Kitchen Confidential
25th Anniversary Edition
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4.7 • 22 Ratings
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
The classic bestseller from the star of Parts Unknown and No Reservations: 25th Anniversary edition, with a new introduction by Irvine Welsh.
BEFORE THERE WAS THE BEAR, THERE WAS BOURDAIN.
'Elizabeth David written by Quentin Tarantino' A.A. Gill
'Fantastic: as lip-smackingly seductive as a bowl of fat chips and pungent aioli' Daily Telegraph
After twenty-five years of sex, drugs, bad behaviour and haute cuisine, chef and novelist Anthony Bourdain decided to tell all – and he meant all.
From his first oyster in the Gironde as a child, to his lowly position as a dishwasher in a honky-tonk fish restaurant in Provincetown; from the kitchen of the Rainbow Room atop the Rockefeller Center to drug dealers in the East Village, from Tokyo to Paris and back to New York again, Bourdain's tales of the kitchen are as passionate as they are unpredictable, as shocking as they are funny.
Kitchen Confidential will make your mouth water and your belly ache with laughter and leave you wanting more.
'Compelling … with its intriguing mix of clever writing and kitchen patois … more horrifically gripping than a Stephen King novel' Sunday Times
'Extraordinary … written with a clarity and a clear-eyed wit to put the professional food-writing fraternity to shame' Observer
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Chef at New York's Les Halles and author of Bone in the Throat, Bourdain pulls no punches in this memoir of his years in the restaurant business. His fast-lane personality and glee in recounting sophomoric kitchen pranks might be unbearable were it not for two things: Bourdain is as unsparingly acerbic with himself as he is with others, and he exhibits a sincere and profound love of good food. The latter was born on a family trip to France when young Bourdain tasted his first oyster, and his love has only grown since. He has attended culinary school, fallen prey to a drug habit and even established a restaurant in Tokyo, discovering along the way that the crazy, dirty, sometimes frightening world of the restaurant kitchen sustains him. Bourdain is no presentable TV version of a chef; he talks tough and dirty. His advice to aspiring chefs: "Show up at work on time six months in a row and we'll talk about red curry paste and lemon grass. Until then, I have four words for you: `Shut the fuck up.' " He disdains vegetarians, warns against ordering food well done and cautions that restaurant brunches are a crapshoot. Gossipy chapters discuss the many restaurants where Bourdain has worked, while a single chapter on how to cook like a professional at home exhorts readers to buy a few simple gadgets, such as a metal ring for tall food. Most of the book, however, deals with Bourdain's own maturation as a chef, and the culmination, a litany describing the many scars and oddities that he has developed on his hands, is surprisingly beautiful. He'd probably hate to hear it, but Bourdain has a tender side, and when it peeks through his rough exterior and the wall of four-letter words he constructs, it elevates this book to something more than blustery memoir.
Customer Reviews
Loved it
Read it! I could hear his voice in this book. I’m not a huge Bourdain fan but enjoyed the TV shows a lot which lead me to this, only a few years late to read it as have been meaning to for a long time. Such a shame he is no longer with us as his insights are interesting and enjoyable.