If you’re like us, you were counting the days until FX’s critically-acclaimed hit tv series, The Bear, came back for season 3 in June. 

The series follows James Beard Award-winning chef Carmy Berzatto as he takes over his family’s failing Chicago sandwich shop after his brother’s untimely death. If watching The Bear has piqued your interest for more media about the agony and the ecstasy of working in professional kitchens– the grueling hours, tempestuous personalities, physical demands, and quests for perfection, as well as the creativity, passion, and transcendent feeling of a meal well-made– NPL has got you covered. Catch up on these delicious back-of-house culinary memoirs after your season 3 binge watch.

The memoir that launched Bourdain’s career as one of America’s most beloved chefs, Kitchen Confidential follows Bourdain from his days as a dishwasher to his time as the executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles, peeling back the curtain on the tumultuous, sometimes-unsavory world of haute cuisine. 

With versions available for adult and young adult readers, culinary fans of all ages can sink their teeth into this rousing memoir from James Beard Award-winning chef Kwame Onwuachi that examines the intersections of race, food, and celebrity. 

Founder of the iconic California-based French restaurant Chez Panisse, Waters weaves together narratives, letters, photos, and recipes to tell the story of her evolution into one of America’s most beloved chefs and one of the earliest advocates of the modern farm-to-table movement.

One of the primary purveyors of the ‘bad boy chef’ archetype– and allegedly the only person to make Gordon Ramsay cry– The Devil in the Kitchen traces Marco Pierre White’s ascent from a working class kitchen apprentice to one of the most notorious figures in the culinary world.