Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of mental illness and death by suicide.

Anthony Bourdain was an American chef, writer, and travel television host who received widespread acclaim for his restaurant work, books, and television shows. A 1978 graduate of the Culinary Institute of America (CIA), Bourdain was a fixture on the New York restaurant scene for three decades. He worked in many professional kitchens throughout the course of his career but is best known for the years he spent as an executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles in Manhattan. 

A lifelong lover of writing and literature, Bourdain published his essay “Don’t Eat Before Reading This” in the New Yorker in 1999. Kitchen Confidential was published one year later and became, to Bourdain’s surprise, a runaway success. Bourdain’s first television show, A Cook’s Tour, ran on the Food Network in 2002 and 2003, catapulting him to celebrity status and cementing his appeal as a television host. In his writing, Bourdain was open about his lifelong mental health issues, and he died by suicide in 2018 while filming on location with his friend and fellow chef Eric Ripert.

Bourdain began his culinary career in the fast-paced world of Manhattan fine dining.