Born in New York City in 1956, where he spent his childhood and still lives today, Anthony Bourdain has carved a niche for himself in the culinary world as an celebrated chef, an Emmy Award winning television host, and an acclaimed writer with publishing credits in The New York Times, The Independent, and The Times of London.
A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, Bourdain has served as the chef at The Supper Club in New York City. He’s currently the Executive Chef, or the Chef-at-Large, at Brasserie Les Halles, a French restaurant in New York City.
Perhaps best known for his sharp wit and keen sense of humor, Anthony Bourdain makes cuisine that would normally be inaccessible accessible to his television audience. As the host of Travel Channel’s Emmy Award Winning No Reservations, Bourdain takes viewers around the world – visiting places most people might never have the opportunity to go – and shares the sometimes stomach-turning, sometimes inspiring local cuisine.
Bourdain’s television credits also include Kitchen Confidential, What’s Your Trip, A Cook’s Tour and a recurring guest judge spot on Bravo’s hit reality show Top Chef. He guest-starred as Dr. Tony on the children’s show Yo Gabba Gabba in 2010 and has appeared on such shows as Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Larry King Live, and Late Night with Conan O’Brien.
Although he wears a chef’s hat, Bourdain is also acclaimed for his writing and television work, all of which have won him honors from the culinary community. Bon Apetit named him the 2001 Food Writer of the Year; his book A Cook’s Tour earned 2002’s Food Book of The Year award from The British Guild of Food Writers; and his non-fiction writing garnered him a Creative Arts Emmy nomination in 2010.
No Reservations earned an Outstanding Informational Programming Emmy nomination in 2007 for an episode that followed Bourdain and his filming crew during their time in Beirut at the height of Lebanon’s conflict with Israel. Two years later, in 2009, No Reservations took home the Outstanding Cinematography for Non-Fiction Programming Creative Arts Emmy.
Who’s Who of Food and Beverage in America, run by the James Beard Foundation, welcomed Bourdain into their halls in 2008.
But, Bourdain isn’t strictly about food. He’s also a crime and fiction writer, having published several books, among them The Bobby Gold Stories and Typhoid Mary.
Having established himself in the culinary and literary world, Bourdain isn’t and has never been afraid to speak his mind. People either love him or hate him, and he’s made no secret of that which annoys him – like vegetarians. As he writes in his book, Kitchen Confidential, “Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, and an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food. “The body, these waterheads imagine, is a temple that should not be polluted by animal protein. It’s healthier, they insist, though every vegetarian waiter I’ve worked with is brought down by any rumor of a cold. Oh, I’ll accommodate them, I’ll rummage around for something to feed them, for a ‘vegetarian plate’, if called on to do so. Fourteen dollars for a few slices of grilled eggplant and zucchini suits my food cost fine.”
