Personally, I recognized only the ones I’d seen before on MasterChef.Īnother aspect the author has a strong opinion on is “Who should start a restaurant?”. If you are not an American or European native, prepare to be bombarded by words that will have you wondering if the author is describing a foodstuff or a biological specimen. The book works because the author has a genuine and unfiltered view of the culinary world in the Eastern United States. This is the more logistical and informative part of the book and the narrative element is of less importance here. Often the grueling nature of their employment leaves them stuck and grinding away at the same role for years at a time.Įven accounting for the author’s bias, you’d find similar situations in kitchens across the globe.Ībout two-thirds into the book, the author does a run-through of his role and responsibility at Les Halles. This leads to a sort of sedimentation effect where the members of the kitchen have a similar lifestyle. It seems that only those who’ve exhausted all other opportunities or never had access to saner forms of employment default to cooking as a profession. The book does get a bit repetitive as there is not enough variation in the kind of people Bourdain encounters or hires.Īll of them have some combination of money problems, drug addictions, dubious nationality and struggle with horniness.Īccording to the author, these are the only ones able to survive in the grimy world of professional cooking. Preparing food is always center stage, but the kinds of people that gravitate to the profession are unimaginable for us ‘civilians’.

However, as the book progresses, it becomes grubbier and darker. It brings to mind a vivid but pleasant picture of a simpler time. His first experience of eating a freshly caught oyster and, in that moment realizing the beauty of food is what really sells the rest of the book. The young lad has no experience with gourmet food and is a picky eater in the mecca for gourmands. The book starts off well, with young Tony vacationing with his parents in France. We start with how Bourdain discovered his love for food, onto his first professional experience, followed by a semi-formal education and finally his time as head chef at the Les Halles restaurant in Manhattan, New York. The book’s “courses” focus on different parts of Bordon’s professional career as cook and then a chef. A recollection of memories by a celebrity chef before the celebrity, Kitchen Confidential tries to be a curt guide and a memoir, achieving only mild success in both.

Kitchen confidential book review