Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook

Medium Raw marks the return of the inimitable Anthony Bourdain, author of the blockbuster bestseller Kitchen Confidential and three-time Emmy Award-nominated host of No Reservations on TV’s Travel Channel. Bourdain calls his book, “A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook,” and he is at his entertaining best as he takes aim at some of the biggest names in the foodie world, including David Chang, Alice Waters, the Top Chef winners and losers, and many more. If Hunter S. Thompson had written a book about the restaurant business, it could have been Medium Raw.

The long-awaited follow-up to the megabestseller Kitchen Confidential

In the ten years since his classic Kitchen Confidential first alerted us to the idiosyncrasies and lurking perils of eating out, from Monday fish to the breadbasket conspiracy, much has changed for the subculture of chefs and cooks, for the restaurant business—and for Anthony Bourdain.

Medium Raw explores these changes, moving back and forth from the author's bad old days to the present. Tracking his own strange and unexpected voyage from journeyman cook to globe-traveling professional eater and drinker, and even to fatherhood, Bourdain takes no prisoners as he dissects what he's seen, pausing along the way for a series of confessions, rants, investigations, and interrogations of some of the most controversial figures in food.

Beginning with a secret and highly illegal after-hours gathering of powerful chefs that he compares to a mafia summit, Bourdain pulls back the curtain—but never pulls his punches—on the modern gastronomical revolution, as only he can. Cutting right to the bone, Bourdain sets his sights on some of the biggest names in the foodie world, including David Chang, the young superstar chef who has radicalized the fine-dining landscape; the revered Alice Waters, whom he treats with unapologetic frankness; the Top Chef winners and losers; and many more.

And always he returns to the question "Why cook?" Or the more difficult "Why cook well?" Medium Raw is the deliciously funny and shockingly delectable journey to those answers, sure to delight philistines and gourmands alike.

“Compulsively readable.” - New York Magazine's Grub Street

“The KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL author is a father now, but he hasn’t cleaned up his language, lost his zesty appetite or his critical zing.” - Time Magazine

“Bourdain is back with more intriguing food fights, moving further from the kitchen into the eating industry. [Bourdain’s] dissections...are still as hilarious, as scatological and as spot-on as ever....his fare—and his prose—is still quite spicy.” - BookPage

“The food orbit is [Bourdain’s] element, and chapters on today’s leading figures—from chef David Chang to critic Alan Richman—display his access, outspokenness and comedic gifts.” - Wall Street Journal

“MEDIUM RAW, [Bourdain’s] latest collection of essays, does have a fair amount of shtick, but it’s good, necessary shtick; sometimes, donning the garish costume of the court jester is the only way to get away with saying the unsayable. MEDIUM RAW is full of things everybody in the food world thinks but nobody will say, at least in print....If “Medium Raw” has some of the same enjoyable features as Bourdain’s debut collection - skillfully done travelogues, painfully funny memoirs, the A Day in the Kitchen With a Great Chef Essay - its furious heart is his attack on Richman and its accompanying essay, “Heroes and Villains.”...Bourdain has used his newly acquired superpowers - his unlimited access and now-global audience - for good; he is a true populist, as interested in celebrating the most humble wok-slinger as he is in extolling the superchef. If his sharp eye and his wicked tongue have brought him acclaim, what has kept him in the spotlight is his heart. Like Oscar Wilde, he is a moralist in the guise of a libertine. Long may he prosper.” - Denver Post

“Full of things everybody in the food world thinks but nobody will say...If [Bourdain’s] sharp eye and his wicked tongue have brought him acclaim, what’s kept him in the spotlight is his heart. Like Oscar Wilde, he’s a moralist in the guise of a libertine. Long may he prosper.” - Denver Post

“Mr. Bourdain is a vivid, bawdy and often foul-mouthed writer. He thrills in the attack, but he is also an enthusiast who writes well about things he holds dear. His detailed reporting on the backroom lives of restaurant employees is terrific. One of the most moving parts of the book is a chapter on a Dominican, Justo Thomas, who has spent the past six years in a tiny room below the kitchen of Le Bernardin in New York, cleaning 700 pounds of fish a day and cutting it into perfectly uniform portions.” - Wall Street Journal

“Mr. Bourdain is a vivid, bawdy and often foul-mouthed writer. He thrills in the attack, but he is also an enthusiast who writes well about things he holds dear.” - Wall Street Journal

“Like a stinky fish sauce from his beloved Vietnam, [Bourdain’s] appeal among the food die-hards has only grown stronger and more pungent over time, and this book will only solidify that adoration.” - Austin American-Statesman

“This is Bourdain at his best. His food-porn vignettes are guaranteed to make your mouth water.” - Miami Herald

“Bourdain’s strong voice carries from the camera directly to the page—he’s sarcastic, profane, bombastic, unapologetic.” - Los Angeles Times

“Bourdain has insight, access and good taste, and he’s a naturally engaging writer...Bourdain is a hopeless romantic when it comes to food and the people who cook. The subtitle’s real valentines are two elegantly written profiles.” - New York Times Book Review