Kitchen Confidential 1ST Edition Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Kitchen Confidential seems to inspire two camps: a smaller admiring group, and a majority crew who find Mr. Bourdain boorish and irritating. Count me among the eye rollers.
As evidenced by his no-slouch-here writing, Mr. Bourdain seems to have a brain. Therefore, the book's big page-turner question is: *why doesn't he use it?* We keep expecting him to wake up from this macho posturing (that borders on self parody) and say *ah ha! catharsis time*. I read the book the whole way through and kept hoping for the turn, as they say in Texas Hold em. Surely this chef guy is going to hit some unexpected twist in his cook's tale and realize there's a larger vision of all this kitchen locker-room BS.
But rather than moving to a higher level, the book just spiraled downward. From hints dropped, we gather that the oh-so-busy Mr. Bourdain writes his books on his one day off from the restaurant. It has the feel of one foot in front of another, like an all-night march (it's he who loves to invoke military metaphors for his approach to kitchen management), wake up, pull on the boots, what chapter will it be today? We need a general in charge of this operation.
I'm not asking that Bourdain become the spokesman for NA and start playing Japanese bamboo flute on his kitchen's PA instead of Led Zepplin. But if your credo is drugs, sex, and rock n roll, after a while, we're ready for more than just concert footage. We want some writerly insight -it can be Lou Reed writerly, or Henry Rollins writerly, but just *some kind* of writer however-outlaw-- who can help us understand why this life that most of the country regards as a crazed waste actually has some redeeming grace. But Bourdain just hauls out another "simulated corpse in the deep freeze" anecdote, some more frat house humor, and we're left wondering ...
Bourdain has become enraptured with portraying himself as a sort of chef anti-hero, a Gingerman of the kitchen. (When I look at his cover photo, looking all serious with his chef's whites and knife, I think - *aren't you embarrassed? *) If he was just a schlock wordsman, I wouldn't take the trouble to complain - the dude doesn't have the chops, oh well. But he's a good enough writer (and you'll note just about every last negative commentator finished the book, myself included) that we expect more.
There is a sweet-and-sour pleasure in having the lofty terrain of the upscale kitchen revealed to be the bawdy and, at times, far from appetizing place Bourdain portrays. But this sardonic friction is not enough to carry an entire book; the naughty-boy nose-thumbing only takes us so far. (Also, on an entirely different note, Bourdain seems completely uninterested in the value of food as a component of health.)
Bourdain is at his best in Kerouac-esque descriptions of the first real kitchen crew he aspired to join, in party-hardy Provincetown. His rollicking portrayal of that pirate crew is rich and gargantuan, and the hyperbole appropriate since this is understood to be seen through awestruck teenage eyes. But the book's unstated theme seems to be "I can be just as badass as those guys. I can! I can! I can!" To which this reader's response is, "OK you can, big deal."

Click Here to see more reviews about: Kitchen Confidential 1ST Edition

Click here for more information about Kitchen Confidential 1ST Edition