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| Kitchen Confidential Updated Ed: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly (P.S.) | 
 enlarge | Author: Anthony Bourdain
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
Buy Used: $6.70
You Save: $9.25 (58%)
New (36) Used (46) Collectible (1) from $6.70
Avg. Customer Rating:  584 reviews
Sales Rank: 548
Media: Paperback
Edition: Updated
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.9
ISBN: 0060899220
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.5092
EAN: 9780060899226
ASIN: 0060899220
Publication Date: January 9, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
you gotta love the food July 7, 2000
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is a very enjoyable but not perfect book. Some of the best and funniest pages [on a day in the life of a chef] appeared earlier in "The New Yorker" but there are other wonderful chapters on such topics as how the author as a child embraced good food for the first time, and on adapting New York-based French bistro fare to the demands of the Tokyo market. The chapters on chefs the author admires are also excellent. He is very impressive when he discusses the goodness of the food that some chefs deliver on a regular basis and on the global origins of the kitchen staffs in so many eating places. On the other hand, a firm editor would have pushed for a reduction in the space given to the nefarious lifestyles of, apparently, a significant percentage of people the author has met in his years in the cooking business. And, while on the subject of editing: The copy-editing/printing glitches in this book are among the worst I have seen; not just typos but words left out and other problems. In this area, the author was not well-served by the publisher [don't leave even a 5 percent tip]. These problems notwithstanding, the overall tone of the author, a combination of confidence and self-deprecation, is enormously appealing, as appealing as some of the better dishes and cooking techniques he describes.
A slice of life told from the pit of the stomach July 5, 2000
18 out of 19 found this review helpful
Although not a universally likeable book by any estimation, Bourdain's narrative voice, as crass and straightforward as one would believe the man himself to be, is definitely endearing. He makes few attempts to describe for the lay person the many digestibles he hints at in the book, relying on the wit and sheer perusability of the rest of his work to grasp the reader. And it does, for over 300 pages. Kitchen Confidential is a must read for anyone remotely affiliated with the hospitality industry and well worth reading for those with at least a passing interest in the inner-workings of the kitchen from hiring to the way to make one's purveyors arrive on time. A person with generally no knowledge of fine cuisine will find the first half of the book fine, but the second half less friendly as it delves into the more specific nuts and bolts of the restaurant business. The book is really part culinary textbook, part biography, with a few eye-catching treks into hedonism. It's uneven in parts, but this is altogether in keeping with the life of Bourdain, as the reader will come to find.
 The Hunter Thompson of the Chef Set! July 3, 2000
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
I read Anthony Bourdain's hilarious article in THE NEW YORKER magazine last year and couldn't wait to read more about his years spent in the bowels of some of New York's finest restaurants. KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL did not disappoint. I laughed all the way through the book and learned a lot along the way. Think Hunter Thompson, drugs and all, writing about the restaurant business. I learned that running a restaurant is not for the faint of heart. Just hauling all the bloody meat carcasses around would be enough to turn your stomach. Learning to carve the beef, fish, poultry and lamb would put me off the job right away. The pressure of turning out 600+ dinners in an evening is daunting. Paying the bills, keeping the nut-case employees happy, knowing which Italian family currently controls disposal of waste, and trying to stay on top of the ever changing and always fickle American palette is enough to make anyone's head spin. The leveling factor, or so it seems, is chemicals -- and lots of them. I don't think Bourdain has drawn a completely sober breath since he first stepped into a commercial kitchen at the Dreadnaught in Provincetown, Cape Cod. When they weren't drinking up profits from the Dreadnaught's bar, they were high on coke, LSD, mushrooms laced with honey, and finally, heroin. As Bourdain explains: So who the hell, exactly, ARE these guys, the boys and girls in the trenches? You might get the impression from the specifics of MY less than stellar career that all line cooks are wacked-out moral degenerates, dope fiends, refugees, a thuggish assortment of drunks, sneak thieves, sluts and psychopaths. You wouldn't be too far off base. After reading this riotous tale, I've made some changes in my dining out behaviors. I will not eat fish on Mondays. I won't "do brunch." I will schedule my dining excursions for weekdays, not weekends. I will never order anything well done and I won't insult the chef by asking for sauce "on the side." I will sit at the bar and watch what comes out of the kitchen before ordering. I will skip lunch and save my appetite for dinner. Also, on my next trip to New York, I will make reservations Bourdain's restaurant, Brasserie Les Halles...for Tuesday night, of course! If you want to know WHY I've changed my routines, read this book. You'll learn some interesting facts and chances are, you'll laugh a lot during the process. Enjoy!
a jolly good read, funny, informative June 30, 2000
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
If you caught one of Bourdain's interviews on the standard book-flogging tour, it probably emphasized the restaurateur expose nature of this book--- how restaurants recycle old fish, old bread, etc. Kitchen Confidential is much more than that. Bourdain gives us an interesting view of what it is like to be a professional cook, from the job itself, to the working environment, to the often insane denizens of the kitchens of New York's restaurants. The narrative is loosely autobiographical, with Bourdain sharing his often screamingly hilarious experiences and telling us what he learned from them. If you enjoyed Bourdain's interviews, you are really going to enjoy this book, because he is even more likable and funny in his writings, even though he and those he was worked with are far from perfect human beings.If you like reading this kind of nuts and bolts narrative of life in a misunderstood profession, I also recommend Linda Greenlaw's book The Hungry Ocean. Same great stories, same sort of crazed non-politically correct cast, same clear and interesting writing except that it is about the commercial fishing industry.
Knife-sharp wit in the Kitchen June 29, 2000
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
Having been a fan of Bourdain's books for years, I was thrilled to find Kitchen Confidential. I loved his behind-the-scenes revelations and laughed out loud more times than I can count. I found his remarks about Emeril Lagasse hilarious. I was thinking while I read this book that I felt like I was right there throughout his many restaurant jobs. His writing style is superb and loaded with caustic wit. Anthony, this book deserves an encore!
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