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Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly | 
 enlarge | Author: Anthony Bourdain
Publisher: Random House Audio
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
Buy Used: $8.75
You Save: $11.20 (56%)
New (25) Used (13) from $8.75
Avg. Customer Rating:  576 reviews
Sales Rank: 71023
Format: Audiobook, Unabridged
Media: Audio CD
Edition: Unabridged
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 6.1 x 5.4 x 1.3
ISBN: 073933235X
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.5092
EAN: 9780739332351
ASIN: 073933235X
Publication Date: October 11, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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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
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 the appetizer into a deliciously funny, delectably shocking banquet that lays out his twenty-five years of sex, drugs, and haute cuisine.
From his first oyster in Gironda 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 and wonderfully read, wild-but-true tales make the belly ache with laughter.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 571 more reviews...
 A Must Read November 24, 2008
Kitchen Confidential is a must read for anyone who has ever set foot in the backrooms of a restaurant. Bourdain captures the environment with all its stresses, off-colored language and cooking pride. Kitchen Confidential reads similar to a feature on VH1's Behind the Music as Bourdain battles with his own demons and finds success after many years of debauchery. I have been a fan of Bourdain's No Reservation on the Travel Channel for quite awhile and now as an author. The book lead me to another Bourdain project called the Les Halles Cookbook which has inspired me to spend more time in the favorite room of my house, the kitchen. Thank you, Tony!
Awesome! November 23, 2008
I had such a fun time reading this book! I think the afterword was lame...make no apologies Bourdain!
Brings Back Memories October 31, 2008
It has been over 20 years since I worked in the restaurant business, but reading Bourdain's book brought back a lot of memories of what the business and the many characters who inhabit it are like. I found Bourdain's book to be very entertaining and reflects much of what I remember about the world of food preparation and service. Bourdain's management style is quite different from my own and I am not sure that I would want to work for the guy, (or have him work for me), but he is a great writer and accurately depicts the life in the biz.
Oh the Memories! October 31, 2008
I love how Anthony Bourdain can add sophistication to the grueling and raw life hidden behind the walls of our favorite resurtants. I worked in a kitchen growing up and it's amazing how universal some of his stories and lessons truely are! I LOVED IT!
A great read! October 13, 2008
It's amazing where writing talent is found. I originally discovered Bourdain via his "Les Halles Cookbook" -- one of the funniest cookbooks I have ever read. And then slowly, I began to remember -- hadn't this same guy written an earlier book, much more scandalous?
Well, this is that earlier book. You may not care for the tales it tells, or think very highly of the author, but the man writes like a god! Most of his best jokes are on himself, and all of the wimped-out sissy mistakes he made on the way to becoming a member of The Brotherhood, and its storyteller.
One of his bottom lines: "This stuff is EASY. My cooks are all recent immigrants from Latin America who had never tasted anything better than a taco in their lives. If they can learn, so can you."
It is also, for me, quite amazing to really sit back and think about a gang of five or six guys who actually manage to serve dinner to 600 people! Not once, but day in and day out! For this, you don't want no inspiration, you are not in the market for genius, man, you are a member of the freeping army/ballet corps, and everything depends on precise execution of tasks you have done a kazillion times before. (Oops, I slipped into quasi-Bourdain mode there.)
This book is really a lot better than Orwell's pretentious "Down and Out in Paris in London," especially when you learn that Orwell was basically a middle-class guy who volunteered to go slumming, and left when he got tired of it. This is not the case with Bourdain. This is HIS LIFE, and I for one really appreciate his gusto, his zest, and his willingness to work hard for what he wants.
Enjoy, enjoy (and don't order fish from a restaurant on Monday!)
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