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sbunyan's review
2.0
There were interesting parts and some information about cooking but overall I found it to self congratulatory and rambling.
jimmynotjim's review
5.0
Having worked the front of the house for a few years, I loved how honest and raw this book is. Restaurants are weird places, where the rules of normal life no longer apply. Bourdain captured it perfectly.
grantica's review
4.0
An easy book to read and, strangly, to relate. I liked the funny way Anthony Bourdain describes the insides of a restaurant kitchen, the dynamics, the relationships, the disenchantment, the raughness of being ac cook in the 70s-80's, before the glamour and the foodies would attack the restaurants.
I especially wanted to read this book to understand his path and the person behind the camera.
I think he was a great narrator and was an interesting person to follow. He defintly had more to say, but the demons inside where stronger.
I especially wanted to read this book to understand his path and the person behind the camera.
I think he was a great narrator and was an interesting person to follow. He defintly had more to say, but the demons inside where stronger.
ashleytebbs's review
3.0
Kitchen Confidential is about the experiences of Anthony Bourdain on his way to the top. It details his first kitchen experience, his love of food, drug use, and his many jobs and friends.
I’m not really into memoirs but it was a really good one to choose. It was fun to listen to, I liked hearing him personally talk about and expand on his experiences; something a normal narrator wouldn’t have been able to do.
I’m not really into memoirs but it was a really good one to choose. It was fun to listen to, I liked hearing him personally talk about and expand on his experiences; something a normal narrator wouldn’t have been able to do.
viljesvag's review
DNF @ ~40%, after not really picking it up for almost a year.
Listen, I like Anthony Bourdain. Me and my girlfriend have been watching his last show Parts Unknown for a couple of weeks now, and it has really shown him as someone who had come to care about social issues. (In the somewhat brutish American liberal way, but still) This book? Not so much, and i think he felt the same way. Early career edgy man Bourdain just can’t keep my interest in the same way that the more mature and less of a macho dipshit version that he grew into. The advice on essential kitchen supplies was good though, but you can probably skim through that section while you’re in the bookstore.
I want to remember Tony as the man who had immense respect for regional food cultures around the world, and who did his best to give airtime and proper credit to marginalized communities. He was a friend of the Palestinian people, and he hated Henry Kissinger with a passion. That’s the man I choose to remember.
Listen, I like Anthony Bourdain. Me and my girlfriend have been watching his last show Parts Unknown for a couple of weeks now, and it has really shown him as someone who had come to care about social issues. (In the somewhat brutish American liberal way, but still) This book? Not so much, and i think he felt the same way. Early career edgy man Bourdain just can’t keep my interest in the same way that the more mature and less of a macho dipshit version that he grew into. The advice on essential kitchen supplies was good though, but you can probably skim through that section while you’re in the bookstore.
I want to remember Tony as the man who had immense respect for regional food cultures around the world, and who did his best to give airtime and proper credit to marginalized communities. He was a friend of the Palestinian people, and he hated Henry Kissinger with a passion. That’s the man I choose to remember.
tregina's review
4.0
I really do genuinely enjoy the way Tony Bourdain writes, and the way in which he sees the world (even when I think he's an asshole). But what I love most is the way he pulls back the curtain--not just on his life in food and in kitchens (as in Kitchen Confidential), but now on his life as an author an television personality who talks and writes about his life and food an in kitchens. He participates in the artifice of it at the same time as he talks about the artifice of it. I love it.