Kitchen Confidential (Bourdain) - Discussion Questions

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these talking LitLovers points to help start a discussion about Kitchen Confidential:

1. Talk about Bourdain—as a drug-induced young man working his way up through the ranks and, eventually, as the more mature executive chef of Brasserie Les Halles. Have his essential qualities changed as he's aged, or is he basically the same individual, perhaps with a little mellowing around the edges? Is he someone you admire, like, or find offensive? What do you think of him...then and now?

2. Talk about the restaurant business as Bourdain describes it—the male-dominated, testosterone-drenched atmosphere. What, if any, has your experience been with restaurant kitchens? Do your experiences match Bourdain's, or do they differ? If so, in what way? If you have never worked either as a server or at a food station, would Bourdain's portrayal encourage you to do so?

3. What is Bourdain's attitude toward women, the waitresses and the few female cooks he's worked with?

4. What surprised you most about restaurant dining? What appalled you? Will you EVER order fish on Monday again? What about well-done beef?

5. Talk about the skills required to be a top-notch line cook during a frantic Saturday night dinner service? What are the qualities admired by Bourdain in both line cooks and sous chefs. Do you have the ability, either mental or physical, to work in a kitchen environment? Why does Bourdain prefer to work with talent from Mexico, San Salvador or Ecuador over Americans, especially young American men as he was himself?

6. Were you surprised by Bourdain's frank comparison of Scott Bryan's career path, success, kitchen management, and cuisine to Bourdain's own? What are the differences between the two chefs? Which path (be honest now) would you have chosen (not knowing what you know now, but as you were going through it)?

7. Discuss the second-to-last chapter of the book, the so-called Commencement Address. Is the advice Bourdain offers sound—are they words to live by for anyone in any endeavor? Do you find Bourdain's warnings hypocritical, or his the voice of a man who has gone through it all and learned form his mistakes? Has he learned from his mistakes?

8. Have you watched any of Bourdain's TV serials—No Reservations or Parts Unknown? If so is Bourdain the same or different as he comes across in his books? Have you read any of his other books, A Cook's Tour or Nasty Bits?

9. Finally, you might try to get hold of the few Kitchen Confidential TV episodes with Bradley Cooper that were aired on Fox in 2005 (go to IMDb). What do you think?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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