To those serious ones who know what it is they are entering, who are fully prepared, ready,

willing and able, and committed to a career path like, say, Scott Bryan's-who want to be chefs,
must be chefs, whatever the personal costs and physical demands-then I have this to say to
you:
Welcome to my world!
And consider these suggestions as to your conduct, attitude and preparation for the path you
intend to follow.

1. Be fully committed. Don't be a fence-sitter or a waffler. If you're going to be a chef some
day, be sure about it, single-minded in your determination to achieve victory at all costs. If you
think you might find yourself standing in a cellar prep kitchen one day, after tourneing 200
potatoes, wondering if you made the right move, or some busy night on a grill station, find
yourself doubting the wisdom of your chosen path, then you will be a liability to yourself and
others. You are, for all intents and purposes, entering the military. Ready yourself to follow
orders, give orders when necessary, and live with the outcome of those orders without
complaint. Be ready to lead, follow, or get out of the way.
2. Don't steal. In fact, don't do anything that you couldn't take a polygraph test over. If you're a
chef who drinks too many freebies at the bar, takes home the occasional steak for the wife, or
smokes Hawaiian bud in the off hours, be fully prepared to admit this unapologetically to any
and all. Presumably, your idiosyncrasies will-on balance-make you no less a chef to your
employers and employees. If you're a sneak and a liar, however, it will follow you forever. This is
a small business; everybody knows everybody else. You will do yourself immeasurable harm.
Don't ever take kickbacks or bribes from a purveyor. They'll end up owning you, and you will
have sold off your best assets as a chef-your honesty, reliability and integrity-in a business
where these are frequently rare and valuable qualities.
Temptation, of course, is everywhere. When you're a hungry, underpaid line cook, those filet
mignons you're searing off by the dozens look mighty good. Pilfer one and you're bent. Ask for
one, for chrissakes! You'll probably get one. If they won't let you have one, you're probably
working in the wrong place.
Faking petty cash vouchers, stealing food, colluding with a purveyor or a co-worker is
extraordinarily easy. Avoid it. Really.
I was bent for the first half of my career, meaning, I pilfered food, turned in the occasional
inflated petty cash slip, nicked beer for the kitchen. It didn't feel good. Slinking home at the end
of the night, knowing that you're a thief, whatever your excuse ('My boss is a thief' . . . 'I need
the money' . . . 'They'll never notice') feels lousy. And it can come back to bite you later in your
career.
Recently, I agreed to meet with the representative from a major seafood wholesaler. I met him
at the empty bar of my restaurant, during the slow time between lunch and dinner, and told him
that I'd done business with his company at another restaurant. I was inclined to like the
company. The products and services had, in my experience so far, been first rate, and what he
needed to do to get my business was simply provide the same or better-quality fish as my other
purveyors-and do so at a lower price. I meant it, too. I am absolutely tone-deaf to criminal
solicitation. It bores me. And for all my misbehavior over the years, I have never-and I mean
never-taken money or a thing of value from a purveyor in return for my master's business.
'Junior' (that was his name), from X Seafood, seemed puzzled by my apparent obtuseness that
day. Thick-necked, crew-cutted, but oh-so-friendly, 'Junior' seemed to think that maybe we were
talking about sex, when in fact all the while we were discussing the internal combustion engine.
There were long silences as his gentle, cheerful probings and expressions of non-specific good
will were left dangling in the air. After a while of this-me wanting only to know how much he was
charging for Norwegian salmon today, and resisting his unspoken entreaties suddenly to muse
aloud about how, maybe, it would be nice if I could afford a hot tub for my apartment-he gave up
in frustration and left.
Minutes later, a waiter drew my attention to a plain white envelope on the floor. Opening it, I found a
stack of 100-dollar bills and a list of nearby hotels and restaurants with some names
checked off. 'Junior' had apparently dropped it. I have to tell you, I felt pretty damn good calling
up 'Senior' down at X Seafood and breezily informing him that his son seemed to have left
something behind by mistake at my restaurant: could they please send someone to come pick it
up? A red-faced functionary picked the envelope up within minutes, and I never heard from that
company again.
All sorts of scumbags will offer you every variety of free stuff if you entertain the prospect of
doing business with them, slipping them food, or looking the other way. Screw them all. Don't
even play footsie with them, meaning, 'I'll take the case of Dom-but I don't know if I can always
do business with you.' Don't even do that. There are a lot of scumbags in the restaurant
business, people who will let the Gambino Family decide who gets the fish order or the liquor
order in return for Knicks tickets or a lap dance, and these are people who you will have to deal
with, sometimes adversarially. How can you win an argument with one of these people when
you're a scumbag too?
3. Always be on time. That means 15 minutes before start of the shift.
4. Never make excuses or blame others.
5. Never call in sick. Except in cases of dismemberment, arterial bleeding, sucking chest
wounds or the death of an immediate family member. Granny died? Bury her on your day off.
6. Lazy, sloppy and slow are bad. Enterprising, crafty and hyperactive are good.
7. Be prepared to witness every variety of human folly and injustice. Without it screwing up
your head or poisoning your attitude. You will simply have to endure the contradictions and
inequities of this life. 'Why does that brain-damaged, lazy-assed busboy take home more money
than me, the goddamn sous-chef?' should not be a question that drives you to tears of rage and
frustration. It will just be like that sometimes. Accept it.
'Why is he/she treated better than me?'
'How come the chef gets to loiter in the dining room, playing kissy-face with [insert minor
celebrity here] while I'm working my ass off?'
'Why is my hard work and dedication not sufficiently appreciated?'
These are all questions best left unasked. The answers will drive you insane eventually. If you
keep asking yourself questions like these, you will find yourself slipping into martyr mode,
unemployment, alcoholism, drug addiction and death.
8. Assume the worst. About everybody. But don't let this poisoned outlook affect your job
performance. Let it all roll off your back. Ignore it. Be amused by what you see and suspect. Just
because someone you work with is a miserable, treacherous, self-serving, capricious and
corrupt asshole shouldn't prevent you from enjoying their company, working with them or finding
them entertaining. This business grows assholes: it's our principal export. I'm an asshole. You
should probably be an asshole too.
9. Try not to lie. Remember, this is the restaurant business. No matter how bad it is, everybody probably
has heard worse. Forgot to place the produce order? Don't lie about it. You
made a mistake. Admit it and move on. Just don't do it again. Ever.
10. Think about that rsum! How will it look to the chef weeding through a stack of faxes if
you've never worked in one place longer than six months? If the years '95 to '97 are
unaccounted for? If you worked as sandwich chef at happy Malone's Cheerful Chicken, maybe
you shouldn't mention that. And please, if you appeared as 'Bud' in a daytime soap opera,
played the Narrator in a summer stock production of 'Our Town', leave it off the rsum. Nobody
cares-except the chef, who won't be hiring anyone with delusions of thespian greatness. Under
'Reasons for Leaving Last Job', never give the real reason, unless it's money or ambition.
11. Read! Read cookbooks, trade magazines-I recommend Food Arts, Saveur, Restaurant
Business magazines. They are useful for staying abreast of industry trends, and for pinching
recipes and concepts. Some awareness of the history of your business is useful, too. It allows
you to put your own miserable circumstances in perspective when you've examined and
appreciated the full sweep of culinary history. Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London is
invaluable. As is Nicolas Freleng's The Kitchen, David Blum's Flash in the Pan, the Batterberrys'
fine account of American restaurant history, On the Town in New York, and Joseph Mitchell's Up
in the Old Hotel. Read the old masters: Escoffier, Bocuse et al as well as the Young Turks:
Keller, Marco-Pierre White, and more recent generations of innovators and craftsmen.
14. Have a sense of humor about things. You'll need it.

-Anthony Bourdain