Anthony Bourdain, born in 1956, was an American chef, author and travel documentarian – a rare figure who genuinely earned all three titles. A 1978 graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, he spent years in professional kitchens, including a spell as executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles in Manhattan. The turn came in the late 1990s, when The New Yorker published an essay of his whose point-blank tone became his trademark; a year later came Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, a New York Times bestseller that turned a working chef into a household name.
Television followed and never really stopped: A Cook’s Tour on the Food Network, No Reservations and The Layover on the Travel Channel, then Parts Unknown on CNN – programmes that used food as a way into culture and the human condition. He also wrote fiction and historical non-fiction. Bourdain died in June 2018, while filming Parts Unknown on location in France, and the food world has not found a replacement for him since.
8 hours and 37 minutes
