Anthony Bourdain
Anthony Bourdain
Anthony Michael Bourdainis an American chef, author, and television personality. He is a 1978 graduate of The Culinary Institute of America and a veteran of numerous professional kitchens, including many years as executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles. Although Bourdain is no longer employed as a chef, he maintains a relationship with Les Halles in New York. He became widely known for his 2000 book Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly. His first food and world-travel television show was...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionChef
Date of Birth25 June 1956
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
In too much of the West, everyone wants the guarantee of safety, and never having to make any decisions.
I'm not afraid to look like a big, hairy, smelly, foreign devil in Tokyo, though I do my best not to, I really do.
My brain and body and nervous system, they see a plane ride, a long plane trip, as an opportunity to sleep with nothing coming in, nothing to do. I just go offline the minute I'm on the plane.
I'm married to an Italian woman, and I used to love cooking Italian at home, because it's one-pot cooking. But my wife does not approve of my Italian cooking.
I'm a radical environmentalist; I think the sooner we asphyxiate in our own filth, the better. The world will do better without us. Maybe some fuzzy animals will go with us, but there'll be plenty of other animals, and they'll be back.
It just seems there's better things to do in your life than be on television if it's not interesting, if it's not challenging, if it's not fun. You know? When it stops being those things for me, I'll stop making television.
I think that if all kids aspire to reach a point where they could feed themselves and a few of their friends, this would be good for the world surely.
Since the very beginning, Emeril's had a sense of humor about me calling him names and poking fun at him.
To be treated well in places where you don't expect to be treated well, to find things in common with people you thought previously you had very, very little in common with, that can't be a bad thing.
The celebrity-chef thing, even at its worst, its most annoying, its silliest, its goofiest, its most egregious and cynical, has been a good thing.
I'm sure that at no point in my life could I ever have shown the kind of focus and discipline and commitment necessary to work a station at elBulli or Le Bernardin. No. That ain't me.
Barbecue may not be the road to world peace, but it's a start.
I think (Travel Channel) knows it's not getting Jamie Oliver or Rachel Ray when they throw their lot in with me.
Going to Southeast Asia for the first time and tasting that spectrum of flavors - that certainly changed my whole palate, the kind of foods I crave. A lot of the dishes I used to love became boring to me.