It's in the Stew with Kitchen Confidential

The ongoing fascination that America has with food and restaurants has found its newest outlet in a new Fox sitcom, Kitchen Confidential. Based on Anthony Bourdain's memoir of the same name, Kitchen Confidential offers up an inside view of what goes on in an upscale Italian restaurant with all the jargon and tarpon, complete with the stereotypes we have come to love in American network television. Although the show is a tad undercooked, it does show some promise of becoming a maybe surprise hit for Fox.

The premise is basic, while trying to seem deep: Bad-boy chef tries to make good while making good food. The series premiere gives us a glimpse of how bad Jack Bourdain (they didn't even bother to try to hide the megalomania of the author/chef) was as a hotshot young chef on the scene in what I assumed was New York City. This is all evident through a montage of drugs, booze and broads.

But alas, he ends up assaulting some guy, I guess, and we catch up to our hero as he is unappreciated as a gourmet striving for perfection in a kid's restaurant, slightly better than a Chuck E. Cheese. Of course, that is where he would have ended up, so we can see what a chef consider Hell. Quickly enough, he is contacted to see an old mobster-type about a job at a classy Italian joint. It is one of those jobs that anyone who isn't desperate would pass on, but jeez, everything that we have seen until now shows us that this guy is desperate, so his fate is sealed.

I think this is where the humor is supposed to start and keep growing, and yes, the show has some clever lines, but nothing that really made me laugh per se. It's a Darren Star production, the guy behind Sex and the City, which never made me laugh either. Yet, you can appreciate the writing, it sounds natural and somewhat witty at times.

Speaking of Darren Starr, he is turning into some sort of Aaron Spelling in that he has a definite fingerprint, usually in the form of stock characters that he relies on too heavily. In the case of Kitchen Confidential, there is the contingent of drunk-on-cosmopolitans ladies and the over-reactive Gay man. Since it is a restaurant setting, it does work, but still, I wish things could be varied just a bit.

Really, though, other than being not all that funny, it isn't a bad show. It is a sitcom that doesn't look like a sitcom, which is the new rage, like Arrested Development. It moves fluidly between scenes and locations, jumps in time backward and pauses to set up titles on the screen. It is stylistically smooth, and the photography is almost grainy, giving it a more real look, that underlines the more crass nature of the show.

The writing is fast-paced and well-timed. The scenes are quick as well, and the show doesn't belittle the audience by decelerating to let the slower kids catch up. It is a very "New York" show, lots of attitude and accents.

Anthony Bourdain has done well for himself off of Kitchen Confiential, as he also has a show on cable, No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain (see what I mean about his ego). It's very basic, Bourdain going around eating food, being arrogant and obnoxiously from New Jersey. Luckily, the series avoids much of the annoying things that the author has added.

A little lingers, especially in a scene where the chef introduces himself to the "floor", which is what he calls the wait staff. After he screams his demands as if he were leading troops into battle, the resident gay waiter declares that he is in love. Bourdain wishes.

Kitchen Confidential may break out of its confines and start to develop some characters, but my biggest fear is that the show will be limited in its plots. If the series only stays in the kitchen, I don't think that the writers will be able to concoct endless variations of conflicts over well-done steaks and lost digits (fingers, not phone numbers).

I would like to think that Kitchen Confidential could become an intelligent show, breaking away from the stereotypes that abound - the ditzy blonde hostess, the hard-drinking, drug-addicted soups-chef, the godfather owner and his jealous and power hungry daughter,… oh, okay, one more, the "new guy" from Utah who asks "do you know what it is like to cook in Utah?"