Dear Chef,

If you were my client, I'd tell it to you straight.  You're not, thankfully.  But really, you need to know: Being a puffed-up peacock with a big, bad 'tude ain't gonna get you nowhere.

Your new restaurant is getting good reviews, not at all surprising because your food is quite good. But I sure hope you don't serve all of your customers the same steaming piles of B.S. you heaped on my plate. Food & Wine Rising Star, this. You should have gotten the New York Times review instead of The Publican, that. On and on you went, as I wished for an emergency in the kitchen to pull you away.

Unless you change your act, and pronto, the favorable buzz you're getting now is going to fizzle like a week-old two-liter bottle of club soda. It'll soon be replaced (actually, from what I hear, it is already being supplemented) by ugly chatter. And I assure you, the selection-committees-that-be will not risk sullying the good name of their prestigious awards with someone who is one giant puff of hot air away from imploding.  (They've made that mistake before and it backfired.)

As a dear, flamboyant friend of mind was once fond of declaring, "You better check yourself before you rickety-wreck yourself, fool!" In other words, it's not too late to put your food first and your ego last. If you do, you won't just be good; you'll be great.

And you just may get that recognition you crave after all.