Anthony Bourdain

Anthony Michael “Tony” Bourdain (25 June 1956, Manhattan, NYC, USA — 8 June 2018, Kaysersberg-Vignoble, France) was an acclaimed food and travel writer, food explorer, ex-prep cook and ex-chef, who portrayed the planet, its people and their culinary habits (or quirks) while relentlessly traveling the world for his TV shows (200 days on the road per year, at the peak of his activity).

Unafraid of raising political issues — he foresaw the 2022 military invasion of Ukraine ordered by Russian potentate Vladimir Poutine –, nor poking fun at American TV “celebrity chefs”, he often addressed his personal demons in his CNN show ‘Parts Unknown’ — a series that ran from 2013 to his death by suicide while he was shooting one more episode in France with his time-honored friend, Chef Eric Ripert –, openly referring to his past drug addiction and his bouts of depression. Some parts of the world, or the specifics of its inhabitants, triggered highly emotional response, like when he consulted a psychoanalyst in Buenos Aires, or when he discovered that some tourist operators in Sicily threw frozen cuttlefish in the sea to give tourists the illusion that they were actually fishing when scuba diving.

In the Parts Unknown episode about Jerusalem, he commented on his Jewish identity (“not a religious but an ethnic one”, as her mother was Gladys née Sacksman, from a non-religious Ashkenazi family), while in the episode on Paraguay he attempted to track back one of his ancestors, Jean Burden or Bourdain, who emigrated from France — as did Bourdain’s paternal grand-parents to New York — and vanished there in the second half of the 19th century. Remarking that his own father had passed away when he was 52, he wondered if he would last much longer. On his last TV interview (with Fast Company, released 9 June 2018), he noted that “the biggest failure of our show has been not to give enough exposure to women’s worldview and experiences.”

With a long-lasting fascination for Asia, in particular Vietnam and Japan, he made sure to visit Angkor, “a child’s dream” at the start of his wandering musings about food, in 2000. In fact, the book A Cook’s Tour: in search of the perfect meal (2001), opened with a letter sent to first wife Nancy [Nancy Putkoski (m. 1985 – 2005)] from Pailin, Cambodia, where he was tracking the last hideouts of the remaining Khmer Rouge insurgency. Asia was also the first destination of his first TV food travel series, ‘A Cook’s Tour’ [Food Network, 2001 – 2010]. It was followed by ‘No Reservations’ [Zero Point Zero Production, 2010 – 2013], and ‘Parts Unknown’ [CNN, 2013 – 2018].

On the personal life front, he married 2 years after his divorce with Nancy Ottavia Busia, with whom he had one daughter. They separated in 2016, when he became romantically involved with Italian actress and filmamker Asia Argento (born Aria Maria Vittoria Rossa Argento, 20 Sept. 1975), who was one of the first women to publicly accuse producer Harry Wenstein of sexual abuse, a stance Bourdain firmly supported.

While his family and educational background pushed him towards French cuisine — his portrait of Paul Bocuse and other renowned Lyon chefs was a monument in reverential and loving admiration –, he was eager to explore as many cultures as he possibly could, with a particular fondness for Vietnam. His exploration of Americana was equally passionate and critical, and in his report on the decay of Detroit as a city and the symbol of industrialist optimism he drew comparison between the decline of ‘Motor City’ - or ‘Motown’ — and the fate of the Angkorian empire and city.

Author of several books devoted to food and food culture — Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly (2000) and Medium Raw (2010) were New York Times bestsellers, he also authored works of fiction, such as crime novels Gone Bamboo and Bone in the Throat. His life has inspired several biographies and biopics, in particular Matt Johnson Tony (2026, 106 min), about his early years in Provincetown, Massachusetts, with Dominic Sessa as Anthony Bourdain.

In **Tokyo** with Japanese hard rock musicians, 2015. [screenshot from ‘Parts Unknown’, Tokyo Episode.]

Publications

“The Young Caremians”, ZAT magazine num. 2, 1984 [probably the first published writings by A.B., repr. in Kimberly Whitherspoon (ed.), The Anthony Bourdain Reader: New, Classic, and Rediscovered Writing, 2026.
[unpublished short story] “Wet Affairs,” repr in Kimberly Whitherspoon 2026, op. cit., p. 315 – 26.
[fiction] Bone in the Throat, New York: Villard Books, 1995. ISBN 978−0−679−43552−5.
[fiction] Gone Bamboo: A Novel, 1997, New York, Villard Books; repr. Bloomsbury USA, 2008, 302 p. ISBN13‎ 978 – 1596917262.
“Don’t Eat Before Reading This,”, The New Yorker, 12 April 1999.
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, New York, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2000, repr. 2010, 351 p. ISBN13 978 – 14088208582010 ; Kindle Edition, 2018, 2026.
A Cook’s Tour: In Search of the Perfect Meal, New York: Bloomsbury. 2001, 288 p. ISBN13 978 – 1582341408. Kindle Edition 2018, 2026.
Typhoid Mary: An Urban Historical, New York, Bloomsbury, 2001, 160 p. ISBN13 978 – 1582341330. Kindle Edition, 2010.
[fiction] Bobby Gold, Edinburgh: Canongate Crime, 2001. ISBN 978−1−84195−145−4.
Anthony Bourdain’s Les Halles Cookbook: Strategies, Recipes, and Techniques of Classic Bistro Cooking, New York, Bloomsbury, 2004, 304 p. ISBN13 978 – 1582341804.
The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones, New York: Bloomsbury. 2006.
No Reservations: Around the World on an Empty Stomach, New York: Bloomsbury. 2007.
[fiction] Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook, New York, Ecco/HarperCollins, 2010, 288 p. ISBN 978 – 0061998065.
[comics] [with Joel Rose & Langdon Foss] Get Jiro!, DC Comics, 2012. ISBN 9781401228279
[comics] [with Joel Rose & Alé Garza] Get Jiro: Blood and Sushi, DC Comics, 2012. ISBN 9781401228279.
Foreword to Graham Holliday, Eating Viet Nam: Dispatches from a Blue Plastic Table, New York, Ecco, 2015.
Appetites: A Cookbook, Ecco Press. 2016.
[comics] [with Joel Rose, Alberto Ponticelli, Irene Koh & Paul Pope] Hungry Ghosts, Berger Books, 2018. ISBN 978 – 1506706696.
[posthumous, ed. by Laurie Woolever] World Travel: An Irreverent Guide, New York, Ecco, 2021.

See also: The Anthony Bourdain Reader: New, Classic, and Rediscovered Writing, Kimberly Whiterspoon ed. [she was his literary agent and friend for over 20 years], Patrick Radden Keefe (Introduction), New York, Ecco/HarperCollins, 2025, 503 p. ISBN 13 978 – 0062863973. Kindle Ed.

Related Books: World Travel: An Irreverent Guide