Vous voulez voir cette page en français ? Cliquez ici.


or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
More Buying Choices
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
Kitchen Confidential
 
 
Share your own customer images
Publisher: learn how customers can search inside this book.

Kitchen Confidential [Paperback]

Anthony Bourdain (Author)
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (309 customer reviews)
List Price: CDN$ 19.95
Price: CDN$ 14.40 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 25. Details
You Save: CDN$ 5.55 (28%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca. Gift-wrap available.
Only 2 left in stock--order soon (more on the way).
Want it delivered Monday, February 13? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout.

Formats

 Amazon Price New from Used from
Hardcover --   -- --
Paperback CDN $12.24   -- --
Paperback, May 9 2001 CDN $14.40   -- --
Audio, CD, Audiobook, Unabridged CDN $15.64   -- --
Unknown Binding --   -- --

Frequently Bought Together

Kitchen Confidential + Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook + The Nasty Bits
Price For All Three: CDN$ 39.30

Show availability and shipping details

Buy the selected items together

  • In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 25. Details

  • Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook by Anthony Bourdain Paperback CDN$ 12.99

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 25. Details

  • The Nasty Bits by Anthony Bourdain Perfect Paperback CDN$ 11.91

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 25. Details

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Product Details

Product Description

From Amazon.com

Most diners believe that their sublime sliver of seared foie gras, topped with an ethereal buckwheat blini and a drizzle of piquant huckleberry sauce, was created by a culinary artist of the highest order, a sensitive, highly refined executive chef. The truth is more brutal. More likely, writes Anthony Bourdain in Kitchen Confidential, that elegant three-star concoction is the collaborative effort of a team of "wacked-out moral degenerates, dope fiends, refugees, a thuggish assortment of drunks, sneak thieves, sluts, and psychopaths," in all likelihood pierced or tattooed and incapable of uttering a sentence without an expletive or a foreign phrase. Such is the muscular view of the culinary trenches from one who's been groveling in them, with obvious sadomasochistic pleasure, for more than 20 years. CIA-trained Bourdain, currently the executive chef of the celebrated Les Halles, wrote two culinary mysteries before his first (and infamous) New Yorker essay launched this frank confessional about the lusty and larcenous real lives of cooks and restaurateurs. He is obscenely eloquent, unapologetically opinionated, and a damn fine storyteller--a Jack Kerouac of the kitchen. Those without the stomach for this kind of joyride should note his opening caveat: "There will be horror stories. Heavy drinking, drugs, screwing in the dry-goods area, unappetizing industry-wide practices. Talking about why you probably shouldn't order fish on a Monday, why those who favor well-done get the scrapings from the bottom of the barrel, and why seafood frittata is not a wise brunch selection.... But I'm simply not going to deceive anybody about the life as I've seen it." --Sumi Hahn --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From 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. (May)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
See all Product Description

Suggested Tags from Similar Products

 (What's this?)
Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
 
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags

What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?

› Explore similar items
 

Customer Reviews

309 Reviews
5 star:
 (146)
4 star:
 (96)
3 star:
 (28)
2 star:
 (21)
1 star:
 (18)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.1 out of 5 stars (309 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most helpful customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars mise en place!, Jan 11 2002
By 
david (the city by the lake) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly (Paperback)
This is how it really can be in the restaurant business. Perhaps the best book I have read in a long time. Though being a chef I have not had much time to read other than the quick reference of a few cookbooks. Hats off to Boudain who can not only cook but can write text interesting, funny and captivating. Anyone who has worked in restaurants can identify with this book. You Know who you are!
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Dark Tale of Kitchen Life from the Inside, Jun 18 2003
By 
John Nolley II (Fairfax, VA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly (Paperback)
Tony Bourdain's breakthrough book Kitchen Confidential invites readers into a world few have seen more than the tiniest hints of: the hectic, high-pressure world of the professional kitchen.

Written as an expose of sorts, many of the things Bourdain covers will shock the casual diner reading his book, from staff parties afterhours with lines of coke all down the bar to the reasons not to ever order the seafood special or get your steak cooked well-done. Primarily, the book covers Tony's life as a chef, from his drug-filled college days to stints at what must seem half the restaurants in NYC to his getting his life back on track and his success at his current job--yet the book is not a biography (unless of the industry itself); it instead offers on-the-mark observations on personalities, the business of restaurants, and the trials of achieving one's dreams.

While the book's subject matter is in itself interesting, what really makes Bourdain's book excel is his writing style: harsh, frank, and unapologetic yet still paced well and very readable. His descriptions leap out like something from a hard-boiled detective novel and make for an easy read.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Sex, drugs, rock n' roll... and french cuisine, too!, May 7 2002
By 
efrex (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly (Paperback)
Are you socially incorrigible, substance-dependent, able to curse fluently in multiple Spanish dialects, have a high tolerance for knife wounds, burns, cramped spaces, no sleep, and people looking to stab you in the back at every turn? Well, if you are, and you're not interested in a career in piracy in Latin America, you might want to try being a fancy chef.

Anthony Bourdain's "Kitchen Confidential" is a salty, rambling, rambunctious love letter to the world of a professional chef and to the insane people who inhabit it, interspersed with some advice to the general public (such as why you should never order your steak well-done or a fish frittata, and how many knives you REALLY need to make all those hoity-toity dishes you see on TV). Bourdain gleefully jumps from describing his falling in love with french cuisine as a boy, to his experience as a junior "know-nothing" in Cape Cod, to what a typical day at Les Halles is, to a full-blown food and alcohol orgy in Japan, all at a pace that will leave you gasping for breath.

Not necessarily for the faint-hearted, but if you want to know what life is like behind your fancy dishes, this is a must-read.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Want to see more reviews on this item?
› Go to Amazon.com to see all 775 reviews  4.2 out of 5 stars 
 
 		 Most recent customer reviews











Only search this product's reviews


Listmania!

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by category

Look for similar items by subject

















i.e., each book must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...

Feedback

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Amazon.ca Privacy Statement Amazon.ca Shipping Information Amazon.ca Returns & Exchanges