The Real Reason You Shouldn't Order Fish On Mondays

When chef, TV host, and author Anthony Bourdain arrived onto the scene in 2000, it was for his book Kitchen Confidential, which described to readers the grisly realities of the restaurant industry — or as Bourdain puts it in the subtitle of the book: "Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly" (via The Guardian). The book was lauded for its colorful writing style, tales of drug and booze-fueled kitchen shifts, and the secrets of the restaurant world that he let his readers in on — from the inside. 

One such secret was to never order fish on a Monday, which is somewhat common knowledge now, but originated with Bourdain some two decades ago.

He cautioned that if you order fish on a Monday, there is a chance that the restaurant placed only one seafood order for the weekend, and the filet came in on a Friday. If the chef didn't sell as many filets as he anticipated over the weekend? Guess what, your fish is four days old, and has been out of the water for even longer.

Fish will typically stay fresh for about two days, so a four-day-old filet is not something you probably want to tangle with (via The Kitchen).

In a later book, Medium Raw, Bourdain clarified that he was referring to restaurants that did not have seafood as their "main thrust" (via Business Insider). Of course, if you are going to Bourdain's friend Eric Ripert's seafood restaurant, the Michelin-starred Le Bernadin, you likely don't need to worry about Bourdain's advice and should feel safe ordering fish any day of the week — seafood orders are likely coming in on a daily basis. The prix fixe dinner tasting menu can be had for a cool $165 and includes standards such as red snapper, striped bass, and tuna, as well as more unique offerings like monkfish, langoustine and skate wing (via Le Bernadin).