if you cant stand the heatget the hell out of new orleansliquor has become one of the hottest restaurants in town thanks in part to chefs rickey and gmans wildly creative boozelaced food at the tail end of a busy mardi gras milford goodman walks into their kitchenhes spent the last ten years in angola prison for murdering his boss a wealthy new orleans restaurateur but has recently been exonerated on new evidence and released rickey remembers him as an ingenious chef and hires him on the spot when a pillpushing doctor and a carnival scion talk rickey into consulting at the restaurant theyre opening in one of the citys floating casinos rickey recommends milford for the head chef position and stays on to supervise but soon rickey finds himself medicating a kitchen injury with the doctors wares and gman grows tired of holding down the fort at liquor alone as the new restaurant moves toward its opening rickey learns that milfords past is inextricably linked with one of the projects backers a man whose intentions begin to seem more and more sinisterfull of the flavor of one of americas greatest cities soul kitchen is a sharp commentary on race relations in prekatrina new orleans and a fast ride through the dark side of haute cuisine