Anthony Bourdain Became Executive Chef of Les Halles Because His Wife ‘Wanted Steak Frites’
Before the late Anthony Bourdain made a name for himself as the face of his popular food and travel programs No Reservations and Parts Unknown, he was the head chef at the popular brasserie-style restaurant Les Halles in New York City. When he was sought out to helm that eatery’s kitchen, however, he was less than interested in the job. But his wife’s craving for steak frites changed his mind.
Bourdain was wooed to become head chef at Les Halles
Before he was a face on television, Bourdain penned Les Halles Cookbook, based on the recipes at the iconic Park Avenue restaurant. Although the book is a collection of bistro-style recipes, it is actually more than that. In it, the chef explained why “sleepy” lobsters make the best bisque, why he was a list fanatic, and how he scored the job at Les Halles.
“I came to Les Halles in 1998,” he wrote. “I answered an ad in the New York Times, and after a midafternoon interview with (owner) José de Meirelles, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to sign on. It was the interview hour, that dead zone between lunch and dinner, when restaurant dining rooms are at their very saddest and ugliest. The walls and ceilings were nicotine-stained and spattered with wine from a thousand popped corks. In the merciless late-afternoon light, with a bored-looking bartender pretending to work by repeatedly mopping the bar with a side towel, the room had the all-too-familiar look of a place where nothing was happening—or was likely to happen soon.”
The area he was to preside over, the kitchen, in Bourdain’s estimation at that moment, was even more of a misery.
“The kitchen looked small, dirty, and grim, like a Second World War-era submarine with bowed, carbon-encrusted pans and stoves that appeared prehistoric,” he wrote. “Stains had spread across the acoustic tile ceiling like infected wounds, indicating leaks, and the downstairs prep areas were even less cheerful. The interview concluded with José inviting my wife and me to dinner the following Tuesday to ‘see what it’s all about.’”
He didn’t want the job but his wife wanted steak frites
As Bourdain explained, after that introduction to Les Halles’ less-than-impressive interior, he had no intention of working there. Except his then-wife Nancy Putkoski really wanted steak frites. And so, he agreed to return to the restaurant for another interview.
“I left that day determined to pass on both the dinner and the job,” he wrote. “I’d picked up on a bad vibe (something I’m usually very good at), a vibe of something — sloppiness, informality, too much enthusiasm from the boss. I had no idea, of course, that Les Halles’ patina of neglect was in fact a deliberate, fiendishly clever, calculated, and soon-to-be-trend-setting strategy. ‘I’m not taking it,’ I told my wife.
“But she wanted steak frites. She was thinking about onion soup. ‘What? Are you nuts? We’re broke! I’m hungry. It’s a free French meal! I want a good steak frites! Let’s go! We’ll eat. You don’t have to take the job!'”
Bourdain fell in love with Les Halles
And it was on that second visit to Les Halles that Bourdain was swept up in the charms of Les Halles that had initially gone undetected.
“So, because my wife wanted steak frites, we went,” he wrote. “And we ate. And I fell in love with Les Halles. Unlike my first visit, this time when we arrived, the place was packed to the rafters, absolutely jammed, with people lined up out into the street. It was dark. So dark we could barely read the menu. And it was loud.
“The clatter of a hundred or so very happy customers, all of them leaning into dishes, eating and talking with abandon, competed with yells from the kitchen, a warbling Edith Piaf on the stereo, the ring of the register. Something clicked. I knew, even before my food arrived, that I was going to love it.”
Bourdain began working at Les Halles in 1998 and although he worked there less and less as his fame grew thanks to his food and travel programs, he remained the restaurant’s “chef at large.”
