Bestselling author, TV host, and chef Anthony Bourdain reveals the hearty, delicious recipes of Les Halles, the classic New York City French bistro where he got his start.
Before stunning the world with his bestselling Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain, host of the celebrated TV shows Parts Unknown and No Reservations, spent years serving some of the best French brasserie food in New York. With its no-nonsense, down-to-earth atmosphere, Les Halles matched Bourdain's style perfectly: a restaurant where you can dress down, talk loudly, drink a little too much wine, and have a good time with friends. Now, Bourdain brings you his Les Halles Cookbook, a cookbook like no other: candid, funny, audacious, full of his signature charm and bravado.
Bourdain teaches you everything you need to know to prepare classic French bistro fare. While you're being guided, in simple steps, through recipes like roasted veal short ribs and steak frites, escargots aux noix and foie gras au pruneaux, you'll feel like he's in the kitchen beside you-reeling off a few insults when you've scorched the sauce, and then patting you on the back for finally getting the steak tartare right.
As practical as it is entertaining, Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook is a can't-miss treat for cookbook lovers, aspiring chefs, and Bourdain fans everywhere.
"Don't be misled by Anthony Bourdain's witty, irreverent style. His Les Halles Cookbook is solid, smart, and informative, and his recipes are bona fide bistro fare. From the onion soup to the veal kidney to the gratin dauphinois, this is the honest, unpretentious, comforting, and abundant food I loved as a youth in France and am always ready to enjoy with my family and friends. Anthony has given us an instant classic." - Jacques Pepin, author of The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen and Jacques Pepin’s Complete Techniques
"Anyone serious about their cooking will want to own Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook. It has an enormous amount of vital information presented in Bourdain's pungent, abrasive, and memorable writing style. This is a cookbook you'll keep handy in the kitchen." - Jim Harrison, author of The Raw and the Cooked: Adventures of a Roving Gourmand
"This is a great cookbook! Anthony Bourdain directs you brilliantly through delicious recipes, with explanations that are crystal clear." - Eric Ripert, author of Le Bernardin Cookbook
"Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook joins the classic French cookbooks on my shelf, and shames every would-be ‘bistro bible'. Bourdain is in top form. Nobody else writes with such respect for real food, and his irreverence toward the pompous trappings of cooking is hilarious. An expert attack plan for producing delicious fare, this field guide and cookbook is part Kerouac, part Liebling, and a lot of Escoffier all rolled into one." - Mario Batali, author of The Babbo Cookbook