The former “bad boy” chef and bestselling author Anthony Bourdain is found dead on June 8, 2018, in his hotel room of apparent suicide. Bourdain was in France filming the 12th season of his hit travel and food TV show “Parts Unknown.” His death at 61 is a shock to his legions of fans, who followed Bourdain from his swaggering, tell-all restaurant memoir through his thoughtful, globetrotting TV series.
Anthony Bourdain was born in New York in 1956 and raised in New Jersey by a French father and an American mother who worked as an editor at The New York Times. After high school, Bourdain followed his girlfriend to Vassar College but dropped out after finding his calling in the chaotic kitchen of a clam shack in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
As a teenager, Bourdain was drawn to the hard-partying line-cook lifestyle as much as to the food. After graduating from the Culinary Institute of America, Bourdain worked his way up to fine-dining restaurants in New York City, where the kitchens were filled with the same self-destructive miscreants he loved. In the 1990s, Bourdain ran the kitchens at two Les Halles restaurants in Manhattan, both praised for their authentic French bistro cuisine.
After writing two novels, Bourdain published a confessional article in The New Yorker titled “Don’t Eat Before Reading This” about the dirty secrets of high-end restaurants: Don’t order fish on Monday or don’t ask for your steak “well done.” The viral article led to his 2000 memoir, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, which introduced Bourdain’s singular voice—sardonic, smart and profane—to the world.
The book sold more than 1 million copies and launched Bourdain’s third career as a TV personality. “A Cook’s Tour” premiered on the Food Network in 2003 and set the template for Bourdain’s TV persona: the omnivorous, incisive foodie who travels the world eating like the locals. Bourdain followed it up with two more popular TV series, “No Reservations” on the Travel Channel and “Parts Unknown” on CNN.
The peak of Bourdain’s TV career, according to many critics, was a 2016 episode of “Parts Unknown” in which he chatted over a humble bowl of Vietnamese barbecue pork and noodles with Barack Obama, then the sitting president, in Hanoi. The conversation, ranging from food to fatherhood to the future of America, was vintage Bourdain.
According to close friends and family, Bourdain struggled with depression throughout his life, and fame and fortune weren’t enough to alleviate it. Bourdain separated from his second wife in 2016 and began a relationship with the Italian actor Asia Argento. According to text messages published in an unauthorized biography, days before his death, Bourdain was upset with Argento over paparazzi photos of her with another man.
Bourdain didn’t leave a note explaining his decision. He was discovered dead in his room at the Le Chambard hotel in Kaysersberg, France, by his close friend and fellow chef Eric Ripert. French authorities found no evidence of foul play.
