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One-On-One Time With Anthony Bourdain By Correspondent Laura Janelle Downey

September 12, 2013

Throughout the years, audiences worldwide have gotten to know chef, author and television personality Anthony Bourdain . He’s come a long way from his days as a student at New York’s Culinary Institute of America and then helming the kitchen of the Financial District’s Brasserie Les Halles . “I spent 30 years standing on my feet in restaurants,” Bourdain says. “The smell of the steam table and a short-order griddle is still pretty fresh in my memory.”

Using his expertise to pen several New York Times bestselling books including Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, and its sequel, Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook , Bourdain has an honest, pull-no-punches delivery that’s kept the masses intrigued.

With Travel Channel show Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations , viewers were able to follow him on adventures to Sicily, where he searched for the best cannoli, to time spent in Spain with elBulli’s world-renowned chef, Ferran Adrià. But earlier this year, Bourdain made the switch from Travel Channel over to CNN to host Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown . “They wanted me to just continue doing what I was doing before with fewer restraints and with the help of a worldwide news organization,” he says.

Taking time out of his busy schedule, the travel expert chatted with Forbes Travel Guide editors to give us the scoop on everything from the new season of Parts Unknown (catch it at 9 p.m. EST/PT on September 15), his tried-and-true packing tips and favorite city to his go-to Big Apple hangouts and what he’s doing when he’s not trekking the globe.

What can we expect from season two of Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown ?

That my creative partners and I will continue to push ourselves in every possible way that we can to be better, different from, stranger than, weirder and more challenging. We don’t want to do the same thing we did last week and will go to extreme lengths to make that happen. So whatever we did last week, don’t expect that. There’s some snarky shows, there’s some very serious shows, there’s some very strange and unsettling shows — each episode is a personal essay.

What type of packer are you? Do you fit everything into a carry-on or do you check your luggage?

I check my luggage. I do not want to be one of those annoying people who can’t fit their carry-on into the overhead. I pack for security — I like to fly through security very quickly. I pack for airports. I don’t want to be annoying to other passengers, so I check stuff. I have a carry-on with my essentials if I have to leave the other stuff. I pack an extra-scrunchy coat in my carry-on with my electronics. If I need a pillow to sleep on an airport floor for 12 or 14 hours, it’s there. I have a few books loaded onto my iPad, maybe a couple of movies. I’m prepared for things to go wrong because they do go wrong all of the time.

What has been your worst traveling experience?

I’ve been on planes that have aborted landings, aborted takeoffs at the last second, planes that have had the wings burst into flames just prior to takeoff, planes that have stalled and old Russian cargo planes that have been converted to passenger planes. There are just so many of them, I can’t even settle on one.

What are your hotels of choice?

In Los Angeles , I deeply love the Chateau Marmont. If I could plan for my own death, that would be a good place to go. In London , there’s a bunch of hotels I like. I love Hazlitt’s in Soho — if you have a sort of a potty uncle, it’s like staying at his house while he’s not there. I have a weakness for Southeast Asia and old colonial hotels that have been restored. You know the [Sofitel Legend] Metropole in Hanoi, [Raffles] Grand Hotel d’Angkor in [Siem Reap] — all those old British- or French-built colonial monstrosities that are still there, I have a weakness for. I don’t like big, new chain hotels. I like to know where I am when I wake up, so when I fall in love with a particular hotel, I stay ferociously loyal to it.

What’s your favorite city to travel to and why? And what’s the first thing you do when you get to this city?

If I had to eat in one city for the rest of my life, I would probably pick Tokyo because it’s just so deep with delicious and crazy stuff to enjoy. I love the food; it’s fairly low impact — just a good bowl of ramen or a good izakaya for some yakitori [grilled chicken skewers] would make me very happy in Tokyo. I love landing in Rome and going right out for some cacio e pepe [a cheese and pepper spaghetti dish] or a local, regional pasta. That makes me happy.

I like the restaurant The Breslin [Bar & Dining Room] at the Ace Hotel very much. My friend April Bloomfield has two restaurants there, The John Dory [Oyster Bar] and The Breslin, that are both excellent, so I’ll go there. If I’m looking for a cocktail, I’ll probably go to Bemelmans Bar at [Forbes Travel Guide Four-Star] The Carlyle because I’m a huge Madeline fan, and I love Ludwig Bemelmans’ stuff. It’s really the only public viewing you can do of his work. It’s a very special New York place.

Being from New York City, what is it about the Big Apple that you love so much?

My whole working career was there; there’s a certain expectation that would be unsatisfied living anywhere else. I like being able to pick up the phone and call out for sushi, pad Thai, pizza, Italian or Lebanese food. It’s a 24-hour city. All of my friends are there. Most of my friends are chefs. It’s a comfortable fish tank for me. And it’s also a level of aggression at a fast pace that’s good for me. I’m not a person who should spend a lot of time in a log cabin staring out at beautiful vistas contemplating the mysteries of the universe. That would lead to bad, self-destructive behavior. I wouldn’t be productive.

When you’re not working, how do you spend your time?

I travel so much that when I’m home, it’s all about my 6-year-old daughter, [Ariane]. So it’s whatever she wants to eat, wherever she wants to go, whatever she wants to do. Lying around in my pajamas watching Adventure Time or Cartoon Network with her is a favorite thing to do. And if I’m going out for dinner, it’s going to be something that my wife [Ottavia Busia] and daughter are both going to really like.  They both like yakitori; we’ll go to Shake Shack for burgers — pretty simple. On vacation, I cook. But when I’m home for a few days, generally, we’ll eat out together or we’ll get takeout.

For more on Bourdain and to see clips from season one, visit his blog here .

Photos Courtesy of The Travel Channel and Rosewood Hotels

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How Anthony Bourdain Changed Travel: Travelogue Podcast

By CNT Editors

All products featured on Condé Nast Traveler are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

On the day three weeks ago that we learned of Tony Bourdain’s death, we struggled, first, to comprehend the news, then to say something about it. We only partially succeeded . More than one listener asked us to take it on in the podcast. We weren't ready. We’re making up for that this week.

It doesn't seem unfair to say Tony Bourdain changed travel even more than he changed food. Certainly he didn't invent what we now call “experiential” or “immersive” travel, and I'm pretty sure that, being punk at heart, he’d hate both labels. But it was how he rolled, and he did it so completely, so consistently, and on such massive stages that it’s become the default mode of travel for an entire generation, leading to a wholesale reshaping of the industry.

So in this week’s pod we take a look at how his work, from Kitchen Confidential through Cook’s Tour and No Reservations all the way to Parts Unknown , laid down not just a way of looking at the world, but of moving through it. We flash back to some milestone episodes and events—Beirut; West Virginia; Myanmar—and try to name what changed as his art developed, and what stayed (blessedly) the same. And we indulge in that annoying but essential privilege of critics, which is to assess his influence on places and the people who visit them.

Thanks to Condé Nast Traveler editors Meredith Carey , Sebastian Modak , and Bridget Hallinan for joining the conversation. And shoutout to Brett Fuchs , as always, for recording and mixing the episode. Check back every Friday for the latest installment of Travelogue. To keep up with our podcast each week, subscribe to Travelogue on the iTunes store or wherever you get your podcasts. If you have a minute to spare, leave a review—we love getting your feedback.

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Missing Travel? This 'Irreverent Guide' Visits Anthony Bourdain's Favorite Places

The new book World Travel: An Irreverent Guide is credited to Anthony Bourdain. But it was not really written by the bestselling author, chef and TV personality who died in 2018.

World Travel: An Irreverent Guide was assembled by one of Bourdain's associates, Laurie Woolever, based entirely on his previous writings and an hourlong interview conducted shortly before his death. Bourdain had collaborated with Woolever on 2016's Appetites: A Cookbook , and this project was conceived of shortly thereafter, she says, with the intent to spotlight some of Bourdain's favorite places around the globe.

Given the dearth of original writing by Bourdain himself, World Travel contains a handful of tributary essays, by the likes of Bourdain's brother Christopher, music producer Steve Albini, and Nari Kye, who worked as a production manager on Bourdain's TV show, No Reservations . She describes, in her essay, how her former boss profoundly changed her life.

"The South Korea episode of No Reservations started as a joke," she writes. "At the end of Season 1, I said, 'We're all going to eat Korean barbecue, and drink lots of soju .' I got us a huge table in Manhattan's K-town, and Tony came. We went outside to smoke, and in my drunken soju haze, I said, 'Tony, you have to swear you're going to Korea.' And he said, 'Of course. And you have to come with me.' "

What happened after that drunken conversation was not a joke, Kye says.

"It's hard not to get emotional when I talk about Tony," she says, wiping away tears during a Zoom call from her Brooklyn home. Kye explains she was surprised not just to come along for the South Korea episode, which aired in 2006, but also to be its focus, along with her family there.

In 'Appetites,' Bourdain Pleases The Toughest Food Critic (His 9-Year-Old)

The show follows Kye and Bourdain as they explore Seoul's famous Noryangjin fish market, visit a village famous for its kimchee, peer at soldiers guarding the DMZ and drink copiously at a karaoke bar. (Off-camera, Kye says, Bourdain performed a Billy Idol number.) The two sat down with Kye's grandfather over a bowl of spicy fish stew as part of the episode. He described the trauma of escaping from his home in what's now North Korea in 1951.

"If I could go back there once before I die," her grandfather explains in Korean, "I would have no other wish, if I could just see my parents' graves and just cry my heart out. There's nothing that can be done, though. That's just the way it is. That's my fate."

Goats and Soda

Q&a: ofeibea quist-arcton's breakfast with anthony bourdain.

Kye and Bourdain listen, rapt. "I might not have learned these things had it not been [for] Tony and the show," Kye mused to NPR. "I was one person before I made the show. I was a different person afterwards."

As she recounts in her essay, Kye did not grow up feeling proud of her family's history or culture.

"I moved to the States when I was 5, from Korea, and after that, I lived in a predominantly white, Anglo-American community," she writes. "As a kid who already looked different from everyone else, I was trying to fit in as an American and was mortified by my Korean heritage. My mom cooked only Korean food. My parents spoke only Korean to me ... We basically lived in Korea in our house in a very American town."

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Anthony bourdain: serving up inclusion.

Before Kye's friends would come over — "white, blond-haired girls named Jenny and Erin who would wear shoes inside their houses" — she would hide everything in her house that looked Korean. She was a recent college graduate, still in her early 20s, when she traveled to South Korea with Bourdain. His full-throated enthusiasm for Korea's spectacular history, culture and food transformed her perspective about something she had dismissed and taken for granted — and ignited her own sense of creative potential. Now Kye works on a children's television show for Korean American families, and she's writing an autobiographical screenplay, including her travels with Bourdain, filtered through learning about food.

Laurie Woolever and Anthony Bourdain at the Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens, N.Y. CNN/Ecco hide caption

Laurie Woolever and Anthony Bourdain at the Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens, N.Y.

"I didn't know this had been so important to Nari until after [Bourdain] died, and we were talking about his impact on us," Laurie Woolever told NPR. "Had Tony lived and written his own essay for the book — which was the original plan — I never would've gotten to hear from Nari. And I think it's important, and I want people to understand how deep [Bourdain's] legacy is."

Part of that legacy, says Nari Kye, comes from how Bourdain reflexively stood up for underdogs, his embrace of those who get marginalized. "He always made people feel like they belonged," she says.

And wherever he traveled, she says, Anthony Bourdain managed to belong as well.

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clock This article was published more than  3 years ago

5 important lessons travelers, chefs and writers learned from Anthony Bourdain

In honor of bourdain day, we revisit lessons the chef, author and tv host taught us.

At the beginning of his travel television career, just as he began paying rent on time for the first time in his life, Anthony Bourdain had what he called unreasonable, overly romantic and foolhardy dreams. He “wanted to wander the world in a dirty seersucker suit getting into trouble,” he wrote in the book “A Cook’s Tour.” “I wanted adventures.”

Bourdain went on to experience it all, and document those experiences so we could live vicariously through them.

No contemporary traveler has made an impact quite like Anthony Bourdain. He redefined what travel could look like and raised a new generation of travelers as a result.

In honor of Bourdain Day, we spoke with travelers, chefs and writers about what they learned from Tony.

6 ways to celebrate Anthony Bourdain on Bourdain Day

Forgo top-10 lists for local advice

In “ A Cook’s Tour ,” Bourdain wrote: “The best meal in the world, the perfect meal, is very rarely the most sophisticated or expensive one.” He reminded us that our best food memories often stand out thanks to context, not prestige.

It’s a great tip to keep in mind when traveling: You don’t have to go to the best restaurant to have the best meal of your trip.

“He trained a lot of people on how to explore food and how to step away from your commercial list of like 25 restaurants in L.A.,” said Eduardo Ruiz, a chef and co-founder of Chicas Tacos who sat down with Bourdain in a 2017 episode of “Parts Unknown.” “I think he taught me how to look past that and how to go find those unique stories and those unique people.”

Instead of sticking to top-10 lists, seek out local insight when you’re traveling for a more memorable, Bourdainian experience.

“The way you really have those memorable, life-changing travel interactions is to walk until something interesting happens and ask people where you should go next, and I think [Bourdain] was such an influence on that way of travel,” said Konrad Waliszewski, chief executive and co-founder of the travel app TripScout.

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Get to know the locals on a deeper level

Bourdain’s work humanized the “other.” He taught his audience that being foreign didn’t mean being scary.

“He really did a lot to further that idea that we’re all kind of the same in certain ways, despite our beliefs, in spite of religion and despite of skin color,” said Andy Ricker, the chef and owner of Pok Pok who was featured in Bourdain’s shows “No Reservations” and “Parts Unknown.” “And he did it through food. He found a common language that everybody could understand.”

Bourdain’s shows didn’t feature locals as props but worked to share their complex stories. They serve as a reminder to go into new places with an open mind.

View this post on Instagram We miss you, friend. 🖤 A post shared by MaSovaida [mah•so•vey•da] (@masovaida) on Jun 8, 2020 at 7:19pm PDT

“He showed up with a willingness to learn from people,” travel journalist and author MaSovaida Morgan said.

Through watching Bourdain, Morgan learned to “meet people where they are and let them teach you,” she said. “Don’t come in with any assumptions or a narrative that you might have learned.”

Kellee Edwards, a host for the Travel Channel and of the new travel podcast “Let’s Go Together,” echoed that sentiment.

“He made it possible to be okay with not having cookie-cutter conversations,” she said. “I continue to do that and speak out on things that are passionate to me with no hesitation. … That is what Tony Bourdain did. He was unapologetic. And so I go forth with that in everything that I do. I’m a better person for it.”

Travel graciously

Bourdain changed our definition of being a tough guy. While he was rough around the edges, he set the standard for showing genuine humility and respect for those with whom he interacted on the road.

“He never was judging anyone. He got on the floor. He sat in places that were super dirty and he was just very appreciative,” said Kristie Hang, a food and travel host who was featured on Bourdain’s “Parts Unknown” in 2018. “He took in all the culture and really tried to learn about everything.”

We can all benefit from leaving pretension behind when we leave the house. Whether you’re traveling to a five-star resort or a rural village farmstead, show appreciation to those you meet along the way.

But … that doesn’t mean you have to be nice to everybody. Bill Esparza, James Beard award-winning author of the book “ L.A. Mexicano, ” championed Bourdain for being good at treating people the way they deserved to be treated.

“The way that [Bourdain] really shaped me is [he showed me that] I can be a good person in the world and I can be really kind to the people that deserve it,” said Esparza, who worked with Bourdain’s production company for television shows and wrote for Bourdain’s publication Roads & Kingdoms . “ … I can also be part of a force for helping my community take back its culture.”

Be your authentic self on the road and at home

Bourdain was known for speaking his unfiltered mind. His shows felt unscripted and funny, not generic or clean cut.

A “beautiful thing he had was his wit, he was a very witty man” said chef and author Francis Mallmann, who appeared on “No Reservations” in 2008. “He would take conversations to the edge.”

View this post on Instagram I’ll be talking with @ericripert on Instagram Live tomorrow at 1pm ET to share our plans for celebrating #BourdainDay on June 25 in honor of our dear friend Tony. I hope you’ll join us! A post shared by Jose Andres (@chefjoseandres) on May 29, 2020 at 10:22am PDT

Viewers felt they were getting the real version of a man traveling the world, not a TV host doing his job.

“He was raw. He was flawed,” Edwards said. “It really takes true courage to own who you are on a global stage without fear.”

Audiences felt they could connect with Bourdain because he came off as authentic. Ricker appreciated Bourdain’s willingness and ability to give thoughtful, good advice. “I think that’s why people call him Uncle Tony,” Ricker said.

Leave the resort, try everything and travel to the fullest

At the end of the first episode of the first season on “A Cook’s Tour,” Bourdain tells the audience “I’m ready to die now. I will have lead a full and rich and satisfied life at this point.”

Bourdain lived an epic life for all of us. Now, we can live that way for him.

“I think the best way to honor his legacy is through living the way that he did,” Ruiz said. “A lot of people fall into very basic categories — they’re not curious enough, or they’re scared to be curious.”

Embrace curiosity at full tilt. Chase foolhardy dreams. Be overly romantic. Try everything once. Keep learning everywhere you go.

“When someone’s offering you food or to tell you about who they are, they’re telling a story,” Hang said. “I really have been inspired by [Bourdain] just to just to try everything because these foods wouldn’t be important to different cultures, different people if there was no reason for it.”

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Readers Remember Anthony Bourdain, Passionate Traveler

Cuisine, culture, people — sharing memories of the television host and chef who encouraged to world to ‘discover our humanity’.

By The New York Times

The death of Anthony Bourdain on June 8 in France drew hundreds of responses from readers of The New York Times. Here, a selection of comments about Mr. Bourdain, his life and how he inspired travelers to “embrace the unknown.”

We loved Bourdain because he wasn’t the “ugly American.” He traveled to our countries and didn’t treat them like objects of conquest and its peoples like the dregs of humanity. He gave street vendors the same airtime as Michelin-starred chefs.

— MALAOUNA , Washington

My youngest son (18 now) and I used to watch “No Reservations” together when he was a boy. We are both grieving his loss. My son is nearing the end of a six-month solo travel stint. He’s in Seville right now, embracing culture, food, people and learning to cook as he goes. Tony would be proud.

— @lisalisbet , via Twitter

So devastated. His passion for other cultures and travel inspired me — and millions of others — to embrace the unknown, pack a bag and enjoy a bite to eat and a beer along the way. I am so sad he was so sad along his journey. Rest in peace, Mr. Bourdain.

— Sara Lambert

I admired and delighted in the lives of Anthony Bourdain and my younger brother for many years. Both were fearless explorers who pursued life’s pleasures to the fullest. Both easily made new friends. Both struggled with substance abuse and depression for decades. Both bore their burdens with great humor and enthusiasm. Both died by their own hands.

But surely, how a person lived is more important than how he or she died. Especially if that person improves the lives of others, as Bourdain improved mine.

Until my 60th birthday, I had never traveled outside the United States. Better late than never. I’ve since visited Thailand, France, Spain, Ireland and the Dominican Republic. I’ve booked trips to Japan and Croatia.

And everywhere I’ve traveled, I’ve devoured the local culture, and the local food. I’ll never be as cool as Bourdain, but when I stroll through the Or Tor Kor Market, I feast on miang kham, durian, papaya salad, tom yum goong and mangosteens. More often than not, locals invite me to sit with them and share their food. So I’m convinced Bourdain was correct that travel and food are the strongest links between cultures.

Best of all, because of Bourdain and my travels, I’ve discovered that the United States isn’t the center of the universe. In countries around the world, people live their lives unencumbered by social media, American consumerism and Donald Trump.

Today and for the rest of my life, I will think of Anthony Bourdain often and fondly.

— PIERCE, Marin County

I shall miss you dearly Anthony. And will travel till I drop and meet all sorts of people and discover our humanity, as you invited us to do. Rest in peace!

— NICHOLAS, Bordeaux

This is beyond sad for me and my boyfriend. We followed Anthony and Andrew Zimmern like a Catholic follows the Pope. We planned our vacations around what, where, and who either of them recommended.

I lived vicariously through Anthony on his travels to Paris, Asia and other parts of the world. He took me there. I learned so much.

— LYNDA ANDERSON, Charlotte, N.C.

I was a fan from his earliest publications and shows and have made some of the strangest dishes thanks to him. He was the epitome of cool and even though he was a bit of the bad boy/part of the boy’s club, his value and respect for the cultures and peoples of the places he traveled to earned my respect and my regard.

I have traveled extensively myself and have approached the food of the many different places I have been fortunate to visit as a really important part of any adventure, thanks to him. The circumstances of his death make me want to send a message out there to the world just to say: “PLEASE!!!! don’t do it, we love you, it can be better.”

— KIERAN CLIFFORD, Ireland

Bourdain was a man who broke down the walls between “high cuisine” and the mass culinary world of the “everyday.” I often would Google and search places he went and ate at before going to a country. He was a large reason why I started really valuing street food as a main highlight of culinary art around the world, rather than fancy restaurants and stars. For that, I will always admire Bourdain.

— LIDIA TUTARINOVA, Rome

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Anthony Bourdain’s posthumous ‘World Travel’ should inspire some post-pandemic trips | Book review

Nearly 22 years after Bourdain’s best-selling memoir “Kitchen Confidential” was published, fans are getting another book from the late travel author, completed by his longtime assistant.

World Travel

By Anthony Bourdain

Ecco. 480 pp. $35

Reviewed by Natalie B. Compton

Nearly 22 years after Anthony Bourdain’s best-selling memoir Kitchen Confidential was published, fans have another book from the late travel author and television star. A concept Bourdain began working on in 2018, World Travel: An Irreverent Guide , was completed by his coauthor and longtime assistant, Laurie Woolever.

Filled with travel logistics, restaurant recommendations, Bourdain observations, personal essays from loved ones and colleagues, and illustrations throughout from artist Wesley Allsbrook, the book is both a literal guide for seeing the world as well as a source of inspiration as we plan post-pandemic travel.

The book is swimming in highly quotable mantras to live by. We gathered our favorites to channel when you hit the road again.

In the France chapter of World Travel , Bourdain instructs those lucky enough to visit Paris to do as little as possible. Running through back-to-back activities like hitting the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, and the Notre Dame in one day is going to leave you exhausted and overwhelmed.

“The most important thing to do the instant you arrive in Paris is stop,” Bourdain said.

Don’t pack your itinerary with a destination’s highlights unless you want to miss out on its magic. Instead, slow down and savor a new place. Grab a seat at a sidewalk cafe, at the end of a dive bar, on a city park bench, and take it all in.

While Bourdain reveled in off-the-beaten-path exploration, he could also appreciate more classic tourist experiences, as seen with this quote recalling his time at the Jaisalmer Desert Festival in the Indian state of Rajasthan.

He celebrated places where tourists flock but that still hold up, from Katz’s Delicatessen in New York to Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Throughout the book, he also championed visiting places travel TV hosts and regular people alike would appreciate, such as museums, book stores, UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and wildlife conservancies.

In the quote above, Bourdain was talking about Cuba. However, it’s a sentiment that can be applied anywhere you go. He advises people visiting Havana that “if you can, you should come here with your eyes open and see.” Get to know a place for where it’s going and where it came from.

Yes, Bourdain would wax poetic on a destination’s cuisine and bar culture and unconventional points of interest, but Woolever explained that he also read about a place’s history and literature before a visit so he could put things into context.

Also from the Paris section of the book, this piece of Bourdain wisdom captures the idea of enjoying a new place without assumptions, even if you’ve familiarized yourself with its history and culture. As you travel again, go in with an open mind and see where a place can take you.

And if you’re going in with preconceived notions, don’t be afraid of having your opinions challenged. In World Travel , Bourdain confesses to changing his mind and benefiting as a result, such as when he went to Los Angeles with a New Yorker’s attitude — and ultimately admitted he loved the place.

The book’s South Korea chapter kicks off with this message of gratitude for Nari Kye, a woman who worked with Bourdain and his team when they worked on No Reservations and Parts Unknown in her home country. It’s a testament to how important people can be as a part of your travel experience.

In a time of mask-wearing and social distancing, it may feel inconceivable to talk to strangers, but getting to know locals — once coronavirus is no longer a threat to you or them — is an essential part of traveling like Bourdain.