Introduction

"A New York restaurant veteran takes a cup of Down and Out, adds a dash of Fear and Loathing, and whips up a gonzo memoir of what's really going on behind those swinging doors."
—Newsweek

The mega-bestselling classic, Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential is available in a new pocket-sized Insider's Edition. Bourdain's deliciously funny, delectably shocking, wild-but-true tales of life in the culinary trade are now hand-annotated throughout by the author himself, with Bourdain's updated insights and commentary—and a new Afterword about the radically changing food and restaurant industry a decade after the book's original publication. The drugs, sex, and haute cuisine are still here, but given a fresh new perspective from the bona fide super-celebrity chef, star of TV's No Reservations, and bestselling author of Medium Raw, Bone in the Throat, Gone Bamboo, and A Cook's Tour. No matter if it's your first time in Tony's Kitchen or if you've experienced the heat before, this sensational Insider's Edition is a treat worth savoring!

Editorial Review

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

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