Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly is a New York Times bestselling nonfiction book written by American chef Anthony Bourdain, first published in 2000.

[2] The essay, an unsolicited submission to the magazine, launched Bourdain's media career and served as the foundation for Kitchen Confidential.

[3] Released in 2000 to wide acclaim, the book is both a professional memoir and an unfiltered look at the less glamorous aspects of high-end restaurant kitchens, which he describes as unremittingly intense, unpleasant, hazardous, and staffed by misfits.

[4] Structured as a loose collection of humorous anecdotes, Kitchen Confidential is equal parts confessional narrative and industry commentary on the cooking trade.

In 2017, amidst the Me Too movement, Bourdain expressed remorse that Kitchen Confidential "celebrated or prolonged a culture that allowed the kind of grotesque behaviors we're hearing about all too frequently".