Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

To Bourdain, the sous-chef and the executive chef are as close as spouses. He meets Steven, a man who would be his sous-chef for years, at Supper Club, a massive restaurant/club where Bourdain is lucky to land a quasi-managerial position. The real head of the restaurant is rarely around, and he gradually takes on more of the everyday operations. 

Steven initially strikes Bourdain as a complete wild man: He can out-drink Bourdain, but this doesn’t disqualify him as a good chef in Bourdain’s eyes. In fact, Bourdain admires his hard-partying ways and his skills as a chef. Steven is a superlative cook, can fix anything that breaks in a restaurant, always has intelligence on the entire staff, and is likeable. The two become inseparable, and when Supper Club closes, they move on to a series of new restaurants, taking the best cooks with them each time they leave for a new job.

Cook-talk, Bourdain notes, is a language of its own, with distinct rules and regulations. It is heavily laced with profanity and is almost always offensive. Slurs and antigay bias are common, and much of the talk amounts to a series of insults. It is, Bourdain realizes, a tough atmosphere: Sexism, racism, antigay bias, and prejudices of all kinds are part of the common parlance of kitchen staff. However, he argues, there is no real malice behind any of it; no one is truly racist, sexist, or antigay. They just use that kind of language to joke. Kitchen staff are actually insular, supportive, and even loving toward one another. 

There is also a hidden language kitchen staff use to talk about the front-of-the-house staff, diners, management, and ownership. When someone says that “Elvis” has either left or entered the building, they might be referring to the restaurant’s general manager or owner. Shorthand exists for food and supplies, too, a classic example being “meez” as a substitute for mis-en-place. Bourdain recognizes that kitchen staff talk is problematic, and yet he also loves their hidden language.

There are several classifications of restaurant staff who, adjacent to kitchen staff, are critical to the cooking, serving, and cleaning process. Runners bring food from kitchen to table. Although their work appears simple, it is anything but. A superlative runner has a quasi-telepathic relationship with the chef, can distinguish between medium-rare and rare steaks, and can anticipate orders before they are finished. They also provide useful information about servers and are well-respected in the kitchen if they do their job well. Night porters do the “thankless dirty work” of cleaning the restaurant after it closes (230). They are crucial because a dirty restaurant is doomed to fail. Bartenders are perhaps the most beloved of kitchen staff, especially when there is (as there should be, Bourdain asserts) a free-flowing exchange of alcohol for food. Bartenders are also privy to the best information about the staff and often know everyone’s secrets.

Some of the best restaurant workers, Bourdain argues, are social misfits with a penchant for alcohol and drugs. One such man is his favorite baker, Adam. He is the best baker Bourdain has ever known, but he is prone to multi-day drinking binges and is always on the verge of being evicted. He will work as hard as he can for weeks and then steal alcohol from the restaurant and disappear for a binge. He bounces from job to job but is always able to find work because his reputation as a superlative baker precedes him. Although Bourdain often finds himself angry at Adam, he always respects his skill in the kitchen.

One of Bourdain’s friends has to fire a cook for general bad behavior and the impact that he has on the kitchen. That night, the cook goes home and dies by suicide. Although Bourdain tells his friend that it wasn’t his fault, the incident causes him to think about his values and priorities. He often employs people not just because he feels a kinship with them but also because he hopes to alter their life trajectories: He found direction and a sense of purpose in restaurant work, and he wants to give that to other people. Bourdain is capable of being ruthless, but he is at heart a sentimental guy, a loyal friend and boss who will do anything to help his loved ones and employees. He decides that he must and can get sober. In the end, he argues, your beliefs and values, and the ways that you put them into practice, matter more than anything else.