Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
4 Stars
I’ve said here on occasion how much I enjoy watching shows on the Food Network and learning about all things culinary. I’ve often watched one of Anthony Bourdain’s original Travel Channel shows, No Reservations, with curiosity at his bold adventures and amusement at his crass New Yorker attitude. He’s become more and more controversial recently, but I’ve found his outspoken personality and vast knowledge of all things food to be admirable.
Bourdain’s first non-fiction book, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, is a perfect primer to get to know Bourdain himself, but also the ins-and-outs of the culinary world. The book alternates between the story of his career and what felt like a crash course in the world of working as a restaurant chef.
Early in the book, Bourdain includes a chapter about restaurant practices and cleanliness. He instructs the reader on tips of when to not eat fish in restaurants and different ways to tell if a restaurant is clean. While interesting and eye-opening, it was fairly disturbing and made me wary of eating in a restaurant.
Bourdain is infamous for his harsh and colorful language, which is quite prevalent throughout the book. I was not offended by the language, but rather felt that it brought life to his writing and highlighted not only is rough personality, but the true grittiness of the culinary business. As I read, I imagined his voice narrating just as he does in his television show, and hearing that voice made the narration come alive even more.
The only part I did not appreciate was Bourdain’s brief bashing of Baltimore. At one point in his career, his boss asked him to temporarily move to Baltimore to open a sister restaurant, and Bourdain didn’t find the city to be up his standards. Baltimore might not have the sophisticated culinary reputation of New York, but I thought it was unfair for Bourdain to generalize without actually getting out and exploring. Baltimore has class and charm and if he had looked closely, he would have found that Baltimore does have some pretty amazing food.
Overall, Kitchen Confidential was an entertaining and educational look at the world of being a restaurant chef. Bourdain’s chops as a writer are clearly up to par with his talent as a chef and I look forward to reading his other books.
Kitchen Confidential was published in 2000 by Bloomsbury Publishing.
