He cooks with the fishes

The film version starring Brad Pitt may have been nixed, but Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential is set to hit the small screen courtesy of HBO.

“If it’s as good – or even one-tenth as good – as The Sopranos, I’ll be happy,” says the celebrity scram merchant who’s in Dublin to plug his new novel, Bobby Gold.

“That’s been sold as well, and to really cool people,” he continues. “It’s the same independent production company that did Election starring Matthew Broderick and Reese Witherspoon, so it may turn out okay.”

He does a mental double-take.

“God, I can’t believe that I’m being optimistic about anything to do with Hollywood! Plenty of smarter, better writers than me have died or OD’d or drunk themselves to death breathing the oxygen out there. I expect the worst and, as a result, am never disappointed. It’d be nice if they make a great job of Kitchen Confidential and Bobby Gold, but my pulse no longer quickens when I read in a gossip column that they’re ‘considering Benicio Del Toro’ as the young me.”

While technically a work of fiction, Bourdain admits that pretty much all of the characters in Bobby Gold are based on real people. Especially the organised crime ones who tend to live in New Jersey and be involved in the waste disposal business.

“I know big, hulking security guys who are actually a lot smarter and more sensitive than their outward appearance. I’m familiar with tough as nails line cooks who, deep down, are looking for love. I worked for a couple of mob-run restaurants, one of which was not shy about the fact and actually told me to brag about it! When I tried to get credit or deliveries, I was instructed to say, ‘I’m with Jerry Brown.’ They all had these marvellous Anglicised names – Mr. Lang, Mr. Brown… Of course, I’d read about ’em later and find they were wanted for multiple murders!

“It’s all changed post-John Gotti who was an idiot and ruined it for everybody by being a show-off,” he reflects. “Him and Vincent Cincinnati– on whom I based an earlier character – being sent to jail was the end of an era. We’re reaching the shallow end of the gene pool in New York organised crime. Well, in terms of Italian families who in many areas have been replaced by the likes of the Vietnamese Born To Kill gang who shoot you dead, and then go to the funeral to take out the mourners. That’s cold!”

Bourdain’s first encounter with the Mafia was as a kid attending a fee-paying school in Noo Joisey.

“Mob kids don’t go through the public education system. Having been invited round their homes to play, I can tell you it’s much closer to The Sopranos than The Godfather. There are wiretaps of these guys in New Jersey arguing about who Tony is based on, ‘You or me?’.”

An ardent Sopranos fan himself, Bourdain was suitably star-struck when he got a call from “Christopher” Moltisanti.

“I still think of him as Christopher, even though I know he’s an actor called Michael Imperioli,” he laughs. “No, he’d read one of my books, liked it and wanted to hang out. The only thing cooler than that was Marky Ramone seeing me wearing a Ramones t-shirt on TV, and ringing to see if I wanted to go for a meal with him. Which, of course, I did.”

There was also a dinner date with Nigella Lawson.

“Man, she’s hardcore about food. I thought I’d eaten some pretty weird stuff – sheep’s testicles, fetal eggs, beating cobra hearts – but she’s gone way beyond that.

“What was it? Not wanting to get her into trouble with Catholics, I can’t say!”

Bleeding spoilsport! Seeing as he won’t play ball with us, we’re going to out Anthony Bourdain as a common or garden thief.

“It’s true,” he confesses. “I went to a Ralph Steadman launch in London a couple of nights ago and stole a sculpture. I couldn’t fit one of the pen and ink watercolours under my coat, so I lifted that instead. I’ve since confessed to my crime and him being a nice guy, it’s cool.”

Has he ever come across Steadman’s partner in crime – quite literally on occasions – Hunter S. Thompson?

“Yeah, I was at the publication party for Proud Highway. He came with Johnny Depp who was acting like a male nurse the whole night, holding him up and generally making sure he didn’t collapse into the canapés.

I don’t know if he’s written that much recently, which is tragic given the wonderful, wonderful work he’s produced in the past. A couple of reviews have described Kitchen Confidential as a ‘culinary Fear & Loathing’, but I’m not being falsely modest when I say I’m not fit to tie Hunter S. Thompson’s bootlaces. He is a God.”

As a body of people, how does he rate authors?

“I’d rather hang out with cooks! I don’t particularly like the writer part of my personality – it’s the needy, neurotic side that needs constant pats on the head and reassurance.

“If I can imagine a reader, it’s a beleaguered cook wanting a few minutes respite from their honest toils.

“It’s pleasurable for me – and hopefully them – to escape into characters who solve their problems with guns and knives and fists. Bobby Gold is my psychotherapy!”