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Description
A deliciously funny, delectably shocking banquet of wild-but-true tales of life in the culinary trade from Chef Anthony Bourdain, laying out his more than a quarter-century of drugs, sex, and haute cuisine—now with all-new, never-before-published material. Read more
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Top Amazon Reviews
Format: Hardcover
Tony Bourdain is a smart, witty, funny, and deeply twisted individual, and is also a first-rate writer whose non-fiction is as entertaining and expressive as any novel I have ever read. I first became aware of Tony through his cable television show "No Reservations" (which is the only television show that I go out of my way to see each week.) I immediately bought this book after seeing the episode on Icelandic cuisine, as I thought he was intelligent yet not another insufferable food snob. He is a man who wants to try everything and has absolutely no fear or prejudices about food and excels at telling it like it is. This book recounts his life and career rising to the top of the pack in the culinary world. It is a deeply personal and unvarnished look at the world of big-league professional food, and is full of insights on both food and the restaurant business. When I was younger I worked as a line cook in a relatively nice restaurant. Although my experience was somewhat less frenetic and more sanitary than the scene in New York, I can certainly attest that the cast of characters (and their flaws) revealed in this book is right on the money. One thing I like about Bourdain and this book is that he tells the truth even when it's ugly. He explains why, for instance, not to order meat well done or why not to even think about ordering fish on Monday. (He's right on both accounts.) He doesn't dodge his own past when others would fail to mention diversionary activities such as a heroin addiction, and even though he comes across as cantankerous, he is a guy you can take at his word. Some of this book is pure gold, not just for cooks and would be chefs, but for everyone. His writing ("Rules to Live By," page 64, and "A Commencement Address," page 293 in particular) is excellent and applies to any profession. He also shares many inside secrets of Les Halles (and other restaurants he has worked at), of winning "mise-en-place" (or just "meez;" people who really want to cook professionally should take this to heart), and technical opinions (why and how to use an offset serrated knife.) This book is coarse and not for the faint of heart, but if you really want to know about cooking or cooks, it is the best (and funniest) single volume ever written. I highly recommend this book
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Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2006 by Robert I. Hedges
Format: Kindle
Kitchen Confidential is Anthony Bourdain’s break-out book and memoir of his twenty-five years working in the restaurant business, mostly in New York City. Published before his second career as a TV personality and world traveler (most notably on the Travel Channel’s No Reservations) it is a candid depiction of one man’s life following his passion, and his desires. It is a gritty, grubby, way-honest, depiction of life as a restaurant worker that tells of sex, drugs, and cooking, at a level of which many of us would not dream. At least, most of us wouldn’t imagine that the life in restaurant kitchens is really the way this book describes it. It is evident, though, that what the book depicts is restaurant life as Mr. Bourdain experienced it. He makes no bones about his own biases and proclivities for walking on the wild side that color his story. Such honesty and introspection make this far more than a book about cooking. Kitchen Confidential is well written and it maintained my interest even though I’m not into cooking. Anyone who is will certainly get much from it, but I was drawn mostly from having watched Mr. Bourdain on TV and connecting with his love of travel and of good food. Because his book is more about the larger issues of life than cooking, it touched me on an existential level much as a movie about baseball would that is about more than baseball (e.g., Field of Dreams). Mr. Bourdain begins his story by recounting his encounters with good food as a child. Tasting vichyssoise and a raw oyster for the first time, struck him as experiences beyond just eating. They were examples of highs that could be reached by an ardent thrill-seeker. They also laid the groundwork that made his landing a job as restaurant dishwasher an inciting incident that he pursued to eventually become a line cook and later a chef. I was really struck with the level of testosterone-driven, debauchery and near-criminality he describes in the restaurant kitchen. It’s more like what I would expect on a construction site. Actually, there may be similarities. Several of the book’s chapters are devoted to characters Mr. Bourdain encountered in his restaurant career. These tended to be drug addicts, thieves, hedonists, and criminals, though many had a passion, or just the sheer aptitude, for either cooking or working in a professional kitchen. As contradictory as that sounds, it seems as if such environments are persistently common in the restaurant world. At least that’s what Mr. Bourdain avers and I take him as an authority. This kitchen “underbelly” was attractive to Mr. Bourdain, and he describes it as one he understood and in which he thrived. It led him to some bad decisions and some bad addictions. He is very candid about the loose lifestyle that left him with a heroin addiction. Even so, it is clear that his love of the culinary arts kept him going, and that it drives many of those workers who might skip out on rent payments but are able to produce the most divine of, say, baked breads. Indeed, in describing his life when he had reached the level of chef and kitchen commander, Mr. Bourdain gives us a compelling and intense vision of what that life is like. In fact, he almost goes too far in describing a typical day for him. Basically, he worked from before-sunup to after midnight to keep his kitchen running. He describes mind-numbing activity, dealing with the problems and personnel threatening his mission to get good food to customers, juggling a thousand variables. His description carries long (”A Day in the Life”), but being the good author he was, his description served to highlight points he makes later. Seeing things, even his own life, from a higher perspective, he was able to appreciate and admire someone who did things differently from him and still achieve success (”The Life of Bryan”). Also, towards the end of the book, he further nails his love of sensation and travel—experiencing the exotic— that led to his second, televised, career (”Mission to Tokyo”). Anthony Bourdain’s literary and video work is not for everyone, but for many, including me, he remains an inspiration. In Kitchen Confidential we see, not only his love for culinary art, but his love for creativity (he often said that he considered himself a storyteller). Despite all the debauchery, bad attitudes, bad decisions, and chasing highs, he was a lover of life and squeezed every sensational drop from it. An excellent writer, he was able to step back from his own life and observe it, pulling lessons from its episodes. Kitchen Confidential was the watershed of Mr. Bourdain’s life, marking the end of his chef career and the beginning of his traveler-personality career. At the book’s close, though, he didn’t seem to anticipating that second act. It is to our good fortune and inspiration that there was one.
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Reviewed in the United States on June 22, 2018 by Ray F
Format: Hardcover
A really good read. Worth it.
Reviewed in the United States on February 12, 2026 by Leslie Gerber