Kitchen Confidential (Part 2)
Here's a highly informative e-mail from DQ reader Chris Hornbostel.Bill, glad to hear you're enjoying Kitchen Confidential. By way of full disclosure, I would say that it is a very entertaining book, and I have to confess that I enjoyed reading it. However, Kitchen Confidential has as much to do with what really happens in fine dining kitchens as Lord Of The Rings has to do with the history of Northern Europe in the Middle Ages.
Having worked in the industry for 18 years now, and having a network of friends who work as managers and chefs at fine dining establishments all over the country, we're all pretty much in unanimous agreement: either Anthony Bourdain makes up a lot of stuff to sell books, or he's the most incompetent chef in North America and not fit to run the snack counter at a Stuckey's.
As the most clear example I can give you, Monday is actually one of the *best* days to order seafood in a restaurant. I've talked with friends who manage at places like McCormick & Schmick's, Morton's, and Capital Grille on this. I've discussed with a buddy who's a Sous Chef at a "name" restaurant in Los Angeles. I've talked to a friend who owns a 3-star in San Francisco about it. The opinion is almost unanimous: everybody orders seafood for the start of the next week on Saturday, and their orders are packaged fresh on Sunday and shipped out next day air for Monday AM arrival.
Go to a *good* restaurant late on a Sunday, and you're liable to find them running out of seafood. That's how it's done--by Monday, if you value your operation, any small amount of seafood left over from Friday either goes into a stew (your fear of gumbo may be justified) if it looks good and smells fresh. But--the seafood on regular menu items and specials on Monday? That's all freshly arrived that morning.
Just a heads-up. Those of us who work in the industry can tell plenty of hair-raising stories, but they're mostly about inebriated guests....
I've said this before, but one of the things I enjoy most about writing this column is that no matter what I mention, at least one reader (and often many) has specialized knowledge of what I'm talking about. And they're always more interesting than I am.
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