Bourdain uncovered

02 November 2001 by
Bourdain uncovered

He shocked the world with his autobiographical account of life in the kitchen, and now the bad boy of culinary publishing has made his own TV series. Gaby Huddart went to meet Anthony Bourdain.

Like most Americans, Anthony Bourdain was left with a feeling of abhorrence after the terrorist attacks of 11 September. But the past few weeks have also served to fill the author of the international best seller, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, with a great deal of pride.

"A lot of fine restaurants have thrown open their doors, stopped feeding the public, and have been feeding firemen and relief workers instead," says the New York chef-turned-writer. "If anyone is worried about the future of their business, then I haven't heard them say it. Nobody's whining and saying ‘what's going to happen to me', they're just grateful to be alive and able to help in any way they can."

Undoubtedly, though, there will be restaurants that go out of business as a result of the tragedy, Bourdain believes, and he thinks it will be the top end of the market that is likely to be affected first. "How could anyone sit in a restaurant and order a $600 bottle of wine when people are still lying dead under rubble? A lot of those sorts of places were already having difficult financial times, so I suspect there'll be a shake-out."

The weeding out of some the more fashionable, "bullshit" eateries is a trend to be welcomed, however, says Bourdain. Another positive trend may be an increase in families going out to dine together.

"Everyone in the USA is reaching out to the family now and getting in touch with people they haven't heard from in years. I hope that what might happen is there will be less going out with casual acquaintances and more dining with the people that really matter. In New York the average table is usually two to four people, whereas in Italy or Vietnam it's eight to 10 people from the same family. I suspect that might be what happens for us."

Promoting Kitchen Confidential in the UK has meant that Bourdain has spent a lot of time in London over the past couple of years, and he says that many of his favourite restaurants are here.

Nevertheless, he feels that London's dining-out scene lags behind New York by a few years. It will catch up only when the average member of the public starts being an avid sushi eater, he says. "The most important moment in culinary history in New York was when sushi became popular and I think that's the last barrier you have left here. When the public is prepared to eat raw seafood the like of which they've never tried before - raw sea urchin, for instance - then the quality and variety of seafood in other restaurants will also spiral. In England you have sushi, but you're not sushi-crazy yet."

Sadly, some of the USA's less positive trends have made it to the UK and Bourdain, not one to mince his words, admits to feeling shame at the enormous proliferation of American fast-food outlets here, the number of people drinking cheap American beer "when you produce some of the finest beers in the world", and the emergence of US-style Mexican restaurants. "We make crap versions of Mexican food in New York. And here there are crap versions of what was already crap in America. That disturbs me immensely."

He is also disturbed by the emergence of people he describes as "food nazis" here - those who now refuse to eat beef and lamb because of successive BSE and foot-and-mouth scares and who are horrified at the prospect of genetically modified ingredients.

"Using steroids to improve meat? If it makes it taste better, then I don't care as long as I don't grow breasts overnight. I'm always happy to sacrifice a year of my life to have fun now," he says. "People seem to take the whole food scares thing too seriously. My god, do people really want to live forever?"

A Cook's Tour As Bourdain's soon-to-be-published book, A Cook's Tour, will make clear, when it comes to eating, fear is not an emotion that he ever feels.

Between December last year and July this year, backed by his publisher and US television channel Food Network, Bourdain travelled to 13 countries - including Japan, Russia, Australia, Morocco, Vietnam, Cambodia and Cuba - to try the food. During the trip he tried everything from boiled iguana to tree grubs. The experience has changed his perspective on food in two key ways.

First, he has learnt that the more refrigeration available in a country, the less fresh the food. "In Vietnam you hardly see proper refrigeration, but the food is spectacularly fresh and colourful and crunchy. In Mexico, if you want to eat turkey, you have to go and kill it first."

Second, Bourdain is no longer happy to waste food, because for the first time in his life he had to look dinner in the eyes. Rather than phoning a supplier to order meat, he watched as sheep, pigs and other animals were slaughtered for him - a disturbing experience, yet one that has made him want to use every last morsel.

His favourite countries for cuisine during the trip were Vietnam and Japan. He claims that everything he tried in Vietnam was good and he was bowled over by the passion of the people for their food. In Japan, meanwhile, he describes a visit to the famous Tsukiji fish market and eating edo (fish-based) sushi as life-changing experiences for a chef.

However, his travels will not make him more creative in the kitchen, he warns. "Any chef who goes to Vietnam and comes back and starts cooking with coconut milk and lemon grass probably shouldn't be a chef at all."

In fact, Bourdain is extremely self-effacing. He admits that he has never been a culinary genius or someone to watch: rustic French cooking has been his love - cassoulets, boudins, entrec"tes and the like.

He says he hopes to continue to be involved with Les Halles in New York as executive chef for some time to come, although these days he is very much a part-timer because of his publishing commitments. "I swan in and out of there when I can. But to my total shame and discomfort I have a chef de cuisine who does all the work, while I take the credit."

He is adamant that in the future he will never own his own restaurant, as he regards this as a sure-fire way to lose a lot of money. And he doesn't want a career in television either. "God not TV - no. I don't want to be a TV personality loved by civilians. I want to be loved by chefs and as far as I'm concerned the film of my travels is 22 half-hours of expensive home movie - it's me doing just what I wanted.

"I never anticipated Kitchen Confidential becoming so big, so I don't know what comes next. But I won't be totally miserable if the whole writing thing goes sour in a couple of years and I end up cooking eggs benedict in some little restaurant where no one knows who I am. I wouldn't be unhappy with that at all."

Kitchen Confidential

Asked whether the industry in New York has already changed significantly since the 1970s and 1980s - the era he portrayed so vividly in Kitchen Confidential - Bourdain's answer is an equivocal "yes and no".

Chefs are still the same cynical, proud, passionate, paranoid and battered breed they always were, he says, but these days the professionalism in kitchens is far superior to the past. Nobody spits in or sabotages food any more - "I haven't seen that for 20 years" - and sex and drugs are now purely after-work activities for most chefs.

"If you're still doing cocaine in New York, chances are you're hiding it from your friends. It's not a good thing at all. You'll inevitably screw up if you do it. And you'll screw up even more quickly if you do heroin."

On the rare occasions that Bourdain is aware of a chef taking cocaine these days, he says his heart sinks for them because he knows their career will inevitably suffer. "I'd be the last person in the world to say don't take drugs for moral reasons. I'm still a big pot-head on my days off. But when cocaine is the main priority in your life, it's not conducive to making good food. I know - I did so much of that 20 years ago, I know."

But why is it not conducive to making good food? "If you do cocaine, your attention span is much reduced. You'll be grinding your teeth, eyes wandering around, sweating and, in the end, you'll cheat one way or the other - you'll cheat on the food, or you'll steal, or you'll borrow money. And, if you come anywhere near my kitchen, I'll fire your arse."

The ritual initiation and humiliation of chefs that Bourdain describes in the book - being yelled at and verbally abused by the head chef - is, in contrast, still very much part and parcel of kitchen life in New York. And, while he utterly deplores physical violence, Bourdain says he supports the tradition and believes it serves a useful purpose.

"Better to find out early if someone can handle the pressure of the kitchen by yelling at them, than to discover they freak out on the first busy Saturday night a few weeks in," he asserts. "What looks like bullying to an outsider, that's simply the way we talk to each other in the kitchen. Just because you call someone a ‘treacherous scum pig' doesn't mean you don't love 'em."

Bourdain - a thumbnail biography

Anthony Bourdain's career in the restaurant industry began in the early 1970s with a holiday job as a dishwasher in a diner in Provincetown, Massachusetts. It was here that he fell in love with kitchen culture.

After dropping out of university in his home town of New York, Bourdain enrolled at the Culinary Institute of America. Armed with this training, he became a full-time chef.

The early, turbulent years of his career form the basis of his autobiographical book Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, which is shortly to be made into a feature film.

Today, 45-year-old Bourdain is the executive chef of Les Halles brasserie on Park Avenue South, New York. He is also the author of the novels Bone in the Throat and Gone Bamboo.

Bourdain's next book, A Cook's Tour, describing his recent culinary travels, is published next month by Bloomsbury. It is also the subject of a series of television programmes, being broadcast in the USA from January. It is expected to be shown in the UK later in 2002.

Bourdain basics

Favourite places to eat in New York: Barney Greengrass delicatessen in Manhattan; Veritas restaurant, 43 East 20th Street.
Favourite places to eat in London: Gordon Ramsay; St John; Alastair Little.
Most memorable restaurant meal: The French Laundry in Napa Valley, California. "I ate 20 courses over six-and-a-half hours and it was the most amazing, technically well-thought-out food I've ever eaten."
Favourite country in terms of its cuisine: "Vietnam. If I could get on a plane and go anywhere to eat, it would be there."
The weirdest thing ever eaten: "The still-beating heart of a cobra in Vietnam, washed down by its blood - it's a delicacy there."
The most awful thing ever eaten: "Nato in Japan. I love everything Japanese except nato, which is made from fermented soya beans. They eat it for breakfast and it's like a bowl of cold mucus."
Least-favourite TVcookery programme: "The one with Ainsley Harriott. And I'm happy to go on the record with that. My god, those shows are awful."

The Caterer Breakfast Briefing Email

Start the working day with The Caterer’s free breakfast briefing email

Sign Up and manage your preferences below

Check mark icon
Thank you

You have successfully signed up for the Caterer Breakfast Briefing Email and will hear from us soon!

Jacobs Media is honoured to be the recipient of the 2020 Queen's Award for Enterprise.

The highest official awards for UK businesses since being established by royal warrant in 1965. Read more.

close

Ad Blocker detected

We have noticed you are using an adblocker and – although we support freedom of choice – we would like to ask you to enable ads on our site. They are an important revenue source which supports free access of our website's content, especially during the COVID-19 crisis.

trade tracker pixel tracking