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Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
by: Anthony Bourdain

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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.5092
EAN: 9780060934910
ISBN: 0060934913
Label: Harper Perennial
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: May 01, 2001
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Release Date: May 08, 2001
Sales Rank: 36722
Studio: Harper Perennial

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Editorial Review:

Product Description:

When Chef Anthony Bourdain wrote 'Don't Eat Before You Read This' in The New Yorker, he spared no one's appetite, revealing what goes on behind the kitchen door.In Kitchen Confidential, he expanded that appetizer into a deliciously funny, delectable shocking banquet that lays out his 25 years of sex, drugs, and haute cuisine.

From his first oyster in the Gironde to the kitchen of the Rainbow Room atop Rockefeller Center, from the restaurants of Tokyo to the drug dealers of the East Village, from the mobsters to the rats, Bourdain's brilliantly written, wild-but-true tales make the belly ache with laughter.

Amazon.com Review:
Most diners believe that their sublime sliver of seared foie gras, topped with an ethereal buckwheat blini and a drizzle of piquant huckleberry sauce, was created by a culinary artist of the highest order, a sensitive, highly refined executive chef. The truth is more brutal. More likely, writes Anthony Bourdain in Kitchen Confidential, that elegant three-star concoction is the collaborative effort of a team of 'wacked-out moral degenerates, dope fiends, refugees, a thuggish assortment of drunks, sneak thieves, sluts, and psychopaths,' in all likelihood pierced or tattooed and incapable of uttering a sentence without an expletive or a foreign phrase. Such is the muscular view of the culinary trenches from one who's been groveling in them, with obvious sadomasochistic pleasure, for more than 20 years. CIA-trained Bourdain, currently the executive chef of the celebrated Les Halles, wrote two culinary mysteries before his first (and infamous) New Yorker essay launched this frank confessional about the lusty and larcenous real lives of cooks and restaurateurs. He is obscenely eloquent, unapologetically opinionated, and a damn fine storyteller--a Jack Kerouac of the kitchen. Those without the stomach for this kind of joyride should note his opening caveat: 'There will be horror stories. Heavy drinking, drugs, screwing in the dry-goods area, unappetizing industry-wide practices. Talking about why you probably shouldn't order fish on a Monday, why those who favor well-done get the scrapings from the bottom of the barrel, and why seafood frittata is not a wise brunch selection.... But I'm simply not going to deceive anybody about the life as I've seen it.' --Sumi Hahn

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- It Is Anthony
I like Bourdain on his tv shows. He has a bit of arrogance and holier than thou attitude, but if you watch aot of it is persona more than actuality, and he really is insightful, humorous and entertaining.

This book is just the same with the same qualities. Yes, to some degree he can vcome acroos a bit roguh but ultimately this book is humorous, entertaining and eye opening. Have there been other, probably better, expose on thee business? Of course but that does not mean this book is not good in its own right.

Some of the things are dsiturbing, but most things about restaurants can be. I know I ejoyed this and my cousin, who has sepnt many years in the restaurant business, enjoed it as well when we were discussing books.

Rating:

- Fiendishly delightful
By all accounts, this should be a lousy book. The life story of a middle-aged, former substance-abusing, self-described SOB and good-but-not-great chef. In the hands of most people, this would be a rambling, uninteresting memoir that would never see the light of day. The fact that Bourdain pulls it off so brilliantly speaks to his ability as a writer and his unpretentious, anti-hero personality.

This book made Bourdain famous, but ironically I found this book because he is famous. I enjoy his TV show, and I happened to see this book in the bookstore so I picked it up. As I was paying for it, the cashier mentioned that she'd just bought it for a friend for Christmas and couldn't stop reading it herself. That added to my already-present optimism that this would be a good read.

Bourdain presents a fascinating glimpse into the world of cooking, as seen through the filter of his own experience. ... Read More

Rating:

- Entertaining, Hyperbole or Not
Whether or not this account is 100% factual, it IS 100% entertaining, provided one has the stomach for such debauchery. Sure, there's a bit of "Hey, look at me!" but it takes a healthy share of that to even bother writing down one's memoirs. If Chef Bourdain is to be believed, it takes that same well-fed ego to become a chef, so it's hardly unexpected.

As someone who can barely scramble an egg without courting disaster, I found it fascinating. Many friends who have WORKED in the cooking industry (not just attended culinary school and aspired to Bourdain's status), have touted its accuracy, so who am I to question?

Rating:

- Fun, but no "must read" for aspiring chefs
When I started culinary school, I was told that this book was a "must read" for anyone who wanted to be a chef. I bought it, but never read it. Finally, this year, I decided to bust through it. While it is fairly enjoyable, I hardly think it is a "must read" for any aspiring chef.

Maybe I got lucky, but my experience working in restaurants is nothing like what Bourdain described. Maybe it's because I'm not in New York City, and maybe it's because it's no longer the 1980s, but the freakish work environment he described is pretty out of date. Besides, let's keep in mind that Bourdain never worked in the finest kitchens in NYC: he's a bistro cook. Sure, restaurant kitchens may still be a bit more "crude" than the professional offices of their patrons, but they're not the oozing dens of sin that Bourdain tries to describe. Read the book for the entertainment value, but remember that this is really just him ... Read More

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