Rating: 
Summary: Truth in the kitchen
Review: I highly recommend Bourdain's book to anyone genuinely curious about what goes on in the kitchens of those restaurants you love. Be forewarned though - this is no culinary fairytale. Its the straight dope, albeit but one opinion, on how a dozen prepare nightly meals for 200 or more. But remember friend, true love is not a fairytale. Its believing that a thing, even while knowing all its faults, is worthy of our time and passion. And in the end, this is I believe what Bourdain shows us of professional cuisine.
Rating: 
Summary: Comic masterpiece
Review: If Hunter S. Thompson had written "Ball Four" and cuisine had been the topic rather than baseball,"Kitchen Confidential" would have been the result...the funniest book since "A Confederacy of Dunces"...
Rating:
Summary: Secrets revealed- the dark world of a restaurant kitchen!
Review: Anthony Bourdain, self-proclaimed "thrill-seeking, pleasure-hungry, sensualist, always looking to shock, amuse, terrify and manipulate, seeking to fill that empty spot in my soul with something new," gives a sampling in this book of his life as a chef. He begins by explaining his first experiences really noticing and appreciating food at a young age on a trip to France. Bourdain goes on to explain how him and some hoodlum friends find themselves in the food business, and get involved in quite the trashy lifestyle. Then he has a realization that he wants to be a chef and heads to the Culinary Institute of America. He goes on to tell about the dark recesses of the restaurant underbelly, including struggling at the bottom of the "food chain" in many restaurants, making and learning from many mistakes, and revealing the the true nature of the rough crowd that thrives in restaurant kitchens. Some of the highlights include chapters on how to cook like the pros (where he gives some good tips and advice for all of us in the ignorant populace), what to be warry of on restaurant menus and what type of restaurants to avoid (including his soapbox speech on vegetarians and why they are "the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit" - I am a vegetarian by the way and you can tell that I am so offended), and of course the hilarious chapter on why people who want to own restaurants are sick in the head. The first paragraph of this chapter is a classic. This book does contain quite a bit of foul language. Also, a few sections of this book can drag on with a ton of detail about absolutely everything that goes on in the kitchen, but all in all this book is quite amusing. There are many more highlights that those I pointed out, and I do recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about the realities of the restaurant world.
Rating:
Summary: Awesome
Review: Great Book! I hightly recommend! It was well written (easy-to-read, flowed well, great vocabulary, well balanced with humor and seriousness, painted a great picture of a 'life-in-the-life-of'). I especially enjoyed it having worked in the restaurant industry for a period of time, but anyone would enjoy it! Definitely shows the dark side a bit, but I believe it's a reality!
Rating: 
Summary: The 3-star chef
Review: Let me tell you something about this book, first. We'll go fromthere. "Kitchen Confidential" is a memoir written by AnthonyBourda.. Kitchen Confidential" reads like a stone skipped over water. It's a series of brief (albeit entertaining) skips across water. A lot of water is skipped over. I mean, he tells you what kick-started his love of food (an epiphanical trip to France with his family as a kid). You learn some of what is important to him (example: he always wanted cook's hands - hands that have been chipped, grizzled, burned, chopped, worried, hurt, slit; example: he has standards - you can pretty much get away with murder in a Bourdain kitchen, but you must never be late, you must never disrespect the food). Aside of the cooking, you glimpse the Keith Richards figure behind the chef. A wilderness period is (frustratingly, little more than) alluded to. At the end of the book, he apologises to all of the people that had to endure all or some of the self-same wilderness period. Could be me, but I would have liked to know more about Bourdain's Hyde. It's pretty hard to totally make your mind up one way or another about "Kitchen Confidential". On the one hand, you've got the representation of Bourdain in the book. He's a Burt Lancaster, straight out of "The Crimson Pirate". He's a pirate with a pirate crew. There's a whole team of bad boys herein. If there's a movie, you gotta call the movie "Cookfellas". All of which is (for the most part) a riot. You know that we are not at home to Mr Truth a lot of the time. (In fact, a good part of the book reminded me of Lorenzo Carcaterra's similarly controversial "Sleepers".) He's a pirate and embroidered stories are a pirate stock-in-trade, right? You wouldn't expect anything less. Truth doesn't matter. Bourdain is a five-star character. However. Anthony Bourdain is not a writer. Or he's a writer the way Mickey Rourke is an actor. In the last few pages of "Kitchen Confidential", he says: "Lying in bed, smoking my sixth or seventh cigarette of the morning, I'm wondering what the hell I'm going to do today. Oh yeah, I gotta write this thing. But that's not work, really, is it? It feels somehow shifty and . . . dishonest, making a buck writing. Writing anything is a treason of sorts. Even the cold recitation of facts- which is hardly what I've been up to - is never the thing itself." In lots of ways, "Kitchen Confidential" is a kind of jape. Worse than that (hell, he's not taking himself seriously, that's a good thing, in a way), though, is the sloppy edit. I'll tell you - there are commas in the middle of sentences, misspelled words ("bons mosts" instead of "bon mots", par example), errors by the pound. If you served up this book in any editorial kitchen, you'd get laughed out of court. Mal teste, right? You read the book and it's frustrating to see such a lack of effort. It would take one or two reads by a person who does this for a living to straighten out those kinds of problems and it's shocking (to me) that the book hasn't had that. Still. Always the pedant, right? Easier to spot a mistake after it's been made, right? Maybe. Still. The bad edit stops this book being a five. The Bourdain character (and it is a character, no mistaking that) is a pure five. You lose a star for the edit and you lose a star for the skipped water (next time: spill the beans!!). Still. Three stars - you're a chef, right?
Rating:
Summary: The secrets behind the swinging doors
Review: If you ever wondered what was happening behind the swinging doors while you ate in the splendor of a fine restaurant, you must read this book. In Bourdain's kitchens, there is much happening that never meets the eye of the descerning gourmand, or restaurant critic, but are enjoyable to his readers. Bourdain unveils many secrets that will probably change how and what you eat when you visit just about any eating establishment. He also reveals a variety of kitchen secrets for the would-be weekend chef looking to impress their friends with some professional tricks. I enjoyed this book and if you are interested in the TRUE secrets of the professional chef...add this to your reading list.
Rating:
Summary: Tales from "Behind the Kitchen Door"
Review: I purchased "Kitchen Confidential" expecting a tell-all expose on what REALLY goes on behind the kitchen door in the average restaurant. And the book absolutely delivers on that level. An added treat is that the book is also the often hilarious tale of Anthony Bourdain's personal journey from misguided youth, who took a job at a restaurant only after friends he was sharing a Summer getaway with during college got tired of him not covering his share of the expenses, to the executive chef at a fine French eatery in NYC today. The story of the single event that caused Bourdain to aspire to become a chef is almost worth the price of the book alone. The most interesting chapter of the book is the "From Our Kitchen to Your Table" section, where Bourdain confirms many of your worst fears about restaurant dining. Some things I took away from this chapter include the advice never to order fish on a Monday (it is most likely at its least fresh state, having been delivered the previous Thursday to cover the weekend orders), never order your meat well-done (you are pretty well insuring that the chef is going to treat you to the absolute worst cut, figuring you won't notice the difference since it will be dry anyway), and don't be so sure that the bread the waiter or busboy brings when you sit down went straight from the oven to your table (it likely was recycled from another table who didn't eat it). Bourdain is an engaging writer with a great wit. I was rarely bored during my reading of "Kitchen Confidential". If, however, you are one who is easily offended by coarse language, consider yourself forewarned that this book has a lot of it. I personally wasn't offended by the language, but I did find myself occasionally annoyed when Bourdain would go overboard in describing what a wild and crazy lifestyle he's led. Bourdain would often go on and on about all of the drugs he's done, how much he drinks and how tough and macho he acted in this situation or that situation. There is something inherently off-putting about someone constantly boasting about what a "bad-boy" he is. To Bourdain's credit, he can also be self-deprecating, particularly in the humorous story about how a dumb misunderstanding on his part during a job interview caused him to lose a great opportunity at an upscale steakhouse. Bourdain also devotes an entire chapter to a fellow, more successful, chef and explains the differences between the two of them that make this so. Overall, a very entertaining book that is easy to recommend.
Rating:
Summary: Good thing I wasn't eating while reading...
Review: ...or I would've choked from laughing so much and so hard! I really enjoyed Bourdain's edgy and humorous look at what goes on behind the scenes in restaurants. Especially funny were his early days in this environment as he struggled to learn his craft and get a clue.
Although Anthony Bourdain is vulgar and very much over-the-top [I loved every line, and even picked up some new and colorful expressions to use in my own kitchen!] in relating his experiences, I never felt like he was putting the reader on, especially since the book ends with a description of a VERY LONG day in the life of a chef.
Rating:
Summary: Funniest I've read in 15 years - A Loud Mouthed Classic !
Review: Read this book one summer by a pool in Key West and people around me thought I was crazy as I burst out laughing 7-8 times. The stories are crude, arrogant, racist, sexist and saturated with addictions from nicotine to the hard stuff. Overall, a great read if you can take the abuse and understand that it's meant to give a glimpse into the back alley deals and inner workings of the restaurant biz.
If you even have a twinkle of an aspiration to open a restaurant some day, it's a must read on what to AVOID and who NOT to hire! Even better when read with rum flavored libations, under a few palm trees.... but that's just my opinion!
Rating:
Summary: Wow. . . . I wanna eat at Les Halles!
Review: Great book and a fun read.
So what? Everyone knows that there are few kitchens around that are truly sanitary. Everyone knows that most kitchens take shortcuts in their work. Don't you in your job?
Thought so.
This is simply a fun book to read. Full of adventure in the world of cooking. I really enjoyed every page. Anyone who likes food will like this book. A must read.
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