Anthony Bourdain, Chef, Travel Host and Author, Is Dead at 61
The travel host Anthony Bourdain, whose memoir “Kitchen Confidential” about the dark corners of New York’s restaurants started a career in television, died on Friday at 61.
For the past several years, Mr. Bourdain hosted the show “Parts Unknown” on CNN and was working on an episode in Strasbourg, France, when he died, the network said Friday morning. He killed himself in a hotel room, the network said.
“It is with extraordinary sadness we can confirm the death of our friend and colleague,” CNN said in a statement.
CNN statement regarding the death of our friend and colleague, Anthony Bourdain: pic.twitter.com/MR1S5fP16o
— CNN Communications (@CNNPR) June 8, 2018
A spokesperson for the United States Embassy in Paris also confirmed his death. “We can confirm the death of Anthony Bourdain in the Haute-Rhin department of France,” the Embassy said. “We extend our sincere condolences to friends and family. We stand ready to provide appropriate consular services. Out of respect for the family, we have no further comment.”
In everything he did, Mr. Bourdain cultivated a renegade style and bad-boy persona.
For decades, he worked 13-hour days as a line cook in restaurants in New York and the Northeast before he became executive chef in the 1990s at Brasserie Les Halles, serving steak frites and onion soup in Lower Manhattan. He had been the chef there for eight years when he sent an unsolicited article to The New Yorker about the underbelly of the restaurant world and its deceptions.
[Read More: Mr. Bourdain spoke in 2017 about his favorite books.]
To his surprise, the magazine accepted it and ran it — catching the attention of book editors. It resulted in “Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly,” a memoir that elevated Mr. Bourdain to a celebrity chef and a new career on TV. Before he joined CNN in 2012, he spent eight seasons as the globe-trotting host of “No Reservations” on the Travel Channel, highlighting obscure cuisine and unknown restaurants.
Mr. Bourdain became an instant hero to a certain breed of professional cooks and restaurant goers when “Kitchen Confidential” hit the best-seller lists in 2000.
He is largely credited for defining an era of line cooks as warriors, exposing a kitchen culture in which drugs, drinking and long, brutal hours on the line in professional kitchens were both a badge of honor and a curse.
Mr. Bourdain was open about his past addictions and penchant for alcohol in his writing, and described his struggles with cocaine in the 1980s.
“No Reservations” largely focused on food and Mr. Bourdain himself. But on “Parts Unknown,” he turned the lens around, delving into different countries around the world and the people who lived in them. He explored politics and history with locals, often over plates of food and drinks.
Mr. Bourdain also famously appeared with President Barack Obama on an episode of “Parts Unknown” in Vietnam in 2016. Over cold beers, grilled pork and noodles, they discussed Vietnamese-American relations, Mr. Obama’s final months in office and fatherhood.
Celebrities in the food and entertainment worlds expressed deep shock and disbelief Friday morning. Nigella Lawson, the British cookbook author and television personality, tweeted, “Heartbroken to hear about Tony Bourdain’s death. Unbearable for his family and girlfriend. Am going off twitter for a while.”
Michael Symon, the chef and host of the Chew, tweeted that he was in shock. Other celebrities ranging from the journalist Megyn Kelly to the musician Robbie Robertson expressed grief. Ana Navarro, a Republican strategist and commentator on CNN, recalled the excellent travel advice he gave her.
“When I traveled to some exotic place I’d not been before – the last were Beirut and Amman – I’d text Bourdain & ask where I should eat. He gave the best, most fun recommendations. I’d like to think he’s scouting out the best watering holes and places to eat in heaven, right now.”
Mr. Bourdain had emerged as a leading male voice against sexual abuse in the wake of rape and abuse allegations against the film producer Harvey Weinstein and others.
His girlfriend, the actor Asia Argento, 42, said in a lengthy story in The New Yorker that she endured multiple attacks and manipulation by Mr. Weinstein, saying that he sexually assaulted her in a hotel room when she was 21.
She said she had left her native Italy and moved to Berlin to escape the tension and victim-shaming culture she said she experienced at home.
Last month, she gave a speech at Cannes that stunned the room. “In 1997, I was raped by Harvey Weinstein here at Cannes,” Ms. Argento said. “This festival was his hunting ground.”
In an interview with IndieWire magazine this month, Mr. Bourdain called her speech a nuclear bomb.
“I was so proud of her. It was absolutely fearless to walk right into the lion’s den and say what she said, the way she said it. It was an incredibly powerful moment, I thought. I am honored to know someone who has the strength and fearlessness to do something like that.”
Mr. Bourdain continued speaking out boldly on the subject of sexual abuse and harassment, taking on everyone from Alec Baldwin to the chef Mario Batali, who is under investigation for sexual assault charges. Several women have come forward and described repeated incidents of Mr. Batali groping them and of unwanted kisses and sexual propositions.
When news of Mr. Batali’s plans to attempt a comeback were exposed, Mr. Bourdain kicked down the idea.
“Retire and count yourself lucky,” Mr. Bourdain, a longtime friend of Mr. Batali’s who had not spoken with him recently, said. “I say that without malice, or without much malice. I am not forgiving. I can’t get past it. I just cannot and that’s me, someone who really admired him and thought the world of him.”
This story is developing.
[If you are having thoughts of suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (TALK) or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources.]
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