far into spoiler territory, but suffice to say that given the only beings who find him anymore, or care to, are magically inclined, and while they appreciate his divinely yummy food – the food instantly summoned, it’s made; the use of “divinely” simply refers to Mo Meng’s consummate skill in the kitchen – they don’t provide the same relaxed ambience you might find elsewhere in Toronto.
The Nameless Restaurant is, the stray Mundanes who find it aside, and to do that they have to ford a fearsome amount of spell casting, a place set apart, where the world we know and take to be the only meaningful reality, plays second fiddle to the intense machinations of supernatural society and political machinations.
It’s that aspect of the novella which is one of its more fascinating aspects – for a story of only 180 pages or so, Wong does a brilliant job of conjuring up a world where spells and magic and control of reality are taken for granted as standard parts of everyday existence.
(courtesy Starlit Publishing)
With real talent and an eye for just the right amount of expository dialogue, Wong builds, scene by scene, meal by by meal – and yes, you get recipes and tips on how to use them which is a joy in and of itself – a picture of people and goings-on that are far beyond our normal perception, and yet, for all the magicality involved, feel very grounded too.
It turns out that casting spells and shaping perceptions on a whim doesn’t make you any more or less flawed than the average Mundane; you might think you are specially set apart, but as Mo Meng’s waitress, Kelly, who is quite mortal thank you, knows all too well, what happens in The Nameless Restaurant is not that different on a fundamental level than what happens in more mundane parts of Toronto.
It’s that dichotomy, of magic and flawed humanity that is so intoxicatingly good when you’re reading this novella.
The world-building is brilliantly imaginative and soaringly clever, and the way Wong reinvents or recasts major world events like the COVID pandemic is a thing of real artistry and cleverness, and it will leave you clapping your hands with glee (assuming you can bring yourself to put the novella down, which is doubtful) at the thoroughly original ideas that underpin the storyline.
The other compelling part of The Nameless Restaurant are the characters.
With deft and fiendishly efficient strokes, Wong populates the restaurant on one particularly rainy night with an eclectic cast of characters, all of whom love Mo Meng’s food even if they are not as similarly enamoured of their fellow diners.
As for the Archmage, the leader of this diplomatic mission …
He just smiled and nodded down at the coconut.
‘Good, isn’t it?’
And Marilyn found herself having to admit, it truly was.
Reading the prickly interplay between these people is so immersively engaging and you often feel as if you have a ringside eavesdropping seat to discussions that would ordinarily escape your Mundane attentions.
Wong never rushes things, and it feels as if The Nameless Restaurant proceeds in almost real time over one night, a patiently thoughtful approach which means you have plenty of time to get to know the characters, understand who they are and why they are acting the way they are, and to lose yourself in the languorous if sometimes tension-filled surroundings of Mo Meng’s establishment.
For a novella that you fly through because it’s that damn good, and you have to flip the pages to see where all this brooding brinkmanship over delicious food is taking these characters, The Nameless Restaurant is superbly chilled, a wonderful opportunity to sit back, take it all in and not worry that you’ll miss anything in the telling.
And that’s a real treat these days when so much storytelling is eager to rush hither and yon, and sprinkle twists and turns with almost exhausting frequency.
By way of contrast, the character-rich, sparkling dialogue-filled storytelling of The Nameless Restaurant knows that when you come to a place of eating, even one as magically anonymous and unusual as this one, you want to take your time, take it all in and let events and people wash over you as you partake of food so good you might not ever want to leave the place.