Kitchen Confidential

It is clear that Bourdain enjoys a true passion for both food and cooking, a passion he inherited from the French side of his family. He tells us he decided to become a chef during a trip to southwestern France when he was only ten years of age and it is a decision he stuck to, graduating from the Culinary Institute of America.

Kitchen Confidential is a surprisingly well-written account of what life is really like in the commercial kitchens of the United States; "the dark recesses of the restaurant underbelly." In describing these dark recesses, Bourdain refreshingly casts as many stones at himself as he does at others. In fact, he is brutally honest. There is nothing as tiresome as a "tell-all" book in which the author relentlessly paints himself as the unwitting victim. Bourdain, to his enormous credit, avoids this trap. Maybe he writes so convincingly about drugs and alcohol because drugs and alcohol have run their course through his veins as well as those of others.

The rather raunchy "pirate ship" stories contained in this fascinating but testosterone-rich book help to bring it vividly to life and add tremendous credibility. The book does tend to discourage any would-be female chefs who might read it, but that's not Bourdain's fault; he is simply telling it like it is and telling it hilariously as well.

In an entire chapter devoted to one of the lively and crude characters that populate this book, Bourdain describes a man named Adam: "Adam Real-Last-Name-Unknown, the psychotic bread-baker, alone in his small, filthy Upper West Side apartment, his eyes two different sizes after a 36-hour coke and liquor jag, white crust accumulated at the corners of his mouth, a two-day growh of whiskers--standing there in a shirt and no pants among the porno mags, the empty Chinese takeout containers, as the Spice channel flickers silently on the TV, throwing blue light on a can of Dinty Moore beef stew by an unmade bed." Apparently Bourdain made just as many mistakes at the beginning of his career as did Adam, but the book however, doesn't always paint and bleak picture.

Another chapter entitled "The Life of Bryan," talks about renowned chef Scott Bryan, a man, who, according to Bourdain, made all the right decisions. Bourdain describes Bryan's shining, immaculate kitchen, his well-organized and efficient staff. It's respectful homage, but somehow, we feel that Bourdain, himself, will never be quite as organized as is Bryan, for Bourdain is just too much of the rebel, the original, the maverick.

Kitchen Confidential can be informative as well as wickedly funny. Bourdain is hilarious as he tells us what to order in restaurants and when. For instance, we learn never to eat fish on Mondays, to avoid Sunday brunches and never to order any sort of meat well-done. And, if we ever see a sign that says, "Discount Sushi," we will, if we are smart, run the other way as fast as we possibly can.

Kitchen Confidential isn't undying literature but it's so funny and so well-written that no one should care. It made me hungry for Bourdain's black sea bass crusted in sel de Bretagne with frites. It also made me order his novel, Bone in the Throat. If it is only half as funny and wickedly well-written as is Kitchen Confidential it will certainly be a treat.

Bourdain has put together a truly gonzo collection of restaurant tales that aren't all depraved...but, like his restaurateur/chef subjects, most of them are! Kudos to him for a book that is this honest while being this hysterical. If you have the, um, stomach for it, this is a book you'll remember fondly. Well worth digesting!

I was surprised at the incredible coarseness of the book, but I thought, OK, that's real life in the restaurant world, if you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen so to speak. But then towards the end he shows you that actually that's NOT how it is all through the restaurant world. Forget the last couple hundred pages.

So maybe he's just a jerk. Do I feel good about giving my money away to some jerk? But then again, he'll gladly TELL you he's a jerk. That's almost his point. Isn't the view of a crude, wild, hedonistic lifestyle that most of us would never live but still find fascinating why we buy these memoirs in the first place?

I found myself saying, "Wow, what an SOB (turn page) I can't stand this jerk (turn page)..." And that's not necessarily a bad thing, although it did leave me wondering whether I could really say I "liked" the book. What bothered me more was the poor structure of the book and the almost total lack of editing. Really weird things, like commas constantly popped up at random in the middle of, sentences. Like that. It grew more than a little annoying. And it was almost the last chapter before he actually defined all the cooking terms and the slang he had been using for hundreds of pages. People showed up whose significance he didn't explain until a number of chapters later.

So he's annoying, in many ways the book is annoying, but it's a fun and wild ride that will definitely give you something to talk about with your friends.

Whatever faults the author and the book may have, this is a knee-slappingly funny account of what really goes on in kitchens, and anybody who wants to be a chef should be forced to read this book before attending cooking school. Those of you benighted souls who have no interest in fine cuisine and four-star restaurants probably won't understand the truth and humor that underly Chef Bourdain's cutting prose.

It's wicked, funny, touching and fascinating. I went on errands with my wife, so that I could read to her while she drove -- it's so good that you want to call up strangers and just start reading pages to them -- any page will do.

The best writing is honest writing -- and it doesn't get more honest than this.

What a geat read. I'm sure that Les Halles, where he works his craft, will be "booked" to infinity because of this book -- as it should be.

Anyone who loves food will devour this with greed...and wish it were longer.

Thanks to his French heritage, Bourdain had learned to appreciate superb food as a youngster, and his parents had the resources to send him to any college he chose. Bourdain, however, likes to live on the edge, and his desire to live life to the fullest and push the limits soon led to multiple drug dependencies and heavy alcohol usage that kept steady employment difficult to maintain for a time. Remarkably, though not detailed exactly how in this book, Bourdain managed to beat his addictions, and has gone on to become not only a talented executive chef, but also a successful novelist and writer in his spare time. How anyone could even find spare time in a chef's life as he describes it is unfathomable- -Bourdain obviously thrives on stress and challenges.

The pace of the book is relentless- -it's one of those volumes that you can race through in a single day, not allowing anyone to interrupt you. Bourdain's language is not for everyone though- -he accurately records the words that are said behind the kitchen doors, so if you are squeamish about sex or take offense easily, this book is not for you.

This book confirms the importance of knowing who is cooking your food. After all, food is something you put inside your body, so it is a real act of trust to consume something that someone else has prepared. It's remarkable that many people are quite content to let total strangers prepare their food. Why would anyone frequent fast food restaurants where most of the cooks are teenagers with no talent or interest in food preparation, doing it all for minimum wage? At least in kitchens like Bourdain's, although some of the cooks may be oversexed drug addicts with filthy mouths, only those who can consistently achieve high cooking standards manage to stay on. Bourdain also reminds us to use our heads when placing our orders. After all, when you tell the waiter what you want, the food isn't just going to appear on the plate out of thin air when the cook snaps his fingers. If the fish market isn't open on the weekend, then Monday isn't a great day for ordering fish. Today's luncheon special may indeed contain leftovers from last night's menu. Some items take longer than others to prepare- -hence shouldn't be ordered at five minutes before closing. This book provides a fascinating perspective on what it's like to study at the CIA, how an executive chef spends his time, and what may be happening behind those closed doors at your favorite restaurant.

PS: Bourdain advises that the quickest way to find out if you *really* want to be a chef is to become a restaurant's dishwasher for six months. And he's absolutely right.

Some of the highlights include chapters on how to cook like the pros (where he gives some good tips and advice for all of us in the ignorant populace), what to be warry of on restaurant menus and what type of restaurants to avoid (including his soapbox speech on vegetarians and why they are "the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit" - I am a vegetarian by the way and you can tell that I am so offended), and of course the hilarious chapter on why people who want to own restaurants are sick in the head. The first paragraph of this chapter is a classic.

This book does contain quite a bit of foul language. Also, a few sections of this book can drag on with a ton of detail about absolutely everything that goes on in the kitchen, but all in all this book is quite amusing. There are many more highlights that those I pointed out, and I do recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about the realities of the restaurant world.

The main draw here is Anthony Bourdain his own bad, raunchy self. He is Not A Nice Person. I wouldn't want to be him, or even particularly close to him. I'm not sure I even want to eat his food - maybe I know a little too much about his kitchen for comfort. But: man, he tells a good story. Some parts of the story drag, as the various doomed restaurants of his early career start blending together. That costs him a star in my rating. Otherwise, it's an exciting, morbidly fascinating view into Bourdain's life as a sensualist, and the "dysfunctional family" of his kitchen.

I "read" this book as an audiobook from audible.com, which I highly recommend. Bourdain himself does the reading, adding life and dimension to this character study. Also, it gets you past the unfortunate editorial flaws mentioned in a previous review.

The experiences he describes here as having molded his personality, and which continue to mold his kitchens, make the book so amusing and both his individual character and the restaurant business at large so difficult to swallow. Fortunately, he does present, in a very well written chapter, a counterpoint description of a fellow, yet civilized, chef's kitchen and restaurant.

If your the least bit interested or experienced in restaurant dining, this is a must read: an insider's narrative of a world most of us only visit for a few hours at a time.

I particularly appreciated the author's soul searching on how he got where he is rather than becoming a world class chef, which he claims not to be. He attributes it to taking head chef jobs rather than learning more from masters early in his career. The education and apprenticeship theme is played up as the focus of both Ruhlman's "The Making of a Chef" and Dornenburg and Page's "Becoming a Chef". Although this is not corner diner food, in a typical self-deprecating aside, Bourdain points out that it's really the shallots and monte au beurre that lend the professional taste.

Bourdain's respect for food and cooking is evidenced most clearly in the reverential tones reserved for Scott Bryan of Veritas (in New York). He begins the chapter by asking the reader to forget everything they've read up to this point and to look at Veritas, where you can tell how good they are from the spotless side towels, the shallot brunoise in the mise en place, and the fact that everything is prepared a la minute.

Although just about every aspect of running a restaurant is covered, I really appreciated the running discussion of creating menus and specials; you realize every chef-owner is first and foremost a Garde Manger.

This book's strong medicine. If you love food and need an antidote, try Ruth Reichl's autobiographically inspired "Tender at the Bone" which is as sweet as Bourdain's book is sour.

What I disliked about the book was actually what I came to like in the end - his seeminly long-winded explanations of everything. Yet the descriptions, often accompanied by many superlatives seem to add layers, or extra depth to the book. It is definitely not spare, but it suits a food-memoir. I am just reading a memoir by a New Zealand/Italian chef and it really suffers by comparison. It is spare and tries to be amusing. Bourdain doesn't care whether you laugh or not. However the book simply due to its subject matter and unapologetic stance is fascinating reading.

It starts out with his learning to appreciate food during a trip to France his family took when he was young. He, by his own admission wasn't a very amenable child on the trip - insisting on hamburgers the whole way. Until he got left out of a restaurant. Then he started trying everything - simply ordering the most bizarre things he could for shock value. The desire to shock has clearly continued through his life.

He sort of fell into cooking, starting out as a dishwasher in a holiday resort town - and again that very unlikeable side of him - the arrogant swaggerer was his downfall. So he went off to cooking school - the inappropriately named CIA to learn more and to show them at the restaurant he had been humiliated at just what he was worth after all! So he did become a cook, and now a chef, and that arrogance remains - in fact it seems it is what gets someone through Cooking school and to survive in kitchens - which don't sound very glamorous. At one stage he talks about one team of cooks he was with who would re-enact scenes from "Apocalypse Now" before starting cooking each night. And that to me really best sums up the kitchen scenes he describes - a battle-ground. He certainly links it with aa army mentality himself - the slang alone - if not the sheer volume of organisation involved.

He even takes us through one of his days (unenviable). I wouldn't have thought it would make that great reading - lots of lists of things he has to do - but it is fascinating reading. Not the least because he writes about his mistakes as well as his triumphs.

His life and career didn't carve a traditional path, but even in the periods where he was a strung-out dope fiend the writing is more about restaurants and the restaurant trade. And it is a very sharp insider view.

Not that I ever wanted to be a chef, but I certainly don't want to be one now. I can't imagine Julia Child cooking in this kind of kitchen - maybe she was as foul-mouthed as they are. Bourdain does admit that not all kitchens are like his although I think maybe most of them might be. There are a lot of egos in cooking after all.

However this book is more than a outing for egos. It is also a food memoir and it works very well as that. Bourdain loves food and shares his memories of favourite foods, recipes and moments well. Recommended!

KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL did not disappoint. I laughed all the way through the book and learned a lot along the way. Think Hunter Thompson, drugs and all, writing about the restaurant business.

I learned that running a restaurant is not for the faint of heart. Just hauling all the bloody meat carcasses around would be enough to turn your stomach. Learning to carve the beef, fish, poultry and lamb would put me off the job right away. The pressure of turning out 600+ dinners in an evening is daunting.

Paying the bills, keeping the nut-case employees happy, knowing which Italian family currently controls disposal of waste, and trying to stay on top of the ever changing and always fickle American palette is enough to make anyone's head spin.

The leveling factor, or so it seems, is chemicals -- and lots of them. I don't think Bourdain has drawn a completely sober breath since he first stepped into a commercial kitchen at the Dreadnaught in Provincetown, Cape Cod. When they weren't drinking up profits from the Dreadnaught's bar, they were high on coke, LSD, mushrooms laced with honey, and finally, heroin.

As Bourdain explains:

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.

After reading this riotous tale, I've made some changes in my dining out behaviors. I will not eat fish on Mondays. I won't "do brunch." I will schedule my dining excursions for weekdays, not weekends. I will never order anything well done and I won't insult the chef by asking for sauce "on the side." I will sit at the bar and watch what comes out of the kitchen before ordering. I will skip lunch and save my appetite for dinner. Also, on my next trip to New York, I will make reservations Bourdain's restaurant, Brasserie Les Halles...for Tuesday night, of course!

If you want to know WHY I've changed my routines, read this book. You'll learn some interesting facts and chances are, you'll laugh a lot during the process.

Enjoy!

The book is a funny, multi-dimensional, personal journey of a talented chef through cuisine's netherworld. Although some reviewers disliked the frenetic style, it was resonant with the frenetic pace of restaurant kitchens. Kitchen Confidential is not only a fast-paced page-turner, but, indeed, it was one of the few books that I was sorry to see end. Bourdain is a marvelous writer ... conversational and witty.

Amazon tells us that Bourdain has two novels in the pipeline ... I can't wait until they are formally published. I also hope that he gives us a Kitchen Confidential redux ... a more extended view from the culinary peaks, to complement this book's story of his climb.

First of all, I've dined at Mssr. Bourdain's restaurant, Brasserie Les Halles, on two ocassions. Next, I dine out for something like 80% of my meals; I *can* cook, I *enjoy cooking*, but it's not time- nor cost-effective right now, so I'm at the mercy of the people in the back of the house. Finally, I'm genuinely fascinated by what goes on back there. This book is truly gripping, and I don't hand that term out lightly.

Don't read this book on a full stomach; the tales of infidelity, questionable kitchen practices, NYC sanitation, mafioso and the hooligans back there will put you off your dinner like rotting cabbage. For Foodies, this book is a little like standing in the grocery store line and reading the headlines of the Weekly World News; it seems a tad over-the-top, but there's just enough plausiblity to make it morbidly compelling.

If you have ever been in the industry and been burned (yes, really burned) by a chef or "broiler boy," you will live in the pages with Bourdain. I have recommended this to every friend I have from the field, as there is a certain kinship that occurs with your fellow garcons, chefs, managers, etc. and Bourdain brings all of those tales to you on a beautiful plate to feast upon.

And it by far is the best book on my night table this year.

Cheers and Salut!

For anyone who was, is now or is just contemplating working in the madness that is the food service industry, PLEASE read this.

My favorite chapter: "What I Know About Meat."

Keep 'em coming, Tony!

The story of Bourdain's path from delinquent to chef is interesting enough. The stories he tells about his misadventures as a young, arrogant, clueless jerk in his first kitchens are honestly and hilariously put forth. He doesn't spare himself, especially in one episode when he tells of working in a hard-core kitchen and getting burned on a frying pan, and whining to the other cooks that he needs burn creme. Their scornful and contemptous replies are just the kind of experience that beats sense into a man, as it did to Bourdain. He learned to be as rough and rude as those around him, and as he describes the kitchens he's worked in, that is PLENTY rude.

When Bourdain is describing the restaurant business he's just as funny and interesting. Whether he's describing why most restaurants fail (look at the owners) or why bartenders and chefs tend to become close friends (free drinks = free food) or why you should NEVER eat the seafood frittatas at a Sunday brunch (read the book to find out) it's always a blast to read. He's not just a treasure trove of neat stories. He's also an extremely talented writer, mean, profane, hilarious.

Some of the criticism levelled at this book is that Bourdain is only describing the restaurants he's worked at, not the industry as a whole. And Bourdain does address this in a chapter of his book when he describes the kitchen of a three-star chef working at an exquisite restaurant, which is as different from Bourdain's kitchens as an all-girl's school is to a maximum-security prison. It still doesn't detract from the pleasure you get from reading about his experiences.

I read and re-read this book like three times on my honeymoon, which should give you an idea of how much I liked it (it gave my wife ideas, like how bad a concussion I'd have if she brained me with it). I have a healthly fear of flying, but reading this book kept my nice and calm on the flight down. For that I gratefully thank Mr. Bourdain. His book was entertaining enough to push the terror from my mind. And from me, that is high praise indeed.

The overriding message of the book is the same I have seen in all books written from the inside. Cooking in a busy restaurant kitchen, especially for the executive chef working the line or the expediting table is very, very hard work. Looking in from the outside, it is so hard, it is sometimes hard for me to appreciate how anyone would actually want to do it, let alone revel in it. This is especially true because we are not talking about Daniel Boulud or Charlie Trotter here. Bourdain may have been considered a `master chef', but he was in charge of the kitchen in a relatively undistinguished New York City brassiere lookalike. He is not creating new cuisine at his job, he is recreating classic French cuisine in a restaurant named after a famous French market. Not very much room for improvisation here.

Bourdain's tales of his early career are an enjoyable first course, but the real meat of the matter is in his tales of New York City restaurants behind the scenes. His trademark revelation is the fact that, in general, the fish served by restaurants on Monday is left over from deliveries made on Friday, but his most interesting stories revolve around a real restaurant owner whose identity Bourdain hides with the nom de guerre of `Bigfoot'. Bigfoot succeeds in the very difficult restaurant business with a passionate attention to the details of purchasing, chef's operations, and kitchen design.

My favorite story is the one of an artisinal bread starter, sometimes known as a poolish or sponge maintained by a singularly irresponsible baker who, with fermented hunks of this sponge made some of the best bread to be found in five states, including New York City. The introduction to this character is a desperate call to Bourdain in the middle of service from the baker requesting that someone in the kitchen feed the sponge. The name he gave the sponge would probably not make it through Amazon.com's automated review censor. I had no sense of what the role of this kind of sponge played in bread baking when I first read this, but after having read several books on artisinal bread baking, I appreciate the humor and irony even more than I did on first reading.

I have read many books on the culinary world since I first read `Kitchen Confidential' and most of the names like Rippert, Bouley, and Luongo unfamiliar to me on first reading are now counted as spiritual intimates. This makes Bourdain's book the sort of work which rewards rereading after two or three years have passed.

This book may be a classic in the very small field of culinary journalism.

The characters, events and emotions that he relates are real. His ability to show it as it is, and not pull any punches, is admirable. So many "civialians" go out to eat and never realize the dedication and struggle that is involved in getting that plate to the table, nor should they. He is shamelessly showning you a world that touches everyone and yet is never revealed. This is not the world of floppy hatted clowns with oversized bellies, but the world of dedicated professionals who toil endlessly under severe conditions to provide you, and themselves, with the joys of food. This book should be required reading for anyone who aspires to be a chef or restaraunteur.

Bourdain's story is entertaining, fast-paced, profane, funny, iconoclastic (at least if you like celebrity TV chefs), revealing, occasionally nauseating, deeply personal ... and probably a lot more fun to read about than to have lived through. You won't look at restaurant food the same way again. Sure, you may be more suspicious about what it is you're really being served. But more importantly (to Bourdain anyway, I suspect), you'll have greater understanding and respect for the people who prepared it. The seamy underside of the restaurant world is the most headline-grabbing part of the book, but the real value comes from the author's own experiences, his revelation of the life of an NYC chef, and his obvious love of great food prepared well.

At the same time, though, it seemed to me like there's a little bit of bait-and-switch to it. Bourdain spends the whole book talking about the manic, hard-rock, drug-driven, frenetic, foul-mouthed, take-no-prisoners world of the professional chef, laying it all on the line for us: this is what it's really like. And then, in one chapter, he pulls the rug out from under himself with his profile of Scott Bryan, another New York chef who, Bourdain admits, is night-and-day different from our author, and also more knowledgeable, more respected, and more successful. It's to his immense credit that Bourdain is absolutely up front with us about why Bryan is a three-star chef and he isn't.

I plan to read Bourdain's other non-fiction work and his two novels. This soul-baring book has put Anthony Bourdain on my list of authors I definitely plan to keep an eye on.

For a kitchen novice like me, the book is illuminating. Bourdain shifts nicely between his own escapades in the business and general point of interest stories about people he has known and restaurants he has worked in. He also tries to explain to the uninformed things that everyone should know about dining out, such as never order fish on a Monday (read the book to find out why) and exactly what a sous-chef is. The book's reputation is that it is causing a bit of a scandal among those who are in the industry, but if that's true than it only adds to the enjoyment, like being let in on big secrets. I would think that those in the industry would enjoy it even more than the average lay person, but to each his own.

Another nice little effect is appreciation for what actually goes on inside a restaurant beyond what the customer may see. It's a revelation as to just how hard these people have to work and all they have to do in preparation, which is sometimes so complicated it takes one or two re-reads of Bourdain's "Day in the Life" chapter to fully comprehend. The other fringe benefit is the various restaurants that Bourdain does refer to as being worthwhile. I can only imagine that it would be great fun to use the book as a guide and eat at as many of these places as possible, assuming that they still exist.

One word of caution: by necessity, there is a lot of explicit (but honest) language and situations. I only say this because it might give some people pause, but in its defense it is also factual and detailed reporting. Bourdain isn't trying to hide the dark side of the restaurant business and there is no need that he should. The passage which serves as an interpreter's guide to kitchen speak is one of the funniest in the book.

Amateur chef, gourmand, or just an average person with an eye towards the finer aspects of the culinary world, Kitchen Confidential is one book you will be sorry you missed if you don't read it.

The most interesting chapter of the book is the "From Our Kitchen to Your Table" section, where Bourdain confirms many of your worst fears about restaurant dining. Some things I took away from this chapter include the advice never to order fish on a Monday (it is most likely at its least fresh state, having been delivered the previous Thursday to cover the weekend orders), never order your meat well-done (you are pretty well insuring that the chef is going to treat you to the absolute worst cut, figuring you won't notice the difference since it will be dry anyway), and don't be so sure that the bread the waiter or busboy brings when you sit down went straight from the oven to your table (it likely was recycled from another table who didn't eat it).

Bourdain is an engaging writer with a great wit. I was rarely bored during my reading of "Kitchen Confidential". If, however, you are one who is easily offended by coarse language, consider yourself forewarned that this book has a lot of it. I personally wasn't offended by the language, but I did find myself occasionally annoyed when Bourdain would go overboard in describing what a wild and crazy lifestyle he's led. Bourdain would often go on and on about all of the drugs he's done, how much he drinks and how tough and macho he acted in this situation or that situation. There is something inherently off-putting about someone constantly boasting about what a "bad-boy" he is. To Bourdain's credit, he can also be self-deprecating, particularly in the humorous story about how a dumb misunderstanding on his part during a job interview caused him to lose a great opportunity at an upscale steakhouse. Bourdain also devotes an entire chapter to a fellow, more successful, chef and explains the differences between the two of them that make this so. Overall, a very entertaining book that is easy to recommend.