Watching The Bear is not exactly a pleasant experience. The sounds of the kitchen — the ticking of the clock, the noise of the industrial mixer, the rattling of metal pots, not to mention the constant conversations shouted over sizzling pans — make my brain hurt. I could only handle two episodes at a time. After an hour of watching Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) try to keep his late brother’s struggling restaurant open while managing his late brother’s evil best friend, Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), and a full staff of personalities, I needed a break .
But I always came back. It’s easy to be drawn to stories of rebels and outcasts. Restaurants are full of both. And professional kitchens have their own lingo, power dynamics and set of behaviors that look foreign to an outsider, making it a people-watcher’s dream. And then there’s the food! So if you also want to immerse yourself in the exciting (and often stressful) world of restaurants, or if you just need a cathartic story centered around a kitchen, here are 11 books to check out.
Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential is the obvious place to start. The late celebrity chef entertains with wild tales of snorting lines of coke and falling asleep on the beach at sunrise after a night of partying. He advises readers on what to order (and when) based on his years of being in professional kitchens. But this memoir is also full of stories about autocratic chefs who demand total loyalty and the willingness to work through injury or illness, to say nothing of the abuse they inflict on their staff – an experience The Carmy Bear could certainly relate to. Rereading Kitchen Confidential, I am struck by how Bourdain relishes the challenge of being the best in such dire circumstances. While he would later speak out against the male-dominated “meathead” restaurant culture, and reflect on the role Kitchen Confidential had in promoting that worldview, this version of Bourdain seems to accept that the abuse he faced was just part of paying his dues in to become a chef.
Jen Agg, author of I Hear She’s a Real Bitch and owner of several restaurants in Toronto, doesn’t want to play by the rules created and maintained by chef bros, her term for the guys who insist on running their kitchens with a perfectionist, overbearing attitude. So she created her own way forward, opening her own restaurant called the Black Hoof. As the owner, she challenges the Way Things Are Done™. Why should the back of the house and the front of the house always quarrel? Why should she prove alone, usually without proper support, that she can defeat a system determined to crush her? This book is full of anecdotes, tips for building your own restaurant and strong opinions about cocktails.
Tasteful establishments like Per Se and Eleven Madison Park exude an aura of serenity and elegance for patrons. In the kitchen? Different story. Kwame Onwuachi takes us inside these restaurants as well as the Culinary Institute of America to show us what it takes to work in some of the best restaurants in the world while also battling racism both within the industry and outside. His journey takes several turns, from joining a gang and selling drugs to working on a ship, cleaning up the BP oil spill and as a sous chef. The former Top Chef contestant will have you rooting for his success as he opens his first restaurant, the Shaw Bijou, in D.C.
Like fine dining, the world of wine is also full of experts who are sometimes more interested in gatekeeping than sharing their knowledge. Sommelier Victoria James’s memoir takes the reader inside Michelin-starred restaurants as well as California vineyards. Jacob’s love of learning is palpable; she includes extras to explain why knowing a vintage vintage or soil type is so important for experienced drinkers. She also recounts the rampant misogyny she faces from patrons, male bosses, and instructors eager to exploit their power and status. James acknowledged that it can be difficult reading, but she believes in the importance of sharing her story.
Reading this memoir by Southern pastry chef Lisa Donovan, I thought of the quiet pocket of the kitchen at The Bear that belongs to Marcus and his doughnuts. Donovan likes the solitude of baking. Her memoir captures the meditative feeling of kneading bread or mixing cake batter. And like good buttermilk, her memoir has some swagger, too. Donovan, who had a child young, recounts the fast pace and low pay of professional kitchens and how they keep mothers out. She also sees how male chefs take credit for the work of their female colleagues. She fights for the recognition she deserves in the kitchen and shows that leaving can sometimes be the hardest thing to do. A trigger warning for readers regarding abuse and sexual assault.
In The Bear, Carmy and his brother, Mikey, weren’t always close, but they were bound by both their family ties and their shared love of food. Michelle Zauner’s memoir, Crying in H Mart, steps outside the professional kitchen and leans into that love we have with our favorite dishes and the people who made them for us. When her mother is diagnosed with cancer, Zauner returns to Eugene, Oregon, to care for her and, in the process, finds pieces of herself through the Korean recipes she grew up eating as a child.
Suzanne Barr knows that there is no wrong time to start cooking professionally. Grieving her mother’s death from cancer, Barr escapes into retirement. By the time she returns to New York, she knows she wants to be a chef. With passion and dedication, she enrolled in the Natural Gourmet Institute at 30. Entering the industry as a more experienced adult, she knows what she doesn’t want: military-style kitchens and abusive head chefs. From there, it’s outdoors in Kauai and then to the Hamptons and Paris as a private chef. Through all of her travels in My Ackee Tree, Barr weaves together stories of her Jamaican heritage and her desire to create a delicious story of her own.
Consider this novel a palate cleanser. While it borrows some of the high stress from The Bear — it takes place during a cooking competition show, after all — it ends with a happily ever after. This quirky love story follows Dahlia as she says “screw it” to her unfulfilling job and enters Chef’s Special, a Top Chef-like cooking competition. Fellow competitor London is determined to win and become the first non-binary winner. They can’t be attracted to Dahlia’s gorgeous hair or her silly sense of humor. And yet they find themselves flirting with her over a recent crush and wanting to spend more time with her after the competition is over.
Hot Mess, by Emily Belden, is another option for those looking for a romantic getaway that takes place in a restaurant. It follows Allie Simon as she sinks her life savings into her chef boyfriend’s new restaurant – only for him to disappear weeks before it opens. She joins the restaurant staff as assistant general manager, and through her, we get to see how important the front-of-house staff is to the success of a restaurant.
In Memorial, a novel by Bryan Washington, Mike and Benson are a couple living together in Houston. Mike cooks, both as a chef and at home. Benson stays out of the kitchen. They fell into a rhythm in their relationship. Or is it a rut? When Mike’s father falls ill, he rushes to Osaka to take care of him. He only tells Benson that his mother, Mitsuko, is visiting the morning he leaves. Benson and Mitsuko don’t talk much, but they grow close by cooking together with each other. And with Mike gone, Benson can really think about what he wants out of his life and his relationships.
And finally, a title if, like me, you’re wondering how we came to worship chefs as tastemakers in the first place. Chefs, Drugs, and Rock & Roll, by Andrew Friedman, explores the rise of chefs to stardom in the 1970s and 80s and includes insights into the battle between California and France as food leaders. Interviews with culinary icons such as Alice Waters and Wolfgang Puck reveal what life was like in the midst of the food revolution.
