No Reservations

Published February 2008


A bit of advance warning. This week's article is heavily peppered (pun fully intended) with a large amount of personal bias. First off, let me just say that I love Anthony Bourdain. Not heard of him? Fine it's understandable that you may not have had the chance to pick up one of his books but if you have cable TV at home and are not living under a giant rock, there is a high likelihood that you have come across some of his shows as he travels around the world in "A Cook's Tour", looking for "kicks, thrills, epiphanies" and the "perfect meal". While filming he has had the opportunity to sample some of the most unusual ingredients in the world - whole cobra in Vietnam, seal eyeball in Alaska, warthog rectum in Namibia and fermented shark in Iceland. And he didn't shirk away from any of them. He does however admit to his intolerance towards most vegetables. As well as his refusal to allow Billy Joel's music to be played in his kitchens.

Saddled with the moniker "bad boy of cuisine", Tony is very clearly a man who is a chef's chef. Someone who smokes and drinks with the same amount of gusto he reserves for a beautiful cut of meat, combined with a tiny level of sexual innuendo and a strong hint of mischief as well as a pure and open passion for anything food related.

Born and raised in New York, Bourdain's introduction to food began as a child when he tasted his first oyster and described it as life altering : "I took it in my hand, tilted the shell back into my mouth as instructed by the now beaming Monsieur Saint-Jour and with one bite and a slurp, wolfed it down. It tasted of seawater...of brine and flesh...and somehow...of the future."

A humble beginning as a dishwasher in a small Provincetown fish restaurant led to classes at the Culinary Institute of America. After working in some of the most prominent restaurants in New York Bourdain became Executive Chef at Les Halles Brasserie and still holds fort there even as he trots the globe in search of a new food experience. His thorough and consistent writing in exposing the true lifestyle of chefs in kitchens everywhere is largely based on his own personal experience.

The author of nine books including the phenomenal "Kitchen Confidential : Adventures In The Culinary Underbelly" Bourdain's writing and wit has been enormously popular around the world. Gritty enough for the uninitiated while still being fittingly appropriate for most self-proclaimed gourmands, Bourdain offers up the most honest chronicles I have ever come across. A brutally straightforward and hilarious memoir of a very complex chef with a rock star mentality, Bourdain shares pearls of kitchen wisdom with the masses :

* Diners are encouraged not to order fish on Mondays as it would have been sitting in the freezer over the weekend and therefore wouldn't be as fresh as you'd like.

* Always check out the bathrooms of a restaurant. It'll give you a good indication of the cleanliness of the kitchen too.

* The breadbaskets offered at your table would have probably been recycled from the table of other diners.

* In most kitchens, the 'three second rule' applies. If food is dropped on the floor and rescued within three seconds then it is still considered edible.

My introduction to Bourdain began in the early days of 2002. I was at an overseas airport traveling back home and had hours to kill. With nothing to do except skulk around the duty free areas and book shops, I came across "Kitchen Confidential". How cool, I thought to myself. And after reading the brief synopsis on the jacket I decided that this was the book for me. To say that I sunk my teeth into it and devoured it thoroughly over the next few hours is a laughable understatement. This was quickly followed up with my zest to find as many of his books as I could. I was elated when I managed to track down "A Cook's Tour" and was quietly in awe and fully aware of the great recipes I was about to absorb when I lovingly unwrapped and began to read "Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook"

When asked in a recent interview about what makes the worst type of customer, Bourdain replied, 'The worst? Easy. The man who comes in and as soon as you see or hear him you know he's saying, "I am determined, no matter what happens, to have a miserable time tonight. Whether the food is great or not, and no matter what the wine and service are like, I will show off in front of my companions and make life hell for the waiter, because my life is all about power and I am a seriously unhappy jerk." There are plenty of them. Everywhere. Them and the psycho food nerds. They take notes while eating. They're not the very worst but they're worrisome, demanding for the chef. Chefs and regular restaurant-goers are the best, and leave the best tips. I love other chefs.'

In his book 'Nasty Bits' Bourdain makes his opinions blatantly and side-splittingly clear in stating that "the terrible sameness of some of-the-momentPacific Rim, Pan-Asian and Nuevo Latino menus, in which chefs misuse Asian or South American ingredients with the single-minded enthusiasm of golden retrievers in heat, attempting coitus with one's leg blindly and unproductively."

Having dabbled in professional kitchens myself many years ago, I have a strong affinity for those who don the kitchen whites. And no other celebrity chef understands the bond between cooks and what it is that makes the lifestyle more than tolerable than Anthony Bourdain himself.