Quote Of The Day By Anthony Bourdain: 'The New Celebrity Chef Culture Is A Remarkable And Admittedly Annoying...'

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There's no foodie that has quite the underground, dedicated cult following earned by the late, great chef, author, and TV personality Anthony Bourdain. Bourdain's culinary career had humble beginnings, with his first job in the food industry as a dishwasher before graduating from the Culinary Institute of America in upstate New York. Bourdain then worked in various Manhattan kitchens — like at the famed Rainbow Room — and eventually took the helm at French bistro Brasserie Les Halles as executive chef in 1998. 

Bourdain's writing career began sputteringly, starting with crime-fiction novels that never saw much success. However, an article written for The New Yorker in 1999 entitled "Don't Eat Before Reading This" divulged restaurant secrets and showed the industry's underbelly, along with suggesting things to avoid ordering. The publication of the piece launched Bourdain's stardom, prompting him to write the highly revered "Kitchen Confidential" in 2000. 

The book's success led to Bourdain's television career, starting with "Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations" — a humorous, cynical, and honest take on food and travel. Bourdain's success grew from there, with 12 seasons of his Emmy-winning CNN show "Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown," another food-and-travel show highlighting lesser-visited parts of the world. 

Bourdain was never one to shy away from recounting his struggles with mental health and addiction, part of what made his raw honesty so appealing to the public. Tragically, in June 2018, Bourdain died by suicide in a French hotel room. Many fans were devastated by the sudden loss of such a highly influential yet down-to-earth personality, especially one who seemed to grab life by the horns and live without regrets. Anthony Bourdain is remembered for his wit, intellect, sarcasm-veiled compassion, and never-ending curiosity. 

"The new celebrity chef culture is a remarkable and admittedly annoying phenomenon. While it's been nothing but good for business — and for me personally — many of us in the life can't help snickering about it."

This quote by Anthony Bourdain appears in an updated version of his book, "Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly". First published in May 2000, "Kitchen Confidential" is a highly influential book that cooks still live by, and the book's success catapulted Bourdain into the spotlight. An updated and revised edition of the book published in 2007 added never-before-seen material, including a preface from Bourdain reflecting on the success of the original book dated November 20, 2000, a mere five months after its initial publication. This preface included our quote of the day.

As celebrity chef culture was increasing in both the United States and globally in the early 2000s, Bourdain couldn't quite see the appeal of glorifying the darker sides of the restaurant industry. Although usually the boom in popularity for restaurant chefs meant that both they and their restaurants made more money, the American chef was taken aback by the tide of rising fame for chefs. In classic Bourdain fashion, the chef and writer took everything with a grain of salt (and most likely a cold beer as well). 

Despite the customer and public-facing role that celebrity chefs are required to play in our current society, for the most part, chefs have historically been behind-the-scenes people. Most chefs and cooks generally prefer to stay in the kitchen, sweating, cursing, and usually joking around, while the front-of-house staff puts on a smile and tries to please the customers. 

The evolution of the popularity and fervor around chef-centric media no doubt amused Anthony Bourdain, who was himself lifted in the rising tide of celebrity chefdom, but was at his core still a back-of-the-house team member, adverse to such public scrutiny — especially in the early days of the 2000s before his television career took off. Thanks to the success of many television shows on the Food Network and other platforms, giving new exposure to major audiences, chefs became a new type of celebrity on a much larger scale than before, including Bourdain himself. 

While famous chefs were already on TV for decades, the more recent rise in popularity of television chefs was seemingly antithetical to the dark, gritty culinary underworld that Bourdain knew well. The quote gives the sense that Bourdain and his fellow line-cook cronies were having a good laugh at the newfound fame of restaurant life, despite its less-than-glamorous reputation, now being spun in a glittering light via the media. 

• "I have exactly the same work ethic. I don't see writing as anything more important than cooking. In fact, I'm a little queasier on the writing. There's an element of shame, because it's so easy. I can't believe that people give me money for this s***. The TV, too. It's not work." — Interview for Rain Taxi
• "Before anyone goes to culinary school or considers culinary school, they should at least work in the restaurant business for six months, a year, in a busy restaurant to see if you're the sort of person who loves the business, because it's a very hard business, a very unforgiving one." — Interview for NPR
• "Twenty-eight years of my life, that's what I did. I think I earned that title. But the fact is also, it is true that it's been 10 years since I've worked as a chef. I don't go home, you know, with a sore back and swollen hands every day." — Interview for NPR

If you or someone you know needs help, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).