If you agree with me that a good autobiography should both allow the reader to discover a new world and engage her with great writing, this one is as good as they come. Even if Bourdain had not gone on to other remarkable things, this book would stand on its own as the achievement of a lifetime. Crude, exciting, shocking, an erratic journey that ends up in a worthwhile destination, this portrait of the underworld of professional cooking seems to find its perfect expression in Bourdain’s rebellious, humorous, incredibly rich writing. While my favorite chapter is one where he describes his unexpected discovery, shock and fascination with Tokyo, there are many other unforgettable passages. If I had to find issue somewhere, it would be his avoiding of more openly sharing what he went through emotionally as he takes us through a whirlwind of good and hard times, his opening up limited and mostly appearing only as anecdotes and events directly connected with his string of cooking jobs. That more deeply intimate journey you will not find here. Everything else you will, unfiltered for your reading pleasure.
— Jordi Martin-Consuegra, Chief Executive Officer, HudsonAn updated and revised edition of Anthony Bourdain's mega-bestselling Kitchen Confidential, with new material from the original edition
Almost two decades ago, the New Yorker published a now infamous article, “Don’t Eat before You Read This,” by then little-known chef Anthony Bourdain. Bourdain spared no one’s appetite as he revealed what happens behind the kitchen door. The article was a sensation, and the book it spawned, the now classic Kitchen Confidential, became an even bigger sensation, a megabestseller with over one million copies in print. Frankly confessional, addictively acerbic, and utterly unsparing, Bourdain pulls no punches in this memoir of his years in the restaurant business.
Fans will love to return to this deliciously funny, delectably shocking banquet of wild-but-true tales of life in the culinary trade from Chef Anthony Bourdain, laying out his more than a quarter-century of drugs, sex, and haute cuisine—this time with never-before-published material.
Anthony Bourdain was the author of the novels Bone in the Throat and Gone Bamboo, the memoir A Cook’s Tour, and the New York Times bestsellers Kitchen Confidential, Medium Raw, and Appetites. His work appeared in the New York Times and The New Yorker. He was the host of the popular television shows No Reservations and Parts Unknown. Bourdain died in June 2018.
“Utterly riveting, swaggering with stylish machismo and precise ear for kitchen patois.” — New York magazine
“You’ll laugh, you’ll cry...you’re gonna love it.” — Denver Post
“The kind of book you read in one sitting, then rush about annoying your coworkers by declaiming whole passages.” — USA Today
Bourdain captures the world of restaurants and professionally cooked food in all its theatrical, demented glory. — USA Today
“A gonzo memoir of whats really going on behind those swinging doors.... Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain is unique.” — Newsweek
“Bourdain’s prose is utterly riveting, swaggering with stylish machismo and a precise ear for kitchen patois.” — New York magazine
“Hysterical.... Bourdain gleefully rips through the scenery to reveal private backstage horrors.” — New York Times Book Review