TV Review: No Reservations - Yet Another Sweet Gig for Anthony Bourdain

Okay, let’s be honest – Anthony Bourdain stopped being a chef a LONG time ago. He may still be listed as executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles, but there’s not much point in eating there just to spot Tony sneaking a cig in the doorway in his bloodstained chef’s whites.

But the thing that worries me about his Travel Channel series No Reservations is not that it prevents him from being a cook. It’s that it prevents him from being a writer.

Tony stopped being a bona fide chef about seven years ago, when he first published Kitchen Confidential. That bestselling expose of behind-the-pass debaucheries at top Manhattan restaurants — it gave new meaning to the term “line cook” — forever altered Bourdain’s career. To be fair, Bourdain had already written two crime novels before Kitchen Confidential; this was a guy who ended up at the Culinary Institute of America only after dropping out of Vassar. What made Kitchen Confidential that season’s must-read was not just the shocking news that our restaurant food was prepared by crews of potty-mouthed druggies; it was the hyperkinetic wit, the surreal descriptions, the dramatic confrontations, the apt use of the well-placed obscenity. Tony Bourdain was the first gonzo food writer, and still nobody does it better.

In case you haven’t noticed, however, we live in a media age, and I can’t blame Anthony Bourdain for selling out as soon as TV came a-calling. It’s not like he was a Nobel Prize-winning poet, anyway – he was just a chef, folks, and not a particularly distinguished one at that. At least his first foray into the televisual realm was on the Food Network: the 12-part A Cook’s Tour, which played off on his willingness to eat gross local specialties from around the globe. Fair enough, and he did write a very entertaining book to go with it.

What A Cook’s Tour really revealed, however, is that Anthony Bourdain is extremely telegenic. He’s got those bad-boy good looks – lean, rumpled, sardonic, dead sexy, like a tall Humphrey Bogart without the wonky upper lip. He’s got the craggy voice to go with the looks, perfect for snarky voice-overs. He looks great in dirty jeans and a scuffed leather jacket, even better if his gray curls are wind-tousled and he hasn’t had a chance to shave. Doubtlessly Mario Batali and Gordon Ramsay produce tastier food, but who would I rather watch on TV? There’s no contest.

Now Bourdain is on the Travel Channel, a bit more of a stretch. He’s still chasing down mystery foods in exotic locales, though – the emphasis is just a little more on the locales and a little less on the food. It doesn’t really matter, since Bourdain never does any cooking on these shows, only eating. (By some inscrutable programming logic, it’s been paired on the schedule with a very similar show, Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern, a move that only shows up how much more telegenic Bourdain is.)

Article Author: Holly Hughes

Holly A Hughes has been a rock 'n roll fan since February 9, 1964. She's heard it all, on vinyl, cassettes, 8-track tapes, CDs, and mp3 files. But so long as it's got a good beat, she'll dance to it.

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