Anthony Bourdain A Cooks Tour Season 1 Episode 20: My Life as a Cook

(soft music) Welcome to my world. (fast tempo music) Pate of two frozen snails. Two green salads. Lamb chop, French fries. Shouldn't you be doing something? Two smoked steaks and one pepper steak. Come on, make dessert. Chocolate cake please. As a

cook

, tastes and smells are my memories. Now I'm looking for new ones. So I'm leaving New York City and hoping to have some epiphanies around the world. And I am willing to do everything possible to achieve it. I look for extremes of emotion and experience. I'll try anything. I'll risk it all. I have nothing to lose.

There are 8,000,000 people in New York City. Every day they have to eat and someone has to

cook

for them. My name is Tony Bordain. I have been in the restaurant business for 28 years. About 20 of them as a chef. I started as a dishwasher. I have been a line cook, a preparation assistant, a good cook, a bad cook, a good and a bad person. I'm a different person than I used to be. And every morning, starting at eight in the morning, I am the executive chef at Les Halles Brasserie in New York City. In New York, the chances of success in a restaurant business, well, the odds are against you.

My personal logo, the chef's new and spectacular white clothes. You know, these are the big leagues. These are my babies right here. I have suspicions. The other day I saw a piglet tied up. I suspect I'll need this. It is a very capricious audience, very fickle, very dynamic, very sophisticated. They demand not only the best, but different. Impressive, isn't it cute? What drives you to do this every day? You love him. See how many things you can do at the same time. Over here, I'm working the meat for the braised beef. Over here we have tomato concasse working.

Over there, reducing poivre sauce and over here, our little friend, the boneless suckling pig. You may recognize him from movies like Babe, Pig In The City and Babe, The Revenge. Cooks have traditionally been slaves from Roman times until the mid-19th century. So far, I have discovered that all chefs share the same feeling of being outsiders, degraded, dejected and underestimated. Many of us have a messy, dysfunctional and chaotic

life

outside the kitchen, but inside the kitchen we have the only order, the only structure in our lives. What time were you supposed to be here today? Uh, 10:30. 10:30, what time is it now? 10:45.

You have a clock? Should I buy you a watch? Alright. Apparently you have some trouble telling time. I think removing at least one digit just to show that you recognize your transgressions. Okay, maybe I'm tearing down Opie's skills, but when she was 17, she was sliding me down the same slippery slope of insolence. The way I've lived my

life

, I'm now in for a bonus round. I ran out of points a long time ago. I'd probably be eating mashed potatoes in Attica right now if it weren't for my first summer in Provincetown. Recently, I went back and faced my murky past.

Yes honey, summer of 1974. Provincetown, Massachusetts. Salt air, sea breeze, promises of. New England Clam Chowder. Stewed squid, Maine lobsters, local scallops. It's all those good things about the New England coast. I arrived in the city as a penniless 17-year-old with no idea what to do with my life. Thus began my long and eventful career. Getting a job washing dishes to pay the rent, the line cook quickly impressed me. He wanted to drink all the free liquor they got. I wanted to have as many waitresses as them. I wanted to be able to steal whole sirloin strips and fill my freezer with frozen shrimp just like they did.

You know, it was exactly what you look for when you're a teenager. Walk into a bar with a bunch of smelly

cooks

around you and make the room slightly quiet. There were five of us. You could prepare 300 meals, stand in a hot kitchen, prepare fried fish and steam lobsters. Hordes of hungry

tour

ists and this was a ready-made excuse to misbehave in every other aspect of life. I thought, boy, if this is the life chefs lead, it sounds pretty good to me. My first big opportunity came working on the line at Ciro and Sal's Italian restaurant. Ciro and Sal's serves all your favorite Italian dishes, from fettuccine alfredo to ossobuco.

With the added bonus of their location on the New England coast, they also serve a wide variety of fresh fish and seafood dishes, all cooked Italian style, of course. However, I have my personal favorite. Marsala with aviario sauce. Beef marsala. Marsala is a velvety meat sauce that gets its robust flavor from the Italian wine of the same name. Old school beef dish, you know, I've seen it in a million Italian restaurants. Why did I ask for it? Because I thought it was cool when I came here. They used to do this, they would sauté the beef in a pan.

Then they would deglaze the pan, but they had three, sometimes three, sometimes four empty pans sitting on super-hot preheated burners on the stove, so they quickly reduced the sauce. They would go and then quickly pour it from one pan to another. Hissing and splashing as it goes from one pan to the other. Cook very quickly. It was a very striking movement. I was very impressed. When I was 17 and on drugs, I could barely crack an egg. I came here and worked alongside a great grill man who is very good at his job and now, here's the thing.

I think he's the chef here now. I'm afraid if I go to the kitchen, he'll say, "Ah, you little mess." I got my ass kicked a lot in this kitchen. Now let's recreate this. It was 1974, '75, right? Presumably, I'm supposed to be helping. And everyone is screaming. I don't even understand the names of these dishes. What is the night, what is marsala? (laughs) Ossobuco, what is that? I don't know. I remember standing here, doing this, you know, like... (laughs) And of course, you're doing all the right moves. You practically took care of the friar's cloak. That little bit of the oven.

You're being too nice. I was so useless, I was so useless. I didn't say you did a great job. I said you took care of it (laughs). Now, as I remember it, I was burned, right? And I asked you for burn cream. Oh Lord. Suddenly, the world's loudest kitchen became the world's quiet kitchen. And now look at you, the great chef, eh? Well, in many ways, I owe you everything. If I hadn't felt so humiliated by my worthlessness that night, I mean, I might have ended up, you know, robbing liquor stores. I mean, you know, you put me on the right path.

If things get bad with all this TV nonsense, I'll look to get my job back. Let's go back. Now, what would I have become if I had not been a cook? I'm sure a tragedy would have occurred. In fact, if there is any part of me that is good and decent and organized and exhibits the qualities that parents generally approve of, oddly enough, I learned all of those things in the restaurant business. Around noon at Les Halles we are always in a hurry to eat. Well guys, we have a steak with mussel. In a restaurant kitchen the day has a different rhythm.

The most important periods are the lunch and dinner rush hours. Within each race, there are smaller divisions of fast and slow as the dining room rotates. Adrenaline generates, I mean, apparently, runners feel a kind of thrill, like after jogging every day, they get hooked on it. It is very similar. You get hooked on generating a few adrenaline rushes like this every day. Aspirants beware. This is not a walk in the park. You better be on a high pitch for this. I lose my (beep) for a minute, these guys wait about 30 minutes to get their food. No matter how good a job we do today, we will have to do it again tomorrow and the next day and the next day and forever.

One of the things that keeps me from crashing and burning is having a firm foundation in the basics. I am classically trained in the sense that I attended, went to the best cooking school in the country and trained in a profession of old school French, Austrian, Swiss, Italian and German chefs. The world has changed a lot since those times. The school I went to has changed a lot. It's a completely different world up there. Everything good, everything up to date. Recently, I was invited to return to my alma mater to visit students and staff. (marching band music) C-I-A, The Culinary Institute of America.

These are the culinary schools of Harvard and West Point all rolled into one. Located in its own facility in upstate New York, this is a self-contained complex that offers a disciplined and comprehensive education in the culinary arts and restaurant business. My first stop is to visit the actual classroom where I did many of my cooking exercises. How are you, chef? Nice to meet you, how are you? I think I was in this kitchen in 1975. Can we have a quick lineup please, ladies and gentlemen? So every morning I start classes in which this is the poster. I greet each of them individually, shake their hand, inspect them, make sure their shoes are polished, their hats on, the whole nine yards, get them ready for their professional day, and maybe even The class would like a word from our guest chef here, Mr.

Anthony Bordain. Tomorrow Chef Bordain. Welcome to the CIA. This guy is definitely a food drill sergeant. He doesn't phase me. We had guys like him when I was in the CIA. What surprises me are the students. These are not the farmers, bedwetters, reprobates and criminal miscreants who served the CIA in '75. These students mean business. So I decide to lighten things up a bit. I'll confess something to you. I used to cheat in this class. I remember I used to have six and a half hours to find, you know, a solid stock. They should have done a full pat-down on me.

He was smuggling little packets of miner's chicken base. (Laughter) Maybe there will be an X-ray machine installed tomorrow. Pleased to meet you. - Enjoy your stay. - Thank you. Thank you so much guys. I decide to stop by a class down the hall where they are learning how to stock. Chef, I'd like you to start with maybe a jacket and a hat. I can do that. As usual here. Alright, I put in my coffee filter, for the first time in 23 years, don't quote me. To most people who even know what it is, broth may seem like a pretty simple or boring thing to focus on in a cooking school like this.

But on the contrary, broth is the fundamental ingredient in a significant majority of soups, sauces and recipes. Now, what stocks are coming out of this class again today? Alright, we make chicken broth every day. We make ground beef broth every day. We make a white beef broth every day. Broth is made by simmering bones and meat of animals or fish along with vegetables, spices, and occasionally wine. We made fun of the first day, but this class focuses on these actions and their importance. If you don't have a good broth, you won't have a good finished product, you won't have good rice.

As if bad stock ruins the finished product. You know, you already killed the thing in its crib. You know, you see a lot of stock market crimes in the world. Unpeeled carrots, unpeeled onions, let the broth become bitter, overboil them. There are many things that can go wrong with stocks. How many hours is that? Six hours. Then the beef broth is cooked for six hours. Alright, are any of the ovens on yet? Oh no, turn on those ovens. You know, it's easy, especially when you're talking about stocks and basics, it's easy to start slowly veering off course.

What separates great chefs from decent chefs are the guys who never waver, you know, and basically make stocks the right way throughout their lives continuously and relentlessly. Chef, thank you very much. Thank you. While some things never seem to change, don't tip your hat, the future of culinary school definitely has. You know, when I told my parents, "Mom, Dad, I want to be a chef and I want to go to culinary school, I want to go." "The Culinary Institute of America." I mean, they were as happy about it as if I had announced at the table, you know, "Mom, Dad, I want to be an arsonist." Now, wealthy parents happily send their children to cooking school and brag about it.

It is an honorable profession. That is, at least until I get my hands on them when they graduate. Hey, maybe I should go see the dean about a teaching position. (woodwind music) When Les Halles begins the night shift, I am replaced at the saute station and switch to throttle. What does a shipper do? He makes sure that the food arrives at the same time and reaches the right table at the right time. Do you have squid working? You are the best. Come on Elvis, move, I want to smell burning hair. Being a chef is a good brain.

In fact, a large part of the work is managerial. Okay, throw away the olives. I want all the new ones. There are only a few hours left in the day, but the rush to dinner is always the hardest part. (foreign language) Endive salad, green salad, followed by two lamb chops,beef paillard, English, two smoked filets, green salad followed by filet. Oh look, this is ugly. It's usually around this time that I start fantasizing about going postal in my dining room. Look at this stew. No butter. No butter! There's no butter, but they want extra béarnaise.

I mean, that's what (bleep) the problem is with these stutters (bleep). Without butter, what the fuck do you think béarnaise is? Béarnaise is like egg yolks and butter. The only thing that always stops me from going over the edge is my fear and reverence for a man. The man who taught me everything I know about running a kitchen. He's the man I like to call Bigfoot. From time to time, I like to contact the teacher to stay properly aligned. Bigfoot is a legend in the lower Manhattan restaurant business. This whole neighborhood is Bigfoot territory.

He actually then ran three places that I know of, all within a few blocks of here. The man has, let's say, a reputation. He is the godfather. He rules his establishment with an iron fist. I haven't worked for that man in 10 years, but that guy is still fucking with my head. That is the type of management that I like and admire. Bigfoot always had an uncanny ability to be aware of the most intimate details of everything that happened in his restaurant. It's time to see my lifelong mentor, my original mentor, the man I refer to as Bigfoot.

I think you should call me Mr. Bigfoot. Or Mr. Foot. Whenever someone in the business needs to reflect on themselves, he always values ​​Bigfoot's advice. The Eminence of him. Sit down. When did I first walk through the door of his restaurant? Maybe we met in '76, seven? Generations of bartenders,

cooks

, bartenders, busboys and managers have passed through its various operations. What for you were my strengths and weaknesses as a line cook (laughs)? In all honesty, I think the people who were most successful in any of my organizations would be characterized as really smart guys. I was looking for a response like, "Your soups were really good, Tony." Your soups weren't that good.

Memory fulfilled. It was fun having you around all the time. So he wouldn't be the person to go to if you were looking for, you know, something new and spectacular, you know, to break new ground in the kitchen, he probably wouldn't be the person you would call. That thought would never cross my mind. (Laughs) It turns out that for a time you had an incredibly talented cook under your roof who helped me a lot in the years that followed. I could certainly put the food on the plate. He had no idea about management, which, as you know, was as much a part of the chef's job as the food.

I can't look back and tell you it was your soups or anything like that. I don't remember that far back, but what sticks in my mind the most is the fact that you always took care of it. You have to be able to depend on your people. Like all wise mentors, Bigfoot always knows how to express criticism constructively. He always seemed to know exactly what you were thinking. I wonder if all those stories were true. I can't reveal that. Okay, this is getting creepy. I'm out of here. Hey, thank you very much for your time. It's always good to see you when you're back, you know, stop by and say hello.

Always, see you. Special fish, fillet. One thing I definitely learned from Bigfoot is that kitchen management skills are key. It's ironic when you consider how screwed up he used to be. Oh yeah, the ability to cook, that would be a good thing too. But I would say it comes later. I mean, the other qualities are more important and this is something that most people miss. Of course, a good chef also knows when to cut him some slack, especially to himself. I'm committing a serious crime, hey, don't look. After 14 hours in Les Halles, my day is coming to an end.

Dinner fever is on its latest death row. Everything is good? Is the taste okay? Super! Good. After this there is no problem, nothing right? At the end of the day, when your energy begins to fail, what pushes you toward that final stretch is less the individual than the camaraderie of the group. Listen, it's very, very important to me that you have a good night because I care about you. Finally, my turn comes to an end. The Earth has completed two-thirds of a revolution, but do I want to go home? Not in your life. Maybe a couple of cocktails, talk to other chefs.

Companions! Thank you so much! Okay, I see you. Most of the time, I just have a few beers with the team, but once or twice a week, well, I want to go where everyone knows my name. Bellevue Bar. Hey! How are you? The owner of Bellevue Bar is my very good friend, Tracy Westmoreland. This is the back room, kind of the secret back room of the Bellevue Bar. There's always a good crowd of people who are in the industry and they always know that they can stop by one of Tracy's places late at night and be treated very, very very well and behave very, very badly. (Laughs) You never know who will show up, but tonight's cast of characters includes them.

Junie Parent, owner of Nobu, Philippe Basel, chef of Park Bistro and Scott Bryan, chef of Barato. What we all seem to want to do after work is hang out with other people in the restaurant business who just did the same thing we did and talk shop. You know, you need to be with people of your own kind and commiserate. I'm being (bleep) by the environmental protection department. What did you do? Rape, $1,750. We could hear the music in the street. And meanwhile, if you go up Ninth Avenue right now, they're burning tar. You know, I wake up to drill at 8:00 in the morning.

I'm playing music and you can hear it on the street. Fine of $1750. In 1975, 1975, when I was at Formerly Joe's working with Bigfoot, someone called the EPA and claimed that they had seen Andy's employees dumping deep fryer grease into the sewer grate outside the street, which, of course, Of course, we had not done so. made. We all have the same hours, we all suffer to different degrees from the same forces. After work, we want to hang out, get drunk, eat generally raw fish or, you know, humble things like soul food. Thousands of dollars worth of bull sushi man, right here.

Man, you did good. What do you have here? Foie gras. Oh excellent. We take great pleasure in each other's misfortune without having to reproach it. I mean, that's just the way things are. There's a grim pride in producing a lot of food, especially when you're 44 years old. To make a night of 250 dinners and keep up with the kids, there's nothing like it. So I'm on top of the world. That is to say, an enormously powerful evocative encounter with food. I never get tired of it. Hmm, I wonder what I'll serve for tomorrow's special. (fast-paced electronic music)