Romance+Female Chef+Onions Restaurant+Fiance

Fiction. Book is set in modern times (probably 90's) about a recently graduated chef who instead of working as an understudy for famous chefs decides to be the head chef at a so-so restaurant. Instead of having a menu she cooks what she wants each night and you eat what she has prepared. People wait in line to eat her food. She becomes engaged to the owners handsome son but later finds out that he only wanted to marry her to keep her working for Onions, under his mothers thumb and to steal her recipes for mass production. She has a few girlfriends who she confides in regularly. She is strong in her chef life but weak and vulnerable in her love life. (I can't remember if it was all that great a book but I just want to read it again). Thanks for your help!

Legend by Jude Deveraux

Not Legends. That is about time travel. The only time travel that might be going on in the book I'm looking for is probably going back and not having so much bread or dessert. Ha Ha Thanks for trying.

Legend seems to have all your elements. Restaurant named Onions. Shifty boyfriend. Tyrannical mother of boyfriend. Plucky group of girlfriends. Recipes for mass production.

You are right. No wonder I couldn't find the book. I didn't remember anything about her going back in time so dismissed it even though it was about a chef. I knew I had read a few time travel stories but didn't like that part of the story very much. Guess I can breeze over those parts like I do the sex scenes in many of the romance novels. Thank goodness for quotation marks so I can follow the dialog without the play-by-play! Thanks very much!

I would say
Legend by Jude Devereaux also. The restaurant is named Onions, she travels back in time and cooks for the whole town and compares it to the movie Babette's Feast