86 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • JULY 2021
REAR VIEW
ANTHONY BOURDAIN THE RENEGADE CHEF
BY ANNIE WILKINSON
Anthony Bourdain was a famous chef
and respected journalist who was accessible
and willing to rewrite — “an
editor’s dream,” wrote Ruth Reichl,
longtime Gourmet editor and former
New York Times restaurant critic.
His friend Eric Ripert, Le Bernardin
executive chef and co-owner, told
People, “He was an exceptional human
being, so inspiring and generous. One
of the great storytellers of our time
who connected with so many.”
But Bourdain was also an abrasive and
arrogant renegade who slammed his
fellow top TV food personalities, from
Guy Fieri to Rachael Ray. A professional
annoyance. A curmudgeon.
He was called awkward and withdrawn;
Reichl observed, “Behind that
swagger, there was always that tortured
shy guy.”
Bourdain was all of these, with conflicting
emotions competing to dominate
his personality. Which one won?
He secreted that truth away when he
committed suicide.
DOING NOTHING ON LI
As executive chef in Manhattan’s
finest restaurants, popular television
host, and jet-setter, “Tony” Bourdain
defined the term “celebrity chef.” It
was as though he was possessed by
an unstoppable demon of adventure,
which drove him to try every dish and
travel anywhere.
But his favorite vacation meant doing
nothing on Long island every August,
relaxing in “an area of the Hamptons
that none of the cool people go to and
I never see anyone I know,” he told the
Boston Globe.
The icon took “an indecent pleasure in
feigning normalcy,” he told Drift Travel.
Starting in 2012, he did “the suburban
dad thing,” loading up the car with
luggage and heading Out East with his
third wife, Ottavia, and their 7-year-old
daughter Ariane. As northjersey.com
reported, he said he was happy with “a
pile of to-be-read books, a hammock,
and a nice, warm body of water,” in a
place with no parties or openings —
“It’s mostly old people and golfers.”
ANTHONY BOURDAIN POSES BACKSTAGE WITH THE EMMY FOR OUTSTANDING
INFORMATIONAL SERIES ANTHONY BOURDAIN: PARTS UNKNOWN AT THE
2014 CREATIVE ARTS EMMY AWARDS IN LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA AUG.16,
2014. REUTERS/KEVORK DJANSEZIAN
He posed with Ripert for Hamptons
magazine in 2012 at Shelter Island’s
Sunset Beach, appeared at East
Hampton’s Guild Hall in 2014 in
Stirring the Pot: Conversations with
Culinary Celebrities, and studied jiu
jitsu with champion Lucas Lepri. He
drove, shopped at farm stands, and
said his life was ruled by a 7-year-old,
telling northjersery.com in 2016, “A
child changes everything. I don’t
drink or smoke as heavily as I used
to because I have a responsibility to
her to at least try to stay alive a little
longer.”
He cooked steamer clams, to remind
himself of his Jersey Shore childhood
vacations.
A $6 PRESIDENTIAL MEAL
His upbringing helped him develop
food appreciation. He was born Anthony
Michael Bourdain in 1956 in
New York City; his mother Gladys (G.S.)
Bourdain was a New York Times copy
editor on the culture and metropolitan
desks and his father Pierre Bourdain
was a classical-music recording industry
executive. The family vacationed
in Montauk and crossed the Atlantic
aboard the Queen Mary, visiting relatives
in France.
He later recalled in his 2000 blockbuster
memoir Kitchen Confidential:
Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
that it was as a fourth-grader aboard
the luxury liner that he became conscious
of enjoying food — specifically,
“vichysoisse, a basic potato-leek soup
that held the delightful surprise of
being cold.”
After high school and several lackluster
years at Vassar College, he
graduated from the Culinary Institute
of America in 1958. He paid his dues,
shucking oysters, washing dishes, and
studying Cape Cod chefs.
Throughout the 1990s his minute
attention to detail drew Manhattan
diners to the Rainbow Room, One
Fifth Avenue, and the Brasserie Les
Halles restaurants. Major TV series
followed, including Anthony Bourdain:
No Reservations and Parts Unknown;
starting in 2010, he received
numerous nominations and wins
from the Emmy Awards and the James
Beard Foundation.
In Parts Unknown, he turned the
focus away from himself, sharing
discoveries and interviews at unassuming
restaurants serving unusual
dishes. One conversation was with
then-president Barack Obama in
Vietnam, in 2016. They discussed
American and Vietnam politics,
Obama’s last months in office, and
being a father.
Obama described their $6 meal on
Twitter: “Low plastic stool, cheap
but delicious noodles, cold Hanoi
beer. That’s how I’ll remember Tony.
He taught us about food — but more
importantly, about its ability to bring
us together. To make us a little less
afraid of the unknown.”
“THAT TORTURED SHY GUY”
Despite his success. his low self-esteem
persisted. “I should’ve died in
my 20s,” he told Biography, referring
to his cocaine and heroin addictions.
“I feel like I’ve stolen a car — a really
nice car — and I keep looking in the
rearview mirror for flashing lights.”
His grueling travel and filming
schedule helped end his marriage in
2016. He told People that living the
dream was costly, but he rejected
retirement: “I just think I’m just too
nervous, neurotic, driven … I might
have deluded myself into thinking
that I’d be happy in a hammock or
gardening. But no, I’m quite sure I
can’t.”
On camera, he told viewers, “… I
find myself in a spiral of depression
that can last for days.” He sought
psychotherapy in Argentina for his
dark moods.
He was 61 when he hanged himself
in a Paris hotel room on June 8, 2018.
“I just think I’m just too nervous, neurotic, driven.”
/LONGISLANDPRESS.COM
/northjersey.com
/northjersery.com
