The chef turned TV star is leading the way toward a pair of narrow seats at the New York outpost of a Michelin-rated Tokyo yakitori joint called Tori Shin, a tightly packed establishment that's Bourdain's kind of place: little-known, deeply authentic, and a bit unusual. "We might as well be in Tokyo," he says. "They do everything right here."
A meal out with Bourdain typically involves three things. There will be engaging conversation, possibly touching on such subjects as the essays of Michel de Montaigne, 1920s surrealist films, and mixed-martial-arts combat. There will be booze, although perhaps in more modest quantities than his reputation suggests. And there will be food--some strange, all carefully prepared, and a certain amount involving animal innards that seem better suited to ninth-grade biology class than the dinner table.
Bourdain, 58, is a foodie explorer who has spent years trekking around the planet while fearlessly tucking into all manner of exotic fare, from months-old rotten shark meat in Iceland to a still-beating cobra heart in Vietnam. "He's the Indiana Jones of the food world," says his close friend Eric Ripert, chef and co-owner of New York institution Le Bernardin. "He is the smart guy who knows food and is going to take us with him on an adventure."
Bourdain's hour-long CNN food and travel show, Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, which kicked off its fourth season on September 28 (new episodes air Sundays at 9 p.m. EST), is unlike anything else on TV. Forget about four-star hotels or luxury spa treatments: Bourdain is on a mission to illuminate underappreciated and misunderstood cultures, whether it's Myanmar or Detroit. He regularly takes viewers to the sorts of places--Libya, Gaza, Congo--that most Americans know only from grim headlines about political strife and body counts. Bourdain does all of this with vivid narrative reporting, stunning visuals, palpable empathy, and a relentlessly open mind. The show has so far been nominated for 11 Emmys and has won three (most recently for Best Informational Series or Special). This year it was also awarded a prestigious Peabody.
As with Bourdain's previous programs, A Cook's Tour and the long-running No Reservations, the premise is simple: he goes somewhere interesting and hangs out with the locals. "We show up and say, 'What's to eat? What makes you happy?'" Bourdain says. "You're going to get very Technicolor, very deep, very complicated answers to those questions. I'm not a Middle East expert. I'm not an Africa expert. I'm not a foreign-policy wonk. But I see aspects of these countries that regular journalists don't. If we have a role, it's to put a face on people who you might not otherwise have seen or cared about."
Parts Unknown is the flagship of Bourdain's somewhat accidental empire. He also presides over two other current TV programs: the PBS docuseries The Mind of a Chef (which he both narrates and executive produces) and the Esquire Network travel show The Getaway. He's a mentor on ABC's reality competition The Taste (season 3 premieres in January), and he oversees an Ecco/HarperCollins imprint that has released four books since it kicked off in May 2013. He has written six food books of his own--including his 2000 memoir, Kitchen Confidential--and several crime novels. Recently, and much to his surprise, he's even become a new face of CNN, which is currently being overhauled by former NBCUniversal president and CEO Jeff Zucker. His show could lead an industry-wide shift toward a more documentary-focused cable-news landscape.
For Bourdain, it has been a long evolution: from heroin-addicted chef to punk-rock-foodie author to global citizen on a mission to simply understand a bit about our world. It's a testament to Bourdain's work ethic and creative drive that after 14 years on television, he's still pushing to get better, go deeper, seek out complexity, avoid the obvious and conventional. At a time when he could simply coast, Bourdain seems as energized as ever. (...)
That quest for excellence is a big part of what's kept Bourdain excited about making a show with the same basic format for the past 14 years. He can be intense, but he constantly pushes the crew to reach toward the new. "We literally sit down and try to figure out, 'What's the most fucked-up thing we can do?' " he says, taking a swig from his industrial-size cup of light-and-sweet deli coffee. " 'What haven't we done that we can try?' " (...)
Not all of these experiments pay off, and Bourdain is okay with that. The point is to resist the predictable, especially when it comes to TV's ingrained conventions. "The only thing that makes me upset and, really, a dick is if something is fucking plodding and reasonable," he says, spitting out that last word with palpable revulsion. "It starts with an establishing shot, I go someplace, I meet somebody, I sit down, I eat, and I come to a conclusion: That kind of conventional thinking really upsets me. I would much rather see some incomprehensible, over-the-top, fucked-up thing, because at least you're trying to do something awesome."
by Rob Brunner, Fast Company | Read more:
Image: CNN
