‘When Chefs Attack’ Serves the Unappetizing

Network television is catching on to what cable and the publishing world have known for several years: The public’s hunger for food, chef and restaurant news is seemingly bottomless. But the latest offering is less than appetizing.

Tonight’s “When Chefs Attack: Hidden Video of America’s Scariest Restaurants” on UPN showcases grainy black and white video of chefs vomiting on the pastries, spiking dishes with spit, ashes and urine and having sexual relations on the chopped celery. Some scenes were so revolting, the network had them edited out of the one-hour program, says producer Erik Nelson, whose past productions include the undercover video clip show “Busted on the Job.”

That show gave him a pipeline to kitchen video, but it took Nelson a year to line up the necessary pictures, taken from kitchen security cameras in what look like mostly fast food restaurants, delis, diners and the like. To reduce theft, “there are as many cameras in some kitchens as in casinos in Vegas,” he says. Nelson also had to track down the perpetrators, some of whom, in disguise, talk proudly about their exploits, which nonetheless cost them their jobs. The video was supplied by private investigators, prosecutors, law enforcement operations and restaurants.

The program is the opposite of much food TV, which celebrates exotic flavors and romanticizes the kitchen. He says his program deals with “urban legend; we’re tapping into people’s primal fears” of what really goes into their food.

The special is clearly targeting UPN’s core young male audience with gross-out humor--an audience quite different from that of ABC’s “Nightline,” which caters to older, more upscale viewers. But ratings surged when ABC tackled the same subject, albeit in a much more sober way; for one, its cameras were invited in to look at the inner workings of a kitchen. The Dec. 22 “Nightline” drew 28% more viewers than usual, about 6.24 million, compared with the 4.88 million it had been averaging in the fourth quarter.

Both broadcasts feature Anthony Bourdain, executive chef at New York’s Brasserie Les Halles and author of “Kitchen Confidential,” about his career as a chef, which has spent 14 weeks on bestseller lists since its publication last May.

“Nightline” decided to do a show on Bourdain after producer Dan Morris read the book. “I loved the humor, and I loved his clear passion for excellence.” He focused the show on the “enormous task of keeping a restaurant stocked . . . and consistently turning out product that people will come back to again and again and again.”

Still Bourdain is also featured puffing cigarettes and telling tales about how some restaurants save up used table butter, “strain out the cigarette butts and bread crumbs” and turn it into the weekend brunch hollandaise sauce.

“That’s fun; you can’t leave it out,” Morris says. “People who’ve heard about the book or read it, expect that.”

Indeed, “it makes for good copy,” says Karen Rinaldi, editorial director at Bloomsbury Publications, publisher of “Kitchen Confidential,” although she says Bourdain is “so much more than the guy who blew the whistle on restaurants. He has incredible respect and love for the business.”

Bourdain’s isn’t the only book; Debra Ginsberg, author of “Waiting: The True Confessions of a Waitress,” is also featured in the UPN program.

Some in the industry have had enough of such tales. “There are always people in any industry who do bad things,” says Fern Berman, whose public relations company represents some of the nation’s top restaurants and chefs. “All the people I know in the restaurant industry are upright, wonderful people. It’s a business of generosity.” She says she resents all the emphasis on the dark side. “People work so hard in the kitchen, lugging heavy pans, working over a hot stove to make something delicious for their customers. This totally negates what they’re doing.”

But Nelson contends that “where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” and he has the video to prove it. He says all the clips and interviews are real, noting, “I wish I could make that up.”

* “When Chefs Attack: Hidden Video of America’s Scariest Restaurants” airs tonight at 9 on UPN (KCOP-TV Channel 13). The network has rated it TV-14-S (may be unsuitable for children younger than 14 with special advisories for sexual content).