Let's talk about the nasty bits.
Published: 2000
Genre: Memoir
CW: Drug Use/Addiction, Alcoholism, Cursing, Sexual Harassment, Homophobia, Suicide
★★★★☆ (4/5)
I should preface this review with the admission that until about a year ago, I knew basically nothing about Anthony Bourdain. I had heard his name before and knew that he was big in the culinary world. But as I have never had much interest in reality TV, that was the extent of my knowledge. It was only after viewing this incredible video essay by Lola Sebastian (which you should definitely watch if you have the time) that I found myself wanting to learn more about the man. And his most well-known memoir seemed the best place to start.
Kitchen Confidential is a difficult book to review, since Bourdain himself would go on to regret most of what he wrote here. This is particularly obvious in this edition, which includes handwritten annotations Bourdain wrote 12 years after the original publication date. It creates a stark contrast between the more inexperienced—I'm hesitant to say 'immature,' considering Bourdain was in his 40s when the book was released—narrator of the main text and the Bourdain that the world would come to know. As he states in the book's introduction, "I never knew shit about shit."
This isn't to say that the book is poorly written. Bourdain's caustic wit shines throughout Kitchen Confidential, and he explains the culinary world of the 1970s through the 1990s in a blunt, straightforward way reminiscent of Joan Didion—fitting, considering that Bourdain named her as one of his favourite authors. Both his voice and his anecdotes create a perfect balance of sophistication and crudeness, much like the contrast between the food presented to customers and the chaotic kitchen that prepares it. And his love for both is evident in every story he tells, from his descriptions of the vichyssoise he ate as a child that started his love of food to awe he felt watching one of his college co-workers have sex with a bride at her wedding reception that convinced him to become a chef. He manages to make grilled fish head sound like the most delicious meal on earth and hiding a fake body in the kitchen freezer to scare a restaurant manager seem like a perfectly acceptable workplace activity.
Bourdain doesn't shy away from the darker aspects of the culinary world. He frequently brings up that many of the chefs he works with are underpaid immigrants and that verbal abuse and sexual harassment are commonplace. Unfortunately, he never really ends up confronting the toxicity of his workplace, seeming almost to glorify it. When he does mention the few women he has worked with over his career, he praises them for acting as tough and crude as the men around them but never takes the time to consider how they may feel about the act they need to keep up to survive, not even in the annotations. It would have been nice to see if Bourdain's opinion about these issues had changed at all since the book's first publication, but it seems those curious will have to look elsewhere for that information.
There is only one chapter in the book that has absolutely no annotations, and it's definitely the hardest one to read. In it, Bourdain discusses a co-worker who had to fire another chef due to his severe drug abuse, only to come into work the next day to learn that the chef in question had committed suicide. As Bourdain ended up taking his own life the year that this edition was published, I can't help but wonder if he found it too painful to revisit this section of the book. It doesn't help that at several points throughout the rest of the book, Bourdain expresses his distain for celebrity chefs, only to realize in the afterword that due to the fame he gathered after the book's publication, he is no longer part of the world that he loves so much.
Kitchen Confidential is a flawed but loveable read, much like the man who wrote it. Bourdain continually expresses the importance of always bettering oneself, a mantra he seems to have carried through his entire career. And I'm glad that I finally got the chance to learn more about the man that touched the lives of so many people. I can happily say that I'm satisfied with my meal.