I loved the information about the nitty-gritty of restaurant cook station life, how hard and physical that life truly is. It was for me a 3 star read, but rounded to four for the realistic nature of the reveals. Which, I know, are still fairly accurate.

Bourdain in print is exactly as Bourdain in travels, or in audio/tv media work. He's the same anti-establishment let's all tramp along to the lowest common denominator factor (drugs, liquor, any form of low life crudity possible) in friendship and in association that he can then "talk" up and help establish as some quantity definition of being the "norm". It's not original, btw, how Anthony speaks and thinks. There are tons of Boomers of my generation who in repartee and in backgrounds fall similarly into that particular "look at me and my sharp, individual everyman snark" pattern of existence. Anthony is a born ego-maniac. You won't forget that at all in this book reading. It took 2 stars away for me, but that's not fair to the actual content information, so I put one back.

Lots of info here that is important to not eating in restaurants that are "on their way" out, especially in this current economy. In my Michigan there were 11 restaurants in 3 towns. Now there are 4 and one is in that category of "on their way" out and I don't trust the fish on ANY day, let alone a Monday.

There is probably little I myself agree upon with Anthony in any sphere but in the kitchen, but I do think he found his own way and did it his way. Thankfully it was a long distance from where I was at the time. LOL!

I find myself without much to say about this book, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Bourdain was a talented, evocative writer who clearly had a great passion for his chosen profession. But it turns out, for me, all of that is overshadowed by the manner in which his life ended. And I don't want to go into detail about how knowing that affected my reading. I'll just say that Bourdain had some great, funny, profane, sublime moments in his life, and leave it at that.

4 ☆

I frequently look back at my life, searching for that fork in the road, trying to figure out where, exactly, I went bad and became a thrill-seeking, pleasure-hungry sensualist, always looking to shock, amuse, terrify and manipulate, seeking to fill that empty spot in my soul with something new.

I became acquainted with Anthony Bourdain - brash, profane, yet witty - through his food porn shows on the Travel Channel. As I listened to Bourdain's narration of Kitchen Confidential, his memoir of how food transformed his focus and led to his culinary career, I still miss Tony and am saddened by his suicide. In his food shows, Bourdain's cynicism was readily visible, but it had always been eclipsed by his curious humility and openness to new cultures and their foods.

Published in 2000, Kitchen Confidential mostly revealed his wild streak. During his early years, his behavior and speech reflected somebody who didn't care whether he was liked. Bourdain reeked of privilege that was topped off by an expletive-laced attitude coming from a drug-addicted snob.
n  

n    I, a product of the New Frontier and Great Society, honestly believed that the world pretty much owed me a living--all I had to do was wait around in order to live better than my parents.

Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter-faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn. To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living. Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food.

You might get the impression from the specifics of my less than stellar career that all line cooks are wacked-out moral degenerates, dope fiends, refugees, a thuggish assortment of drunks, sneak thieves, sluts and psychopaths. You wouldn't be too far off base.n  

n
But even during his so-called "wilderness" years, his love of food led to an atypical perspective on race and kitchen people, his tribe.
n  

n    No one understands and appreciates the American Dream of hard work leading to material rewards better than a non-American. The Ecuadorian, Mexican, Dominican and Salvadorian cooks I've worked with over the years make most CIA-educated white boys look like clumsy, sniveling little punks.n  

n
Bourdain provided an interesting insider's look at the restaurant business. The chapter, "From Our Kitchen to Your Table," was probably the most memorable one as he advised diners how to order from the menu. This was a not-to-miss chapter for seafood lovers. Further on, he gave a lowdown on what he sought in his kitchen staff.
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n    I'm asked a lot what the best thing about cooking for a living is. And it's this: to be a part of a subculture. To be part of a historical continuum, a secret society with its own language and customs. To enjoy the instant gratification of making something good with one's hands--using all one's senses. It can be, at times, the purest and most unselfish way of giving pleasure...

Cooking is a craft, I like to think, and a good cook is a craftsman — not an artist... Practicing your craft in expert fashion is noble, honorable, and satisfying. And I'll generally take a stand-up mercenary who takes pride in his professionalism over an artist any day.

Having a sous-chef with excellent cooking skills and a criminal mind is one of God's great gifts.

Skills can be taught. Character you either have or you don't have.n  

n
By the late 1990s, Bourdain had become the executive chef at Les Halles, a French brasserie (which had closed because of bankruptcy about 5 years ago) in New York City. Bourdain had kicked off his herion addiction by then but he didn't describe how he had gotten this position, the last in the kitchen before his media career took flight. "A Day in the Life" revealed the realities of a 16-hour day at a busy eatery that served lunch and dinners. Phew, it was stressful, demanding and exhausting. The owners of Les Halles had expanded their empire to a new site in Tokyo and they sent Bourdain to troubleshoot. In "Mission to Tokyo" were the seeds of Bourdain's new media career.
n  

n    I was the Quiet American, the Ugly American, the Hungry Ghost ... searching and searching for whatever came next.

My chef friends in New York would have gouged out an eye or given up five years of their lives for the meal I was about to have... Each time the chef put another item down in front of us, I detected almost a dare, as if he didn't expect us to like what he was giving us, as if any time now he'd find something too much for our barbarian palates and crude, unsophisticated palates.

Food had power. It could inspire, astonish, shock, excite, delight and impress. It had the power to please me ...n  

n
Kitchen Confidential is a definite recommendation for Bourdain fans and for those interested in the restaurant business. Occasionally a bit repetitive during the 1980s and a bit blank about the 1990s, nonetheless, Bourdain had included more than enough to retain my interest. I hope that you're finally at peace, Tony.

I had Kitchen Confidential for quite a while lying in my e-reader and I thought it was about time I read it. I wish I hadn't now! I had thought a book about food can never possibly be so boring and disgusting. But Anthony Bourdain's personality permeates throughout the book and put me off completely.

Bourdain appears to have had a decent enough childhood and his chapter about discovering good food in France was nice. But the rest of it was just him being a dickhead. It is no surprise that most industries are sexism, racism, homophobia, and whatever other "isms" you care to mention. These are not unique to the food industry. But the toxic masculinity that Bourdain advocates, and even revels in, is disgusting.

Tim, a veteran waiter, is dry-humping Cachundo—to Cachundo's apparent displeasure. He's blocking the lane and impeding traffic in the narrow kitchen with his thrusting. I have to ask Tim nicely not to sexually harass my runners during service . . . after work, please.

If you are easily offended by direct aspersions on your lineage, the circumstances of your birth, your sexuality, your appearance, the mention of your parents possibly commingling with livestock, then the world of professional cooking is not for you.

I mean, really! WTF? Who would change things if you don't? He goes on and on in this vein for pages. He was kind enough to admit that some tough women handle the sexual harassment very well and are stars of the kitchen. I mean, are you brain damaged? Why should women have to be experts at handling gropers to work in a fucking kitchen? It's not a fucking qualification!

And then, there are all the Ecuadorians, Mexicans, Cubans, etc. whom he specifically chose in order to exploit them. Looks like people who have no expectations of holidays, sick leave, healthcare, and such, should only work in Bourdain's kitchen. He makes it abundantly clear. That's why he didn't hire white Americans, who would never put up with his shit.

The book was disgusting in other ways too. Bourdain is against vegetarians and frankly I am glad he hated us. Bourdain's never ending descriptions of groping and namecalling in his kitchen got on my nerves very fast. He calls a sexual abuser - one who gropes everyone in the kitchen - his best friend because he was oh, so efficient! But it appears he was more bonkers than ignoring just what many other men like to do.

We considered ourselves a tribe. As such, we had a number of unusual customs, rituals and practices all our own. If you cut yourself in the Work Progress kitchen, tradition called for maximum spillage and dispersion of blood. One squeezed the wound till it ran freely, then hurled great gouts of red spray on the jackets and aprons of comrades. We loved blood in our kitchen.

The man was really messed up. I am not surprised he committed suicide. It appears he supported the Me Too movement and regretted this horrible memoir before his death, but it's too little too late if you ask me. A lifetime of promoting toxic masculinity cannot be erased with a few words in old age. And this book would serve better as a coaster.

Okay, so there were some interesting bits if you just skimmed through all the abuse and the nasty bits. He offers some cooking tips and a pretty decent insight into dining for customers. I personally find that restaurants in Pune are mostly useless with loud music, large TV playing sports, unbearably bright lights, and indifferent service. It's like they can't decide whether they are a club, sports bar, or operation theatre. Reading Kitchen Confidential gave me some real insights into why restaurants would make it such a chore to sit through a damn meal.

At the end, Bourdain gives tips on how to become a chef. Assume the worst. About everybody. But don't let this poisoned outlook affect your job performance. Let it all roll off your back. Ignore it. Be amused by what you see and suspect. Just because someone you work with is a miserable, treacherous, self-serving, capricious and corrupt asshole shouldn't prevent you from enjoying their company, working with them or finding them entertaining. This business grows assholes: it's our principal export. I'm an asshole. You should probably be an asshole too.

That just about sums up the book and the man.

“People confuse me. Food doesn't.”

Kitchen Confidential is Bourdain's memoir that offers a deep look at the behind-the-scenes of restaurant kitchens. But two other things stood out to me in late Bourdains’s professional memoir. The first thing is his love of food, and the specific relationship he developed with food early in his childhood. The second thing is the frightening descriptions of his mental state, which I feel were largely overlooked as people were distracted with lushness and brilliant humor with which he described a world of restaurants. Having in mind Bourdain’s death from suicide in 2018, I can presume that he did not receive the adequate help that he desperately need, which is evident in his memoir written almost a decade before the tragic death.

Food is sex

Best chapters in the book for me were the first few chapters about Bourdain's relationship with food. Bourdain eloquently describes the origin of his passion for food. In Kitchen Confidential, Bourdain does not share a lot of his private life nor emotions, and he is kinda hiding, or revealing himself metaphorically, through his trajectory of the professional life in the kitchen. In a lot of ways, the kitchen has all of the space in his memoir, much more than he himself has, or his private life and relationships.
One thing can be presumed from that, of all relationships in life, the relationship he had with food was one of the most important, if not the most important relationship he had.
Even though he does not share a lot from his early childhood and primary family life, except for the notion they traveled frequently, his early life has a veil of melancholy, the veil that grows into the depression of adult age.
But as a lighthouse in the darkness of melancholy, with so much joy, passion, and pure happiness, Bourdain describes the time he realized he fell hopelessly in love with food - the first time he tried oysters in France as a child - the picture than lingered vividly in his memory.

“It tasted of seawater… of brine and flesh… and somehow… of the future…
Everything was different now. Everything.
I'd not only survived-I'd enjoyed.”

Bourdain did not only taste oysters - he experienced the ecstatic sensory joy, the deep value of the sensual experience that can give meaning to life. In rich flavors, he experienced happiness, creativity, inspiration, id, the life force itself. For Bourdain, food is sex as the sensory pleasure that comes from food is life-invigorating and gives existence a new purpose.
For Bourdain, this was transformative experience, the moment of apotheosis.

“I'd learned something. Viscerally, instinctively, spiritually-even in some small, precursive way, sexually-and there was no turning back. The genie was out of the bottle. My life as a cook, and as a chef, had begun.
Food had power.
It could inspire, astonish, shock, excite, delight and impress. It had the power to please me and others.”

Fining both meaning and drive for life in sensory experiences is by no means a new stance in the world of literature. The ecstatic moments of sensual joy can be found in  Proust's Swann's Way, and in Camus’s The Stranger and The Plague, where the characters experience the transference of absurdity of life in the sensory experience of the moment. But it is beautiful to find such an experience eloquently described in a memoir. Life replicates art and art replicates life.

“I had, as yet, no plans to cook professionally. But I frequently look back at my life, searching for that fork in the road, trying to figure out where, exactly, I went bad and became a thrill-seeking, pleasure-hungry sensualist, always looking to shock, amuse, terrify and manipulate, seeking to fill that empty spot in my soul with something new.”

Kitchen’s closed

The environment of the professional kitchen is intense, unpleasant, and oftentimes ruthless, which Bourdain demonstrates, again and again, through the narrative of memoir. The narrative is somewhat fragmented from chapter to chapter as they're not linked, and each individual chapter could be a standalone short story. I enjoyed greatly the first 150 pages of the book, but the last 150 pages I was struggling and dragging through, so be prepared for uneven writing. There were a few magnificent chapters and a lot less magnificent ones. I think the book would be much better if it had been a more continuous narrative. I feel that a few stories about the kitchen atmosphere of cursing, swearing, boiling, steaming are enough and at times the anecdotes described seemed to me as something you would tell to a group of people that you are trying to impress at the dinner table, not stories of adequate quality to put in a book. But through Bourdain's stories, one learns about the world of the kitchen, the predominantly world of macho men, and one definitely has to have a defensive strong facade to survive sometimes hazardous workplace environment staffed by the misfits.

“The basic character of the chef and cook hasn't wandered too far from the same recognizable personality types found in Orwell, Freleng or Bemelmans: Sensualist, often socially inept outside the kitchen, frequently dyslexic——people with appetites that go beyond food. The kitchen remains a refuge for the fugitive, the obsessed, the border jumper and the borderline, people who are only truly confident behind a stove or standing at the pass. They still and likely always will share a common ethos and patois.“

One of my feelings was constant, that by telling the macho stories Bourdain tried to hide the depth of his psychological suffering that became painfully evident in only a few, but terrifying passages.
Bourdain had prominent personality traits that were present from early adolescence. This is how he described himself;
“Let it suffice to say that by age eighteen I was a thoroughly undisciplined young man, blithely flunking or fading out of college (I couldn't be bothered to attend classes). I was angry at myself and at everyone else. Essentially, I treated the world as my ashtray. I spent most of my waking hours drinking, smoking pot, scheming, and doing my best to amuse, outrage, impress and penetrate anyone silly enough to find me entertaining. I was-to be frank-a spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive and thoughtless young lout, badly in need of a good ass-kicking. Rudderless and unhappy...”

But also, Bourdain was an incredibly charismatic, passionate, intelligent, well-read, eloquent, funny and honest human being, a sensualist that had plenty of life inside himself and who truly appreciated the pleasures of life. Under the strong facade he was deeply sentimental and empathetic, and also suffering from a raging depression he tried to self-medicate through large amounts of alcohol and all kind of drugs, including heroin, an addiction he later on recovered from. This passage shows the depths of his depression and is terrifying in the light of the future event.

“I was utterly depressed. I lay in bed all day, immobilized by guilt, fear, shame and regret, my ashtrays overflowing with butts, unpaid bills stacked everywhere, dirty clothes heaped in the corners. At night, I lay awake with heart palpitations, terrors, bouts of self-loathing so powerful that only the thought of diving through my sixth-floor window onto Riverside Drive gave me any comfort and allowed me to lull myself into a resigned sleep.”

Bourdain’s death is indeed a truly tragic one, and I was deeply sad and moved when I found out about it in 2018. From the time of writing of Kitchen Confidential, and before, to 2018, a year of his death, Bourdain continued to struggle with his mental health. He often brought out death, and in one of his last interviews, he said that he was going to “die in the saddle” — a sentiment that later proved chilling. His statements, as well some passages of the book proved how desperately he needed help. So it is somewhat puzzling that his loved ones expressed their disbelief after the event, with his mother saying he was “absolutely the last person in the world I would have ever dreamed would do something like this.”

“I'm still here. And I'm surprised by that. Every day.”

But oftentimes it is hard to look through the facade of the persona, of cheerful person that makes laugh everyone at the table with self-deprecating humor, the charismatic passionate man, the traveler that loves life, a chef rockstar, watched and loved by millions, with appeal stretched beyond the delicious food he cooked and ate. It is hard to see through all of that and even admit to oneself that there are people in the world quietly suffering as much Bourdain did, haunted by the darkness that they cannot seem to shake. In the last paragraph of the book he writes farewell;

“I’m good. Im free, as it were, of the complications of normal human entanglements, untormented by the beauty, complexity and challenge of a big magnificent and often painful world.”

Rest in peace, Anthony.

Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, Anthony Bourdain

Released in 2000, the book is both Bourdain's professional memoir and a behind-the-scenes look at restaurant kitchens.

The book is known for its treatment of the professional culinary industry, which he describes as an intense, unpleasant, and sometimes hazardous workplace staffed by who he describes as misfits.

Bourdain believes that the workplace is not for hobbyists and that anyone entering the industry without a masochistic, irrational dedication to cooking will be deterred.

تاریخ نخستین خوانش نسحه اصلی: روز نهم ماه اکتبر سال 2019 میلادی

عنوان: محرمانه‌های رستوران‌داری : پشت پرده‌ی آشپزخانه‌ ی رستوران‌ها چه می‌گذرد؟؛ نویسنده: آنتونی بوردین؛ مترجم: عاطفه هاشمی؛ تهران انتشارات میلکان، ‏‫1397؛ در 336ص؛ شابک 9786226573016؛ موضوع: آشپز‌ها - ایالات متحده - سرگذشتنامه - رستوران‌ها - تاریخ - از نویسندگان ایالات متحده امریکا - سده 21م

این کتاب در سال 2000میلادی منتشر شده است که هم یادمانهای حرفه ای «بوردین» و هم نگاهی به پشت صحنه در آشپزخانه های رستورانهاست؛ این کتاب به دلیل برخورداری از صنعت آشپزخانه حرفه ای شناخته شده است، که وی آن را یک محل کار طاقتفرسا، ناخوشایند و گاه خطرناک توصیف میکند؛ «بوردین» باور دارد که محل کار برای سرگرمی نیست، و هرکسی که وارد این صنعت شود باید فداکاری کند

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 01/07/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ ‬ا. شربیانی

Because the shock of Bourdain’s death has only recently worn off, I find this a difficult book to review. Certainly his larger-than-life manic personality jumps out at you while reading this memoir. Every sentence bore his signature voice in my head. Many chapters shock, delight, disgust and entice the epicurean reader.

I learned more about the restaurant industry from Bourdain than my own chef father taught me. I have a renewed respect for the kitchen crew and wait staff. And I know when to avoid ordering seafood, which knife to spend the big bucks on and why I should reduce my trips to those buffet brunches.

I can only imagine how this book must have impacted all those big (and small) names which Bourdain liberally trashes, gushes, insults and compliments throughout. Oh, Rainbow Room— my one and only high school memory of dining there with pleasure in the 1980s has been changed forever.

A number of chapters reveal the inner workings of the back of the house in detail... so detailed, some readers may find themselves skimming. (What can I say, I didn’t find the endless lists of ingredients nearly as fun to read as all the ways, and in a variety of languages, you can insult your kitchen crew!)

What I will remember is Bourdain’s self-deprecating humor, which in hindsight sounds a lot like self-loathing. And the chapter (near the end) which details one chef’s experience with an employee suicide was almost too close to reality for comfort.

This man loved food and loved sharing the working man’s meals with others. He spent a number of years convincing folks to eat food that is not in their comfort zone. Thanks Mr Bourdain... it turns out that the Vietnamese cold noodle dish I finally tried last week is one of the most yummy dishes I’ve ever eaten.

(Reviewed 7/22/18)

Ho consumato un barattolo di bicarbonato per arrivare alla fine (era una lettura condivisa, altrimenti avrei lasciato). E confesso, quando mi saliva lo schifo, qualche pagina l’ho saltata. Non ho uno stomaco così forte per reggere certi particolari.
Non ho colto l’utilità e nemmeno il senso di alcune descrizioni di Bourdain, cito come esempi lo sperma sulle scarpe del suo aiutante Steven, e le scopate di Steven-versione-porno con Chuletita loca, mentre, fra un grugnito e un asmatico quasi-orgasmo, telefona all’amico e collega Manuel, per chiedere: “indovina che cosa sto facendo?”. Mi son parse fanfaronate.
Non penso che molteplici e sovrabbondanti porzioni di sesso, alcol, droga, imprecazioni e violenze varie, consumate in cucina per mano di un’orda di disadattati, arricchiscano il menu e facciano effetto WOW!, anzi, già al secondo giro si rischia lo “sbadiglio da ripetizione”. Insomma, più che trasgressione m’è parsa mera e fastidiosetta operazione di marketing.
Serpeggia odio puro per i vegetariani. Io sono vegana (addirittura!). Ma non mi sono sentita offesa né incompresa, quindi non replico. Sorvolo. E penso che difficilmente m’imbatterò in un lupanare gastronomico come quelli descritti.
Farò attenzione ai coltelli, coi quali ho un pessimo rapporto.
Non mi preoccuperò dei ristoranti narrati, che non frequento, ma spargerò la voce tra le mie conoscenze. Anche se forse sono più informate di me.
Dirò ai miei amici onnivori di quanto sia pericoloso mangiare pesce, e non solo, al ristorante il lunedì, e li informerò anche di tutto il resto. Grazie.

Il ritmo narrativo m’è piaciuto. Qualche perplessità sulla traduzione, ma non cercherò la versione in lingua. Ho già dato. E il bicarbonato è finito.

P.S. Sono una voce stonata. Il libro in realtà ha ottenuto enorme successo a livello mondiale, è stato tradotto in svariate lingue e ha ispirato una serie TV.

Ho trovato questa dichiarazione di Bourdain del 2017 a proposito della sua opera:
“To the extent which my work in Kitchen Confidential celebrated or prolonged a culture that allowed the kind of grotesque behaviors we’re hearing about all too frequently is something I think about daily, with real remorse.”
Un atto di pentimento, pare.

I almost feel the need to have to bring back my "3 stars is not a bad rating" disclaimer, since I've had a bizarrely rare couple of weeks with several 4 star rated books in my lineup. Well here we are again, settling back into the "3 star is the standard" normalcy of my world.

Kitchen Confidential was an entertaining read. The main reason why I couldn't swing a 4 is only because I think I'd expected there to be more "trade secrets" about the restaurant industry than there really were. I'd half expected to be terrorized into never wanting to eat in a restaurant ever again after finding out that 95% of restaurant employees either pee, spit, or masturbate into their food (I'm only half joking). I'd honestly thought that I was going to be reading the book like this :


Now, that's not to say that there weren't a few disgusting tidbits thrown out for me to contemplate. For example, I now know never to order fish specials on a Monday, or to eat Mussels just about anywhere. But...I think I wanted to know more about the "behind the scenes" dirt on what can really go wrong in restaurants than what we were given.

Something else that I'd expected to see more of was Anthony's hard-on for hating on the Food Network community. There were a couple of little digs in this book (the "you're halfway to making that fuzzy little Emeril your bitch" comment made me snort), but nothing even remotely at the level to which I would have expected (maybe that was a publisher reign-in, who knows?) I've followed some of his past interviews and blog posts and have to admit to being far more amused than I should be over his petty jabs at Rachael Ray, Emeril and others. Note : I have nothing against these people and have spent many hours watching the Food Network over the years.

I guess I wanted more of the "gritty" dirt that I thought AB could provide, so I found myself slightly disappointed. But again, the book itself was entertaining for a memoir of his experiences coming up in the foodie world.

This isn't to say that I wasn't amused over the fact that he walked around in his youth wearing nunchakus in a holster while carrying a samurai sword (and we're not talking the pre-teen years, we're talking college here), but I have to admit that I'm more fascinated by the sarcastic 50-plus-year-old man who has digestive issues, drinks like a fish, and got filmed eating an animal's poop chute on his television show.

We did get to see some of his irreverence in the book. This is not a politically correct read all of the time (and I don't agree with many of his opinions), but at least he's an equal-opportunity shit talker. He might be brash and crass, but he's definitely got a distinct point-of-view.

n  n    Your body is not a temple, it's an amusement park. Enjoy the ride. Sure, it's a 'play you pay' sort of an adventure, but you know that already, every time you ever ordered a taco or a dirty-water hot dog.n  n  

n

n

I read this shortly after the original publication. My impression to the best I remember, is that it was educational and very entertaining. It isn't something I'd reread (although, if I ran out of books, I'd probably pick it up). However, I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys eating out and wondering about what happens behind the doors to the kitchen of a restaurant. He was a talented writer and I enjoyed the journey.

I wanted to write in Kitchenese, the secret language of cooks, instantly recognizable to anyone who has ever dunked french fries for a summer job or suffered under the despotic rule of a tyrannical chef or boobish owner.
…
So who the hell, exactly, are these guys, the boys and girls in the trenches? You might get the impression from the specifics of my less than stellar career that all line cooks are wacked-out moral degenerates, dope fiends, refugees, a thuggish assortment of drunks, sneak thieves, sluts and psychopaths. You wouldn't be too far off base. The business, as respected three-star chef Scott Bryan explains it, attracts 'fringe elements', people for whom something in their lives has gone terribly wrong. Maybe they didn't make it through high school, maybe they're running away from something-be it an ex-wife, a rotten family history, trouble with the law, a squalid Third World backwater with no opportunity for advancement. Or maybe, like me, they just like it here.

I worked in restaurants through high school and college. I certainly hope things have changed over the last twenty years since this book was published, but Kitchen Confidential does a brilliant job of presenting the insanity of the aggressively masculine kitchen culture I remember. Some of the ‘trade secrets’ from when this book was first published (such never order fish on a Monday) have become conventional wisdom, but there’s still a great deal of smart observations and humor spread throughout. Well worth reading or re-reading. RIP, Chef Bourdain.

Bullet Review:

Very interesting and startlingly honest - though if Bourdain is anything like this book shows, I doubt I would want to meet him in person and have a beer.

Full Review:

In our culture of reality TV, one of the great things to come out is a renewed interest in food and chefs. Say what you will, but I definitely have enjoyed watching such personalities as Gordon Ramsay and learning what makes a good and bad dining/eating experience.

Anthony Bourdain is such a personality that thrives in our reality TV-addicted culture. He's brusque; he's coarse; he says his mind without any care for civilities; and he knows what he's talking about. This is part memoir, part kitchen handbook for the amateur.

I probably would have never read this had my boss not lent it to me. While I am an admitted watcher of Kitchen Nightmares (but mostly the UK version - the US version is so repetitive and overdramatic!), I have never seen Anthony Bourdain at all. This was basically my first introduction to me.

And with that introduction, while I respect his expertise and admire his candor, I would NOT want to sit down for dinner with him. He sounds like an arrogant, self-important, erm, @$$hole.

But he is brutally honest. With some memoirs, I feel people sugar-coat their lives to make it seem more glamorous; not so with Bourdain. He's pretty damned open about his drug addiction and how "colorful" life in the back of the kitchen is. He isn't going to pretend that kitchen staff don't sexually harass each other or swear constantly. He won't pretend that it's "all about the food" (well...it is...and it's also, for him, about the money). And he even gives some tips and tricks to amateurs wanting to imitate the professional style - even if he does think that's silly (I love it when he admits that, when he's at home, he LIKES having just a good home cooked meal, not an attempt at restaurant glitz and glamour).

This is not one of the best written books I've ever read. The flow was odd, as Bourdain would be relating his biography and then suddenly stop to give tips on what knives to buy. I also think this was better to listen to on audiobook than read, as hearing Bourdain really helped carry the message of the book. But for people who like cooking memoirs, this was a lot of fun. Be warned though - Bourdain has some salty language!