OP: Les Halles Cookbook (signed first printing)

Bloomsbury, 2004. Hardcover. Near fine. Signed first printing.

Anthony Bourdain (1956–2018) is easily described as the godfather of an entire generation of professional cooks from the early aughts and beyond. His 2000 memoir, Kitchen Confidential, was the siren call, luring young misfits into the gritty, unforgiving restaurant world.

A good portion of Kitchen Confidential takes place in the now shuttered New York City French brasserie Les Halles, where Bourdain served as executive chef from the late 1990s. As the chef and author’s public profile rose to meteoric heights, Anthony Bourdain published his Les Halles Cookbook in 2004.

Though the book indeed covers all those dressed-down bistro classics you might crave at home—pork rillettes, salade nicoise, French onion soup, tartare, steak frites, cassoulet, and creme brulee—we harbor no illusions that anyone comes to this book for anything other than Anthony Bourdain’s singular voice—irreverent, astute, funny, and supportive, in his own way (“What’s your major malfunction, dipshit? This stuff is EASY!” says the introduction).

An impromptu memorial was set up outside of the dark and vacant Les Halles space after his passing, despite his not having been directly involved in the restaurant’s operations for some time, the restaurant a symbolic beacon for everything Tony was and became. 

We have the rare opportunity of offering a signed first printing of the author’s first cookbook. It is inscribed to the previous owner, a customer of Kitchen Arts and Letters, with an illustration of a chef’s knife. Near Fine condition with minor ruffling of the jacket, particularly to the spine and rear. A meaningful memento of someone whose life and memory was bigger than the man himself.