Billed as an exposé of the restaurant business, Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential indeed lifts the skirt to reveal the disturbing support hose of the food-service industry: the cast of unsavory line cooks preparing the food, the self-deluded owners, the chefs with ninja fantasies.
But it’s as much an autobiography as well, as Bourdain recalls a lifetime spent on the other side of the saute pan. It’s tough to say how many of the frightening things he describes really apply to your neighborhood bistro, and how many are only true in New York’s hypercompetitive restaurant scene, but it’s a heck of a read anyway.
In one entertaining and enlightening chapter, Bourdain dissects the various delusions suffered by would-be restauranteurs, handily explaining why 80% of new such enterprises fail. This is required reading for anyone who has ever heard, and begun to believe the exclamation, “You’re a great cook! You should open a restaurant.” Bourdain’s implicit advice: no, you shouldn’t.
He explains why he never orders steak well-done or “discount sushi.” Some of his anecdotes on the horrors of commercial food prep are repulsive, among them this visual gem: “Equally disturbing is the likelihood that the butter used in the hollandaise is melted table butter, heated, clarified and strained to get out all the bread crumbs and cigarette butts.”
The lifestyle of an executive chef requires an inhuman dedication — or, perhaps, it seems this way to me because I’d be poorly suited to the task. Bourdain recounts a representative “day in the life,” which seems fueled by stress, aspirin, cigarettes, caffeine, and threats. It is fascinating to learn how the chef juggles suppliers, personnel, reputation, and diners’ expectations to come up with a nightly menu of specials that not only meet all these disparate and contradictory needs, but also accomodate the limitations of the kitchen: who on the line will have enough hands and burners free to prepare these dishes?
I enjoyed this book so much that after I read it I kept it handy for another week, rereading favorite passages. A copy of this book belongs on every foodie’s bookshelf.
Patronize these links, man:
posted to area: Non-Fiction
updated: 2004-04-19 03:10:38
