Anthony Bourdain, known to his friends as "Tony," was born June 25, 1956 in New York City and grew up in Leonia, New Jersey.[7][8][9] His parents were Pierre Bourdain (d. 1987), a classical music industry executive for Columbia Records,[10][11] and Gladys Bourdain (née Sacksman),[12][13][14][15] a staff editor for The New York Times.[16] His younger brother, Christopher, became a currency analyst,[7] and made appearances on some of his TV shows.[17] Bourdain said he was raised without religion, and that his family was Catholic on his father's side and Jewish on his mother's.[18] His paternal grandparents were French: his paternal grandfather emigrated from Arcachon to New York following World War I, and his father grew up speaking French and spent many summers in France.[19] Bourdain was a Boy Scout growing up.[20]
Bourdain's New York Times bestselling book Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly (2000) was an outgrowth of his 1999 article in The New Yorker called "Don't Eat Before Reading This."[30][31] A sequel,[32]Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook, was published in 2010.[33]
He wrote two more New York Times bestselling nonfiction books: A Cook's Tour (2001),[34] an account of his food and travel exploits around the world, written in conjunction with his first television series of the same title,[34] and The Nasty Bits (2006), another collection of essays centered on food.[33] His additional books include Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook,[27] the culinary mysteries Bone in the Throat[27] and Gone Bamboo,[27] a hypothetical historical investigation, Typhoid Mary: An Urban Historical,[35] and No Reservations: Around the World on an Empty Stomach.[36]
His articles and essays appeared in many publications, including in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Times, Los Angeles Times, The Observer, Gourmet, Maxim, Esquire (UK), Scotland on Sunday, The Face, Food Arts, Limb by Limb, BlackBook, The Independent, Best Life, the Financial Times, and Town & Country. On the internet, his blog for Season 3 of Top Chef[37] was nominated for a Webby Award for best Blog – Cultural/Personal in 2008.[38]
In 2012, Bourdain co-wrote the original graphic novel Get Jiro! for DC Comics/Vertigo along with Joel Rose, with art by Langdon Foss.[39][40]
The acclaim surrounding Bourdain's memoir, Kitchen Confidential, led to an offer by the Food Network for him to host his own food and world-travel show, A Cook's Tour, which premiered in January 2002. It ran for 35 episodes, through 2003.[41]
In July 2005, he premiered a new, somewhat similar television series, Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, on the Travel Channel. As a further result of the immense popularity of Kitchen Confidential, the Fox sitcom Kitchen Confidential aired in 2005, in which the character "Jack Bourdain" is based loosely on his biography and persona.
In July 2006, he and his crew were in Beirut filming an episode of No Reservations when the Israel-Lebanon conflict broke out unexpectedly after the crew had filmed only a few hours of footage for the food and travel show.[42] His producers compiled behind-the-scenes footage of him and his production staff, including not only their initial attempts to film the episode, but also their firsthand encounters with Hezbollah supporters, their days of waiting for news with other expatriates in a Beirut hotel, and their eventual escape aided by a fixer (unseen in the footage), whom Bourdain dubbed Mr. Wolf after Harvey Keitel's character in Pulp Fiction. Bourdain and his crew were finally evacuated with other American citizens, on the morning of July 20, by the United States Marine Corps. The Beirut No Reservations episode, which aired on August 21, 2006, was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2007.[43]
The Travel Channel announced in July 2011 that it would be adding a second one-hour ten-episode Bourdain show to be titled The Layover, which premiered November 21, 2011.[44] Each episode featured an exploration of a city that can be undertaken within an air travel layover of 24 to 48 hours. The series ran for 20 episodes, through February 2013.
In May 2012, Bourdain announced that he would be leaving the Travel Channel. In December he explained on his blog that his departure was due to his frustration with the channel's new ownership using his voice and image to make it seem as if he were endorsing a car brand, and the channel's creating three "special episodes" consisting solely of clips from the seven official episodes of that season.[45] He went on to host Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown for CNN. The program focuses on other cuisines, cultures and politics and premiered April 14, 2013.[46]
President Barack Obama was featured on the program in an episode filmed in Vietnam that aired in September 2016.[47] As of 2017[update], the show has been set in places such as Libya, Tokyo, Punjab,[48] Jamaica,[49] Ethiopia,[50] Nigeria,[51] and Armenia.[52]
Bourdain appeared five times as guest judge on Bravo's Top Chef reality cooking competition program: first in the November 2006 "Thanksgiving" episode of Season 2, and again in June 2007 in the first episode of Season 3, judging the "exotic surf and turf" competition that featured ingredients including abalone, alligator, black chicken, geoduck and eel. His third appearance was also in Season 3, as an expert on air travel, judging the competitors' airplane meals. He also wrote weekly blog commentaries for many of the Season 3 episodes, filling in as a guest blogger while Top Chef judge Tom Colicchio was busy opening a new restaurant. He next appeared as a guest judge for the opening episode of Season 4, in which pairs of chefs competed head-to-head in the preparation of various classic dishes, and again in the Season 4 Restaurant Wars episode, temporarily taking the place of head judge Tom Colicchio, who was at a charity event. He was also one of the main judges on Top Chef All-Stars (Top Chef, Season 8).
Between 2012 and 2016, he served as narrator and executive producer for several episodes of the award-winning PBS series The Mind of a Chef.[53]
He made a guest appearance on the August 6, 2007 New York City episode of Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern, and Andrew Zimmern appeared as a guest on the New York City episode of Bourdain's No Reservations airing the same day. On October 20, 2008 Bourdain hosted a special, At the Table with Anthony Bourdain, on the Travel Channel. In 2013 he was an executive producer and appeared as a judge and mentor in ABC's cooking competition show, The Taste.[54]
Bourdain appeared in an episode of TLC's reality show Miami Ink, aired on August 28, 2006, in which artist Chris Garver tattooed a skull on his right shoulder. Bourdain, who noted it was his fourth tattoo, said that one reason for the skull was that he wished to balance the ouroboros tattoo he had inked on his opposite shoulder in Malaysia, while filming Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations. He was a consultant and writer for the HBO series Treme.[55][56]
In 2010, he appeared on Nick, Jr.'s Yo Gabba Gabba! as Dr. Tony. In 2011 he voiced himself in a cameo on an episode of The Simpsons entitled "The Food Wife", in which Marge, Lisa, and Bart start a food blog called The Three Mouthkateers.[57] He appeared in a 2013 episode of the FX animated show Archer (S04E07) voicing chef Lance Casteau, a parody of himself.[58]
Ecco Press, a division of HarperCollins, announced in September 2011 that Bourdain would have his own publishing line, which would include acquiring three to five titles per year that "reflect his remarkably eclectic tastes".[59] The first books that the imprint published, released in 2013, include L.A. Son: My Life, My City, My Food by Roy Choi, Tien Nguyen, and Natasha Phan,[60]Prophets of Smoked Meat by Daniel Vaughn, and Pain Don't Hurt by Mark Miller.[61] Bourdain also announced plans to publish a book by Marilyn Hagerty.[62]
In describing the line, he said, "This will be a line of books for people with strong voices who are good at something—who speak with authority. Discern nothing from this initial list—other than a general affection for people who cook food and like food. The ability to kick people in the head is just as compelling to us—as long as that's coupled with an ability to vividly describe the experience. We are just as intent on crossing genres as we are enthusiastic about our first three authors. It only gets weirder from here."[63]
Bourdain appeared as himself in the 2015 film The Big Short, in which he used seafood stew as an analogy for a collateralized debt obligation.[64] He also produced and starred in Wasted! The Story of Food Waste.[65][66]
Drew Magary in a column for GQ reflected that Bourdain was heir in spirit to Hunter S. Thompson.[67] The Smithsonian Institution declared Bourdain "the original rock star" of the culinary world,[68] while his public persona was characterized by Gothamist as "culinary bad boy".[69] Due to his liberal use of profanity and sexual references in his television show No Reservations, the network placed viewer discretion advisories during each episode.[70]
Bourdain was known for consuming exotic local specialty dishes, having eaten "sheep testicles in Morocco, ant eggs in Puebla, Mexico, a raw seal eyeball as part of a traditional Inuit seal hunt, and an entire cobra—beating heart, blood, bile, and meat—in Vietnam".[71] Bourdain was quoted as saying that a Chicken McNugget was the most disgusting thing he ever ate,[72] although he declared that the unwashed warthog rectum he ate in Namibia was "the worst meal of [his] life",[73] along with the fermented shark he ate in Iceland.[74]
Bourdain was noted for his put-downs of celebrity chefs, such as Paula Deen, Bobby Flay, Guy Fieri, Sandra Lee, and Rachael Ray,[75][76] and appeared irritated by both the overt commercialism of the celebrity cooking industry and its lack of culinary authenticity. He voiced a "serious disdain for food demigods like Alan Richman, Alice Waters, and Alain Ducasse."[77] Bourdain recognized the irony of his transformation into a celebrity chef and, to some extent, began to qualify his insults; in the 2007 New Orleans episode of No Reservations, he reconciled with Emeril Lagasse. He was consistently outspoken in his praise for chefs he admired, particularly Ferran Adrià, Juan Mari Arzak, Mario Batali, Fergus Henderson, José Andrés, Thomas Keller, Martin Picard, Eric Ripert, and Marco Pierre White,[78] as well as his former protegé and colleagues at Brasserie Les Halles. He spoke very highly of Julia Child, saying that she "influenced the way I grew up and my entire value system."[79]
Bourdain was also known for his sarcastic comments about vegan and vegetarian activists, saying that their lifestyle is rude to the inhabitants of many countries he visits. He said he considers vegetarianism, except in the case of religious strictures as in India, a "First World luxury".[80] He clarified that he believed Americans eat too much meat, and admired vegetarians who allow themselves to put aside their vegetarianism when they travel in order to be respectful of their hosts.[77]
His book, The Nasty Bits, is dedicated to "Joey, Johnny, and Dee Dee" of the Ramones. Bourdain declared fond appreciation for their music, as well that of other early punk bands such as Dead Boys, and The Voidoids.[81] He said that the playing of music by Billy Joel, Elton John or Grateful Dead in his kitchen was grounds for firing.[81] Billy Joel, however, was a fan of Bourdain's and subsequently visited the restaurant.[82]
On both No Reservations and Parts Unknown, he dined with and interviewed many musicians, both in the U.S. and elsewhere, with a special focus on glam and punk rockers such as Alice Cooper, David Johansen, Marky Ramone and Iggy Pop.[83][84] He featured contemporary band Queens of the Stone Age on No Reservations several times, and they composed and performed the theme song for Parts Unknown.[85]
Bourdain married his high school girlfriend, Nancy Putkoski, in 1985, and they remained together for two decades, divorcing in 2005.[86] On April 20, 2007, he married Ottavia Busia, a mixed martial artist.[87][88][89] The couple's daughter, Ariane, was born in 2007.[88] Bourdain noted that having to be away from his wife and child for about 250 days a year working on his television shows became a strain.[90] Busia appeared in several episodes of No Reservations—notably the ones in Sardinia (her birthplace), Tuscany (in which she plays a disgruntled Italian diner), Rome, Rio de Janeiro, and Naples. The couple divorced amicably in 2016.[91][92] In 2017, Bourdain began dating Italian actress Asia Argento, whom he met when she appeared on the Rome episode of Parts Unknown.[93][94][95]
Bourdain practiced the martial art Brazilian jiu jitsu, earning a blue belt in August 2015.[96] He won gold at the IBJJF New York Spring International Open Championship 2016, in the Middleweight Master 5 (age 56 and older) division.[97]
Bourdain had been known for being an unrepentant drinker and smoker. In a nod to Bourdain's (at the time) two-pack-a-day cigarette habit, renowned chef Thomas Keller once served him a 20-course tasting menu which included a mid-meal "coffee and cigarette": a coffee custard infused with tobacco, together with a foie gras mousse.[98] Bourdain stopped cigarette smoking in the summer of 2007 for the sake of his daughter.[99]
A former user of cocaine, heroin, and LSD, in Kitchen Confidential he wrote of his experience in a trendy SoHo restaurant in 1981: "We were high all the time, sneaking off to the walk-in refrigerator at every opportunity to 'conceptualize.' Hardly a decision was made without drugs. Cannabis, methaqualone, cocaine, LSD, psilocybin mushrooms soaked in honey and used to sweeten tea, secobarbital, tuinal, amphetamine, codeine and, increasingly, heroin, which we'd send a Spanish-speaking busboy over to Alphabet City to get."[100]