No Reservations The Life And Loves Of Anthony Bourdain 1956 - 2018

The funny, frank and foul-mouthed chef is gone too soon.

- Andrew Macintosh

Anthony Bourdain knew he’d been lucky. “What do you do after your dreams come true?” he mused in the voiceover to one of his television programmes.

“I’ve had three or four full lives already, most of which I was surprised to find I survived. This is, like, bonus round. Undeserved, probably.”

Or probably not. He was a food writer, a presenter and much more. He was a cultural commentator, controversialist, novelist, publisher, workaholic, former alcoholic and drug addict, very funny – and frequently foul-mouthed.

He shot to fame in 2000, aged 44, after 20 years cheffing in New York restaurants, with his first book Kitchen Confidential. This shone a light onto the seedier side of restaurants, drug-fuelled chefs and “walked out moral degenerates, dope fiends, refugees, a thuggish assortment of drunks, sneak thieves and psychopaths”.

It was an instant bestseller, notching up a million sales – and is now in the charts again, following his early death at 61.

The book gives advice. Don’t order fish on Mondays – it’s likely to have been around since the previous Thursday. Forget moules – “I don’t eat mussels in restaurants unless I know the chef personally.”

Vegetarians and “their Hezbollah-like splinter-faction, the vegans” were “the enemy of everything good and decent”.