Table of Contents
Cast of Characters (in order of first appearance) x
Introduction xv
1 "I Absolutely Always Saw a Talent in Him": Early Life 1
2 "Super Smart, Super Funny": The Teenage Years 7
3 "A Lot of Fun to Be Around": Young Adulthood 17
4 "It Was What the Cool Kids Were Doing": The Early New York Years 23
5 "He Just Wanted to Be a Writer in the Worst Way": Meeting Joel Rose 39
6 "They Got Some Money, and It Just Went into Their Veins": Heroin 43
7 "I'm Tony Motherfucking Bourdain-You Got a Problem?": New York in the Nineties 49
8 "Such Was My Lust to See My Name in Print" 55
9 "Appalling Stories of Remorseless Criminality": The Stone Brothers 59
10 "You've Got a Long Con Going Here": The Genesis of Kitchen Confidential 65
11 "It Was Picking Up a Rock Off the Restaurant Scene and Showing Everything That Was Underneath It" 69
12 "He Was Not Just a Cook Anymore; He Was a Real 3D Person" 73
13 "I'm Not Gonna Censor the Guy": Editing and Publishing Kitchen Confidential 79
14 "The Brass Ring Comes Around Only Once" 85
15 "He Never Came Off Book Tour" 91
16 "I'd Love to Travel the World": A Cook's Tour Begins 97
17 "Tony Was So Reluctant to Do Television" 103
18 "He Was Ahead of His Time": The End of A Cook's Tour 117
19 "He Was Prepared to Piss Off Everybody": Travel Channel 123
20 "He Was Very Untethered": The Early No Reservations Years 129
21 "Basically, He Kidnapped My Cat": Tony Meets Ottavia 139
22 "Let's Spin the Wheel Again": Beirut, a Baby 143
23 "It Was Not the Easiest Thing": Life on the Road as a Family 149
24 "Don't Bother Tony": Navigating Friendships and Fame 155
25 "We Got Shit Done": Making No Reservations 167
26 "You See a Person Who's Come Full Circle, and He's Seen the World": Medium Raw 179
27 "I Knew I Could Write the Story I Needed to Write": Tony as Publisher, Graphic Novelist, and Screenwriter 183
28 "I Felt Like I Knew Him All My Life": David Simon Recalls Tony 193
29 "He Could Have Sat in a Santa's Throne in a Shopping Mall": The Onstage Experience 197
30 "He Was a Curator of People" 205
31 "He Was a Man of Extremes" 215
32 "Darker, More Transgressive, and More Lurid": Roads & Kingdoms 221
33 "Everyone Felt They Knew Him": Charisma and Reserve 227
34 "Get a Big Fucking Body Bag": Frustration and Isolation in the Field 233
35 "Tony Had a Burden of Leadership That Was Real" 245
36 "He Always Had to Perform the Role of Tony" 251
37 "Such an Unlikely Program for Him": The Taste 259
38 "Push the Boundary Really Hard, Really Fast": The Move to CNN 265
39 "I Really Wasn't Doing It for the Cronut": Tony Tries a Talk Show 275
40 "Middle-Class White People Going to Poverty-Stricken Parts of the World … without Being Dicks about It" 279
41 "It Was Too Much of a Dream": The Bourdain Market 283
42 "You Don't Direct Tony Bourdain": Life on the Road with Parts Unknown 289
43 "You Were That Guy Who Got Arrested": Jason and Yeganeh Rezaian in Iran 311
44 "This Is Just Another Tribe": Brazilian Jiu-Jirsu 321
45 "Maybe You'll Find Another Chance at Love": The End of the Marriage 331
46 "Tony's Changed; Tony's Very Different Now" 337
47 "He Was Attracted to Chaos" 351
48 "They're Gonna Tear You Apart": Alienating Friends 355
49 "He Was Like a Young Kid in Love" 363
50 "Every Good Band Eventually Breaks Up" 371
51 "Embracing the Chaos": Rome and Puglia 375
52 "We Bolstered Each Other's Incorrect Assertion That Asking for Help Is Somehow a Mistake" 379
53 "Call It Impostor Syndrome, If You Want, but Tony Definitely Had It" 383
54 "We Should Do Something Together": Kenya with W. Kamau Bell 387
55 "I Knew Someone Was Doomed": Hong Kong 393
56 "You Can't Put Your Arms around a Memory": New York, Asturias, Florence 403
57 "All OK": Alsace 411
58 "It's Hard to See Things as They Really Are" 417
59 "He Was an Extraordinary Witness and Voice for the World" 431
Acknowledgments 437
Index of Contributors 439