Age, Biography, and Wiki
Anthony Bourdain was born on June 25, 1956, in New York City. His career in the culinary world began early, graduating from the Culinary Institute of America in 1978. He rose to fame with his bestselling book Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly in 2000, which offered a candid look into the culinary industry. Bourdain's television career included hosting popular shows like No Reservations and Parts Unknown, which showcased his love for exploring different cultures through food.
Bourdain passed away on June 8, 2018, while filming an episode of Parts Unknown in France.
| Occupation | Journalist |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | 25 June 1956 |
| Age | 69 Years |
| Birth Place | New York City, U.S. |
| Horoscope | Cancer |
| Country | France |
| Date of death | 8 June, 2018 |
| Died Place | Kaysersberg Vignoble, France |
Height, Weight, and Measurements
Bourdain was known for his tall stature, standing at 6 feet 4 inches. However, specific details about his weight are not widely documented.
| Height | 6 feet 4 inches |
| Weight | |
| Body Measurements | |
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Dating and Relationship Status
Bourdain was married three times:
- Nancy Putkoski: They were married from 1985 to 2005.
- Ottavia Busia: They were married from 2007 to 2016, and they had a daughter, Ariane Bourdain.
- Asia Argento: Bourdain was in a relationship with the Italian actress from 2017 until his death in 2018.
Bourdain was a 1978 graduate of the Culinary Institute of America and a veteran of many professional kitchens during his career, which included several years spent as an executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles in Manhattan. In the late 1990s Bourdain wrote an essay about the ugly secrets of a Manhattan restaurant but he was having difficulty getting it published. According to the New York Times, his mother Gladys—then an editor and writer at the paper—handed her son's essay to friend and fellow editor Esther B. Fein, the wife of David Remnick, editor of the magazine The New Yorker. Remnick ran Bourdain's essay in the magazine, kickstarting Bourdain's career and legitimizing the point-blank tone that would become his trademark. The success of the article was followed just a year later by the publication of a New York Times best-selling book, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly (2000).
Anthony grew up living with both of his parents and described his childhood in one of his books: "I did not want for love or attention. My parents loved me. Neither of them drank to excess. Nobody beat me. God was never mentioned so I was annoyed by neither church nor any notion of sin or damnation." His father was Catholic of French descent and his mother was Jewish. Bourdain stated that, although he was considered Jewish by halacha's definition, "I've never been in a synagogue. I don't believe in a higher power. But that doesn't make me any less Jewish, I don't think." His family was not religious.
Bourdain's father spent summers in France as a boy and grew up speaking French. Bourdain spent most of his childhood in Leonia, New Jersey. He felt jealous of the lack of parental supervision of his classmates and the freedom they had in their homes. In his youth, Bourdain was a member of the Boy Scouts of America.
In 1998, Bourdain became an executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles. Based in Manhattan, at the time the brand had additional restaurants in Miami; Washington, D.C.; and Tokyo. Bourdain remained an executive chef there for many years and even when no longer formally employed at Les Halles, he maintained a relationship with the restaurant, which described him in January 2014 as their "chef at large". Les Halles closed in 2017 after filing for bankruptcy.
In 2011, he voiced himself in a cameo on an episode of The Simpsons titled "The Food Wife", in which Marge, Lisa, and Bart start a food blog called The Three Mouthkateers.
On April 20, 2007, he married Ottavia Busia, who later became a mixed martial artist. Bourdain said having to be away from his family for 250 days a year working on his television shows put a strain on the relationship. Busia appeared in several episodes of No Reservations, notably the ones in Tuscany, Rome, Rio de Janeiro, Naples, and her birthplace of Sardinia. The couple separated in 2016.
Bourdain's mother, Gladys Bourdain, told The New York Times, "He is absolutely the last person in the world I would have ever dreamed would do something like this."
In 2017, Bourdain became a vocal advocate against sexual harassment in the restaurant industry, speaking out about celebrity chefs Mario Batali and John Besh, and in Hollywood, particularly following his then-girlfriend Asia Argento's sexual abuse allegations against Harvey Weinstein. Bourdain accused Hollywood director Quentin Tarantino of "complicity" in the Weinstein sex scandal.
| Parents | |
| Husband | Nancy Putkoski (m. 1985-2005) Ottavia Busia (m. April 20, 2007-2016) |
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Net Worth and Salary
At the time of his death, Anthony Bourdain's net worth was reported to be around $1.2 million. This figure includes bank accounts, personal property, brokerage accounts, and royalties from his work. However, there were initial reports suggesting a much higher net worth due to a trust he created, which was intended to protect his assets and benefit his daughter.
Bourdain's annual income was estimated to be around $5 million, primarily from his successful TV shows and book sales.
In the days following Bourdain's death, fans gathered to pay tribute to him outside his former place of employment, Brasserie Les Halles (which had closed down the previous year). Cooks and restaurant owners held gatherings, tribute dinners, and memorials, and donated the net revenue from these events to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.
Career, Business, and Investments
Bourdain's career was marked by significant milestones:
- Culinary Career: He was a long-time executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles in New York City.
- Television Career: He hosted several successful shows, including No Reservations and Parts Unknown, which highlighted his culinary travels around the world.
- Writing Career: Bourdain is best known for his bestselling book Kitchen Confidential, which led to a successful writing career.
- Business Ventures: Bourdain was involved in various business ventures, including his own production company, which produced his TV shows.
Bourdain's love of food was kindled in his youth while on a family vacation in France when he tried his first oyster from a fisherman's boat. He graduated from the Dwight-Englewood School, an independent coeducational college-preparatory day school in Englewood, New Jersey, in 1973, then enrolled at Vassar College but dropped out after two years. He worked at seafood restaurants in Provincetown, Massachusetts, including the Lobster Pot, while attending Vassar, which inspired his decision to pursue cooking as a career.
In 2015, Bourdain joined the travel, food, and politics publication Roads & Kingdoms, as the site's sole investor and editor-at-large. Over the next few years, Bourdain contributed to the site and edited the Dispatched By Bourdain series. Bourdain and Roads & Kingdoms also partnered on the digital series Explore Parts Unknown, which launched in 2017 and won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Short Form Nonfiction or Reality Series in 2018.
He championed industrious Spanish-speaking immigrants—from Mexico, Ecuador, and other Central and South American countries—who are cooks and chefs in many United States restaurants, including upscale establishments, regardless of cuisine. He considered them talented chefs and invaluable cooks, underpaid and unrecognized even though they have become the backbone of the U.S. restaurant industry.
Social Network
Bourdain was active on social media platforms, particularly Twitter, where he shared his thoughts on food, travel, and social issues. His social media presence allowed him to connect directly with fans and engage in discussions about his work.
Between 2012 and 2017, he served as narrator and executive producer for several episodes of the award-winning PBS series The Mind of a Chef; it aired on the last months of each year. The series moved from PBS to Facebook Watch in 2017.
From 2015 to 2017, Bourdain hosted Raw Craft, a series of short videos released on YouTube. The series followed Bourdain as he visited various artisans who produce various craft items by hand, including iron skillets, suits, saxophones, and kitchen knives. The series was produced by William Grant & Sons to promote their Balvenie distillery's products.
In describing the line, he said, "This will be a line of books for people with strong voices who are at something—who speak with authority. Discern nothing from this initial list—other than a general affection for people who cook food and like food. The ability to kick people in the head is just as compelling to us—as long as that's coupled with an ability to vividly describe the experience. We are just as intent on crossing genres as we are enthusiastic about our first three authors. It only gets weirder from here."
Bourdain appeared as himself in the 2015 film The Big Short, in which he used seafood stew as an analogy for a collateralized debt obligation. He also produced and starred in ''Wasted! The Story of Food Waste''.
Bourdain was noted for his put-downs of celebrity chefs such as Paula Deen, Bobby Flay, Guy Fieri, Sandra Lee, and Rachael Ray, and appeared irritated by both the overt commercialism of the celebrity cooking industry and its lack of culinary authenticity. He voiced a "serious disdain for food demigods like Alan Richman, Alice Waters, and Alain Ducasse". Bourdain recognized the irony of his transformation into a celebrity chef and began to qualify his insults; in the 2007 New Orleans episode of No Reservations, he reconciled with Emeril Lagasse, whom he had previously disparaged in Kitchen Confidential. He later wrote more favorably of Lagasse in the preface of the 2013 edition. He was outspoken in his praise for chefs he admired, particularly Ferran Adrià, Juan Mari Arzak, Fergus Henderson, José Andrés, Thomas Keller, Martin Picard, Éric Ripert, and Marco Pierre White, as well as his former protégé and colleagues at Brasserie Les Halles. He spoke very highly of Julia Child's influence on him.
Following the news of Bourdain's death, various public figures expressed condolences. Among them were fellow chefs Andrew Zimmern and Gordon Ramsay, former astronaut Scott Kelly, and then-U.S. president Donald Trump. CNN issued a statement, saying that Bourdain's "talents never ceased to amaze us and we will miss him very much." Former U.S. president Barack Obama, who dined with Bourdain in Vietnam on Parts Unknown, wrote on Twitter: "He taught us about food—but more importantly, about its ability to bring us together. To make us a little less afraid of the unknown." On the day of Bourdain's death, CNN aired Remembering Anthony Bourdain, a tribute program.
Bourdain advocated for communicating the value of traditional or peasant foods, including all of the varietal bits and unused animal parts not usually eaten by affluent 21st-century Americans. He also praised the quality of freshly prepared street food in other countries—especially developing countries—compared to fast-food chains in the U.S. Regarding Western moral criticism of cuisine in developing countries, Bourdain stated: "Let's call this criticism what it is: racism. There are a lot of practices from the developing world that I find personally repellent, from my privileged Western point of view. But I don't feel like I have such a moral high ground that I can walk around lecturing people in developing nations on how they should live their lives."
With regard to criticism of the Chinese, Bourdain stated: "The way in which people dismiss whole centuries-old cultures—often older than their own and usually non-white—with just utter contempt aggravates me. People who suggest I shouldn't go to a country like China, look at or film it, because some people eat dog there, I find that racist, frankly. Understand people first: their economic, living situation." Regarding the myth that monosodium glutamate in Chinese food is unhealthy, Bourdain said: "It's a lie. You know what causes Chinese restaurant syndrome? Racism. 'Ooh I have a headache; it must have been the Chinese guy.
Following the death of Elizabeth II, a 2018 video resurfaced on Twitter showing Bourdain refusing to complete a toast to the Queen, saying "I hate the aristocracy."
Education
Anthony Bourdain graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in 1978. This education formed the foundation of his culinary career.
Despite his passing, Bourdain's legacy continues to inspire new generations of chefs, writers, and travelers. His work remains a testament to the power of storytelling and the importance of cultural exploration through food.
In the 1970s, while attending high school at Dwight-Englewood School, Bourdain dated Nancy Putkoski. He described her as "a bad girl", older than he was and "part of a druggy crowd". She was a year ahead of him and Bourdain graduated one year early in order to follow Putkoski to Vassar College since they had just started admitting men. He studied there between the ages of 17 and 19. He then attended The Culinary Institute of America, a 15-minute drive from Vassar. The couple married in 1985 and remained together for two decades, divorcing in 2005.
Bourdain practiced the martial art Brazilian jiu-jitsu, earning a blue belt in August 2015. He won gold at the IBJJF New York Spring International Open Championship in 2016, in the Middleweight Master 5 (age 51 and older) division.
Bourdain was known to be a heavy smoker. In a nod to Bourdain's two-pack-a-day cigarette habit, Thomas Keller once served him a 20-course tasting menu which included a mid-meal "coffee and cigarette", a coffee custard infused with tobacco with a foie gras mousse. Bourdain stopped smoking in 2007 for his daughter, but relapsed towards the end of his life.
In June 2019, Éric Ripert and José Andrés proclaimed the first annual Bourdain Day as a tribute to Bourdain. That month, the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) established a scholarship in Bourdain's honor.
A collection of Bourdain's personal items were sold at auction in October 2019, raising $1.8 million, part of which went to support the Anthony Bourdain Legacy Scholarship at his alma mater, the Culinary Institute of America. The remainder went to his family. His custom-made Bob Kramer Steel and Meteorite Chef's Knife sold for the highest price, a record $231,250.
* In December 2017, the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) conferred the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters in Culinary Arts honoris causa to Bourdain, who graduated from the CIA with an associate degree in 1978.
