Kitchen Confidential
Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential, published in 2000, is the foul mouthed, drug stained memoir that vaulted a working New York chef into the second life of his career as a celebrity writer and television host. The book grew out of a 1999 New Yorker essay, Don't Eat Before Reading This, in which Bourdain advised civilians never to order seafood on a Monday and to assume that brunch was a graveyard for unsalable leftovers. He expanded the essay into a full memoir of his life in the trenches of professional kitchens, beginning with a vivid childhood encounter with raw oysters in France and tracking his rise through dishwashing jobs, cooking school, addiction, dish pit fistfights, ill fated ownership stints, and finally a long tenure as executive chef at Les Halles. Bourdain writes with the tough, romantic voice that would later define his television work, treating restaurant work as a kind of pirate fraternity. The book reset the way Americans talk about chefs.
Where Kitchen Confidential keeps showing up
Two of our editors' lists feature this novel.
What you might want to know about Kitchen Confidential
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Bourdain writes about the line cooks, the dishwashers, the heroin years, and the actual conditions inside Manhattan kitchens. The book that pulled him out of the brigade and onto television.
Yes. Kitchen Confidential is Anthony Bourdain's 2000 memoir about his career in New York restaurant kitchens. The book launched his second career as a writer and television personality, leading to his food-and-travel shows.
Yes. Fox produced a short-lived 2005 sitcom based on the memoir, starring Bradley Cooper. The show was cancelled after four episodes aired. Anthony Bourdain went on to host The Layover, No Reservations, and Parts Unknown.
Kitchen Confidential was written by Anthony Bourdain, published in 2000 by Bloomsbury.
Kitchen Confidential is 320 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Kitchen Confidential takes most readers 5 to 7 hours to finish.
Kitchen Confidential is a standalone novel by Anthony Bourdain, not part of a series.
Kitchen Confidential is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
