Do we like Anthony Bourdain?
Our score: 9 out of 10. He backed women, migrants and marriage equality in his own words, and publicly owned the macho kitchen culture he helped build.
Born in New York in 1956 and raised in suburban New Jersey, Bourdain fell for food on a family trip to France at ten. A dishwashing job in Provincetown in 1973 set him on the path to cooking. He did two years at Vassar, then graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in 1978.
He worked his way up New York kitchens to executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles in 1998. A New Yorker piece turned into the bestseller Kitchen Confidential in 2000, and that got him on telly with A Cook's Tour, then No Reservations, then Parts Unknown from 2013. Parts Unknown collected eight Emmys, which is not bad for a bloke who started out washing dishes.
The harm check starts with the bad-boy persona. Late in life he questioned whether Kitchen Confidential gave “validation to meatheads”, and called the macho kitchen culture it fed a personal failing. After sexual misconduct allegations against chef Mario Batali and restaurateur Ken Friedman, he wrote that he stood with the women. He also publicly backed women accusing Harvey Weinstein.
On LGBTQ+ rights, he joined a 2014 Human Rights Campaign push for marriage equality, asking what sensible person could be against it. On migrants, he told a Sirius XM host in 2015 that if Trump deported 11 million people, “every restaurant in America would shut down”. He called immigrants the backbone of the industry and credited Mexican and Central American cooks with teaching him.
The recent news is a good one. A24's Tony, directed by Matt Johnson with Dominic Sessa as the 19-year-old Bourdain and Antonio Banderas in the cast, covers that 1975 Provincetown summer. One reviewer called it among their favourites of the year so far. Nothing controversial has turned up about him lately.
The good stuff is practical. He put his Mexican-born sous chef in charge of two of his New York restaurants, and he put Mexican villages and regions on his shows. A Chinese restaurateur said his 2007 endorsement helped a family stall grow into six eateries. That is using a platform for other people.