Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of cursing, substance use, addiction, and mental illness. 

“I want the professionals who read this for what it is: a straight look at a life many of us have lived and breathed for most of our days and nights at the exclusion of ‘normal’ social interaction. Never had a Friday or Saturday night off, always working holidays, being busiest when the rest of the world is just getting out of work, makes for sometimes a peculiar worldview, which I hope my fellow chefs and cooks will recognize.”

Although Bourdain does at times depict the darker side of the restaurant industry, he maintains that his book is not meant to be an exposé, nor does he want to disparage his fellow kitchen workers. Rather, he intends the book to be both entertaining and recognizable to those in the industry, an acknowledgement of how hard they all work and of their passion for food and fine dining. For readers who are themselves restaurant workers, the book will feel familiar, and to those whose experience in restaurants is limited to dining, he hopes that his writing will give them A Window Into Real Restaurant Subculture.

“That cold soup stayed with me. It resonated, waking me up, making me aware of my tongue and, in some ways, preparing me for future events.”

Bourdain cites an early experience eating vichyssoise, a cold soup, as the beginning of his culinary journey. That soup could be served cold was a revelation to Bourdain, and it made him realize that there was a whole world of food beyond his normal fare. Although his road to “chefdom” was complex, this one dining experience still stands out to him, decades later, as the first instance in which he realized that food could be a truly amazing experience.