Tracking his own strange and unexpected voyage from journeyman cook to globe-travelling professional eater and drinker, Anthony Bourdain takes stock of his career, in this sequel to Kitchen Confidential. Beginning with a secret and highly illegal after-hours gathering of powerful chefs that he compares to a Mafia summit, Bourdain also offers his engaging blend of confessions, rants, investigations, and interrogations, taking aim at superstar chef David Chang, culinary legend Alice Waters, and Top Chef contestants. Along the way, he seeks answers to the question: "Why cook?" and the even more existential, "Why cook well?"
"Full of things everybody in the food world thinks but nobody will say.... Like Oscar Wilde, he's a moralist in the guise of a libertine."—Denver Post