Pilot Review: Kitchen Confidential

Network & Time: FOX, Monday @ 8:30pm EST

Stars (Out of 10): 8

One Word Summary: New

"Kitchen Confidential" Review:

          Restaurant antics failed to impress reality TV viewers with NBC's The Restaurant, but FOX is giving the genre another shot with the narrated, single-camera, scripted style of comedy. Executive-produced by Sex and the City's Darren Star and based on the best selling autobiography of famous chef Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential is a hilarious and refreshingly original workplace comedy.

          Jack Bourdain (played by Jack & Bobby and Wedding Crashers' Bradley Cooper) is a very good chef… the question is, three years after his career took a turn for the worst, if he's mature enough to run a kitchen. If he can stay away from the booze, drugs, and womanizing that destroyed his career, he just might be able to make Nolita one of New York's premiere restaurants.

          The rest of the cast includes: Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Nicholas Brendon as a pastry-cooking gambler, The O.C.'s Bonnie Sommerville as the restaurant owner's daughter who has it in for Jack, Troy's Owain Yeoman as a kleptomaniac with a love for veal, Sin City's Jaimie King as a chirpy hostess, and Freaks and Geeks' John Francis Daley as a young chef with a lot to learn.

After a tremendous pilot, Kitchen Confidential looks to be one of the years' best comedies. It has a large cast of rich characters, and writers who pull no punches and will look to push the envelope as far as the FCC will let them. How much material there is in a kitchen workplace comedy is a genuine concern, but after one character lost the tip of his finger onto a plate of sea bass, the bigger question is, after episode two will you ever want to eat out again?

Pilot's Nielsen Rating: 2.9/5