The Unexpected Summer Job That Changed Anthony Bourdain’s Life

Few chefs crossover into celebrity status, but those that do tend to become known solely by their culinary-based television shows. Anthony Bourdain is remarkable in that his path to stardom transitioned from the world of food into the world of the pen.

During the 1990s, Bourdain wrote two poorly received mystery books. It was his first non-fiction title, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, published in 2000, that elevated him to international fame. An expansion of a piece Bourdain had written in 1999 for the New Yorker, titled Don't Eat Before Reading This, Kitchen Confidential became a New York Times bestseller – a combination of humorous tales, confessionals, and insights into the restaurant industry.

It launched Bourdain's highly successful career as a writer. Yet, if it hadn't been for a quirk of circumstance, he might never have become a chef at all.

THE SUMMER JOB THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING

Bourdain was born in Manhattan, New York City, in 1956. His father was an executive in the music industry; his mother was an editor for the New York Times. By 1972, a seventeen-year-old Bourdain was studying at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, sharing a summer house with friends. Bourdain was not working at this point, and it was his lack of financial contributions to the household that sparked a fateful moment.

One of Bourdain's housemates was working as a waiter at a local seafood restaurant. Utterly frustrated at Bourdain's laziness, said housemate insisted that Bourdain take a job there as a dishwasher. This was the Flagship Restaurant – an establishment Bourdain would later refer to in his writing as 'The Dreadnaught'.

FROM THE KITCHEN TO THE WORLD

Although a young Bourdain had been entranced by the possibilities of the food world during a family trip to France, on which he had sampled raw oysters and vichyssoise soup, he wasn't yet enamoured with cooking. His experience as a dishwasher, however, did make him fall in love with life in a restaurant kitchen. He was enthralled by the colourful characters of the cooks themselves, and their tall tales. Bourdain quickly found himself promoted to a cook, and this was the start of his culinary career. He later recalled he felt at home in that world, in the same manner that other people find a home in the army, or in playing sports.

By 1978, Bourdain had graduated from the Culinary Institute of America. He worked in the restaurant industry for two decades before the publication of Don't Eat Before Reading This and Kitchen Confidential.

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