Kitchen Confidential
adventures in the culinary underbelly
by Anthony Bourdain · first published 2000
56% recommend43% neutral1% critical
Why HN recommends it
Raw, punk-rock memoir of restaurant kitchen life that reads like a war story or crime novel. Valued for its honest look at what running a restaurant takes, the mise-en-place discipline, and the grit of work.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
A celebrity chef shares anecdotes of his experience in the restaurant industry, and of his journey from dishwasher to a position of fame in the food industry.
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Bourdain's earlier book, Kitchen Confidential is great and I highly recommend it. It also has a "So You Want to Be a Chef" chapter (perhaps they are the same). http://www.amazon.com/Kitchen-Confidential-Updated-Adventure... There was a time in…
on “So You Wanna Be a Chef - Anthony Bourdain” ↗Reading Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain really opened my eyes up to how different the work place is at different class levels in modern society.
on “Surveillance company harassed female employees using its own facial recognition” ↗I found 'The Prize', a history of the development of the oil industry, by Daniel Yergin, to be fascinating. Perhaps closer to your request, 'Kitchen Confidential' by Anthony Bourdain comes the closest to describing life in a restaurant kitchen in a very entertaining way. (Source: Was once a dishwasher and cook in a couple places.) If you like Bourdain, his friend,…
on “Ask HN: Recommend books that give you insight into other professions” ↗…suicidal tendencies. Sure, I took careful notes of conversations with the various care providers, professionals. But I don't feel any better equipped to handle the next flare up. PS- RIP Anthony Bourdain. Kitchen Confidential deeply influenced me. My first exposure to his ideas, worldview was a "Trial By Fire" profile on his management style in HBR (?). I loved how he accepted everyone to work in his kitchen, so long as they…
on “Anthony Bourdain has died” ↗This is a fantastic comment, and it matches exactly the attitude that Anthony Bourdain wrote about in his book Kitchen Confidential, which I read in eighth grade and have thought about weekly ever since. CTRL+F for "WHO COOKS" and read the whole section to see a professional chef say exactly the same thing you said about programming.…
on “John Carmack on Hiring” ↗…people but in the US, they are disgusting as a rule. My peers in the UK reported the same. We had to call a ambulance for our health inspector once beacuse they overdosed in the bathroom. Check out Kitchen Confidential if you want to see this backed up, and even that's about the highest end restaurants in the country. https://www.amazon.com/Kitchen-Confidential-Adventures-Culin...
on “Justice Stevens reads the fine print” ↗Things you can easily read on the beach: A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain (but read Kitchen Confidential first if you haven't already). Also recommend FiveBooks.com, which does interviews with various academics and "thinkers" each recommending 5 books on a particular subject. It's a bit slanted towards…
on “Ask HN: Summer Reading Recommendations?” ↗Along the theme of "unexpectedly resonant books for startup entrepreneurs", can I submit "Kitchen Confidential" by Anthony Bourdain? (Medium Raw, a 2010 book, was also pretty good --- although probably only if you're into the high-end restaurant scene).
on “Ask HN: Best book you read in 2010 and briefly why” ↗For more stories from the kitchen, perseverance, entrepreneurship and debauchery, I highly recommend Anthony Bourdain's book Kitchen Confidential. http://www.amazon.ca/Kitchen-Confidential-Anthony-Bourdain/d...
on “What I Learned from a Sex-Crazed Short-Order Cook” ↗You have to wonder if the bright young things who've been "disrupting" food really understand just how poisonously hard the food service industry is? Even if all they ever did was read Kitchen Confidential I feel like they could have seen some of these issues (supply chains, employees, vendor issues) coming a mile away.
on “Inside Blue Apron’s Meal Kit Machine” ↗I love Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain — I’ve always wanted to become a chef because of that book. Otherwise, somehow, and I may be wrong, I think suicide might be deep rooted to our toxic: media, culture, attachments,…
on “Anthony Bourdain has died” ↗…that its ok to not tip much or at all when you go out in what is horrible Industry attached to an even worse business model? And BOH (cooks, dishwashers) doesn't get any of that mind you. Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential was, at times clearly embellished for attention grabbing purposes to sell books, a very accurate depiction of the Industry. Which is why he became the patron saint of sorts to the Culinary World, despite…
on “Salt Fat Acid Defeat: The restaurant before and after Covid” ↗…- Debt, by David Graeber (sure to hear about this in the comments lol) Biographical: - Read at least one book from someone who has had a different life experience than you have had. For me, it was Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain which wasn’t totally a biography but told a lot of experiences in his life completely different than mine that offered some perspective. - One anti-recommendation: any book that a…
on “Ask HN: Life Changing Books?” ↗Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33313.Kitchen_Confidenti... Even if you have zero interest in the culinary world, you'll still enjoy the stories - and maybe even get motivated…
on “Ask HN: What are some good inspirational and uplifting books?” ↗…places. But most of the good ones work pretty clean. Not because they're aesthetically fussy, but because they understand that being pretty fast requires being pretty clean. There's a bit from Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential that really resonates with me along these lines: Mise-en-place is the religion of all good line cooks. Do not fuck with a line cook’s ‘meez’ — meaning his setup, his carefully arranged supplies of sea…
on “First make the change easy, then make the easy change (2021)” ↗