Kitchen Confidential

Fox's new sitcom Kitchen Confidential is stuffed with a host of decadent ingredients: a best-selling memoir that features sex in a walk-in pantry, megaproducer Darren Star (Melrose Place, Sex and the City), a dream cast of cult-TV alums (Alias' Bradley Cooper and Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Nicholas Brendon, to name a few), and a sparkling, sprawling set — loosely modeled after the posh Los Angeles restaurant Meson G, where the pilot was shot — that would make Martha Stewart green with appliance envy. (Not avocado green either.)

Based on the best-selling 2000 memoir of the same name by New York City chef Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential plays on the idea that chefs are this generation's rock stars — with the egos, torrid romances, and chemical demons to match. ''Our appetites seldom end with food,'' says Bourdain, who chronicled his years of shady associations and substance abuse in Confidential (he's now drug-free) and is a consultant on the show. ''You can't cook if you don't enjoy other aspects of...well, we're in the pleasure business. I think it's our job to understand our subject'' — he lets out a chuckle — ''as best as possible.''

Confidential the TV show picks up with Cooper's newly sober Jack (exec producer-writer Dave Hemingson changed the character's first name so he could more easily fictionalize Bourdain's experiences) trying to resist the temptations that are thrown at him every night as the new head chef of a trendy New York City eatery. ''I'm very similar to this guy,'' says Cooper, who worked in several restaurants through high school. Really? ''Without getting too into it,'' he demurs. Rounding out the cast alongside Cooper (who had a breakout role as Owen Wilson's nemesis in this summer's hit Wedding Crashers and a role as Will Tippin on Alias for two seasons) are Buffy's Brendon as a neurotic pastry chef, John Francis Daley (Freaks and Geeks) as the newbie line cook, Bonnie Somerville (Friends and NYPD Blue) as the head waitress who has sexual tension with Jack, Owain Yeoman (Troy) as a cocky British sous chef, and former model Jamie King (Pearl Harbor) as a hot hostess.

The pilot, shot single-camera-style à la Arrested Development — Confidential's lead-in — alludes to some behavior that would compromise the cleanliness of a kitchen workspace: drug use, oral sex, and accidental dismemberment. Star says he thinks that even under the watchful eye of the network's standards and practices department, the show will be able to stay true to the book's raunchier moments. ''I don't feel like anything's missing,'' he says. ''I don't think the show would have been so terribly different on HBO as it is on Fox.... The show is about the characters, not necessarily just about saying 'You f---ing c---sucker.' I've said, 'You f---ing c---sucker.' So I don't mind going for the broader audience.''

—Clarissa Cruz

(This is an online-only excerpt from Entertainment Weekly's Sept. 9, 2005, issue.)