Novel cuisine

Anthony Bourdain, 46, isn’t your average celebrity chef. A Vassar College dropout and onetime heroin addict, he thrived on the intensity and battlefield camaraderie of restaurant kitchens. That incestuous world, he noted three years ago in his surprise bestseller “Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly,” not only tolerated but also shared his mania for sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. The expose shook up the culinary world, was optioned by Hollywood and put Bourdain on the map.

Currently executive chef at New York City’s Brasserie Les Halles, Bourdain next turned his attention to “A Cook’s Tour: In Search of the Perfect Meal” (2001). That book led to a TV series on the Food Network, an outlet he once savaged.

Last month saw the publication of “The Bobby Gold Stories,” the third novel by the slightly mellower but still outspoken Bourdain.

The book focuses on the travails of a mob-connected ex-con operating in the culinary world. Any similarities to someone, living or dead, he says, are no coincidence.

People call you the “bad boy of cuisine.” With all your mainstream success, is it hard to maintain your renegade status?

I’m neither a boy nor bad anymore. But I’m just as unpleasant in person as I am on TV. I’m too old and too mean to change. Like Bobby Gold, I was one of those marginal people who made himself into a monster for the purpose of expediency and had a weird, sad longing to play house. I lived from paycheck to paycheck. I had no furniture. Every meal was Chinese takeout.

After “Kitchen Confidential,” I’m traveling around the world, drawing a pathetic, suburban pleasure from barbecuing hamburgers and hot dogs when my relatives are in town. Still, I don’t regret being a heroin addict, a great training ground for dealing with network executives. When I’d start thinking that something was beneath me, I’d say compared to what? Picking pockets? Sitting on Broadway, selling records and blankets? Asking my mom for money?

Why were you drawn to being a chef? Not the obvious vocation for a nice New Jersey boy with a private school education.

Being a chef is a hard, hard world but very liberating. You’re free to be yourself. No one judges you by anything else than what you can do with your hands. If you make it through the gauntlet, you’re a tribe member for life. There are those who love everything about the job and become addicted, others whom it breaks. TV is a convenient refuge for chefs who burn out. If, like Emeril [Lagasse], you want to cash out at 40, celebrity chefdom is the answer. Starting as a dishwasher, he created an empire of good-quality restaurants. I draw the line at those who haven’t done the work and are mugging for the camera.

Some critics have compared your prose to Elmore Leonard’s.

That’s flattering, But, actually, Hunter Thompson has been the greatest influence. I like how fearless and inflammatory he is. And George V. Higgins’ “Friends of Eddie Coyle” is my favorite novel, the gold standard for dialogue. I’m not much for plot -- chasing my poor characters off to a denouement. I don’t care whodunit or why. I’m much more interested in what people say and wear. What records they’re playing. Same goes for cooking. I love the preparation and presentation, having the dish for that perfect moment. Though a professional cook is supposed to please customers, that’s not my goal. Seeing the plate leave the window -- sending it off to an uncertain future -- puts me in postpartum depression.

What’s happening to the “Kitchen Confidential” movie? I heard that you were going to be played by Brad Pitt.

It was going to be a New Line feature film. They planned to have it directed by David Fincher and star Brad Pitt. While I would have been happy to have his face on the tie-in of the paperback edition, that was the limit of my aspirations since the script bore almost no resemblance to the book. The project eventually fell apart and New Line is talking about doing a cable TV series.

I’m more optimistic about “Bobby Gold,” which was optioned by the producer Albert Berger [along with Ron Yerxa and Steve Golin]. Though all of my books have been optioned, none have reached the screen. But if Hollywood wants to pay me each year for not making a movie, I love it. Look, my TV show could get canceled or my next book go in the tank. Though I’m an “executive chef” now, essentially a casino greeter, I could always go back to cooking steak frites or boudin noir -- and that wouldn’t make me unhappy.

-- Elaine Dutka