Anthony Bourdain on Restaurants and the Economy

How do you see the restaurant industry dealing with the economy?

Bourdain: "The engine of gastronomy through history has been poverty and difficulties, from the days of dealing with lack of refrigeration or having to work only with second-best ingredients. These are things that force people to cook well because they have no other options.

On the other hand, there's going to be a very rude awakening for a lot of types of restaurants if they're not aware yet how drastically things have changed. ...

There is going to be an apocalyptic shakeout.

On the plus side, the bullshit will be the first to go."

Bourdain & White discuss chefs, kitchens & The Food Network

Anthony Bourdain and Marco Pierre White have standards.

Marco Pierre White, is the legendary British chef with a quick temper and a similarly candid view of the restaurant world as Bourdain. Maybe you haven't heard of Marco, but many regard him as one of the greatest. Even if you have never heard of Marco there is every chance you've heard of Mario Batali, Jamie Oliver, Gary Rhodes, Gordon Ramsay and Heston Blumenthal, they trained and worked with Marco. We believe Marco played a major roll as the creator of the modern-day phenomenon that is the celebrity chefs.

Pierre White and Bourdain discussed the role of the chef: in the kitchen, and on TV.

The question: what “defines a chef?” White’s chef is somebody who works up the ranks from “boy cook to head of the kitchen,” stressing that the chef’s name on the door should be the person cooking the food—either stationed at the burner or working the pass. He referred to many chefs as “living lies” by not cooking in their own kitchens.

Bourdain stressed chef as a “leader, who can get somebody to show up to work every day.”

Regarding chefs on TV? The Food Network has some crap on-air talent,. so what’s the point of the television chef? “TV is a way to inspire people to cook. People don’t learn to cook from others, they teach themselves to cook,” said Pierre White. And about Gordon Ramsay—whom White recently took over for on the British version of “Kitchen Nightmares”? “The last thing you should be doing in the kitchen is belittling people,” said Pierre White adding the barb that Ramsay even made himself cry on TV. Bourdain added that Mario Batali was the most qualified stand-and-stir host the network has seen.