When we were together privately, just Tony and me, he will be extremely respectful, and never try to make me do something I don’t want to, or even suggest it. When we were in public, sometimes he will be playful, and go to a situation where it was like a tease, basically. We went to Paris together [for No Reservations]. In that one, he put me in a tough situation, because he put me with that guy from Le Fooding, who was trashing fine dining, and Tony knew it, and basically set me up, but I didn’t play the game.
On “Good versus Evil,” I was not comfortable, because I didn’t like the fact that Tony was saying bad things about people, and I didn’t want to deliver to him the opportunity to do that. It was bad karma for him, and I don’t like gossip, and I don’t like people who are saying bad things about others. It bothered me a lot, and we had many, many discussions, Tony and me, about that, during the duration of the show.
It was nonscripted, but we knew the gig by heart, of course, and we will surprise ourselves onstage a little bit, and sometimes add a little component to it. But the show was basically in our heads. Tony never changed. For instance, he liked to pick on Guy Fieri, and he will make fun of his sunglasses, and his hair, and say that he has to “de-douche,” and I really didn’t like that, and I will actually defend Guy Fieri onstage. People will think it’s part of the comedy, but it was not. So Tony had those victims lined up for himself, and despite what I will say, we will go on with it.
We did, I don’t know, maybe thirty shows. We were sold out in every theater that we were doing, including Las Vegas and so on. And we were making good money, and it was a struggle for me, because I didn’t want to do it. And, at the end, actually, it was me who said, “Tony, we have to stop. I don’t want to do that anymore.”
MICHAEL RUHLMAN: He came up with the Golden Clog Awards, at the South Beach Wine and Food Festival, to make fun of the Food Network. Tony convinced Rocco DiSpirito to accept the Golden Clog award for worst career move, but the execs were furious, and I was kind of blackballed from the network for a while. And Tony felt really bad about it.
SAM GOLDMAN: It blew my mind to see him onstage. I get to the Pantages [Theatre, in LA] and it’s sold out; there’s all these people milling around outside, and it smells like weed. They flash the lights two times; Tony had gotten us VIP seats, so some usher grabs us. “Gimme Shelter” is blasting, and this was like every concert we went to at the Capitol in Passaic, or the Fillmore in New York. This was like exactly what we did as kids, and the next thing I know there’s Tony Bourdain onstage. That blew my fucking mind. That’s when I was like, He’s there, he’s a fucking rock star; god bless. By the time I saw him live, he’d been doing it for a while, and he was great.
People ask me if I’m envious now, and I say no, he had the vision, he did the work, and it was a long time coming.
BONNIE MCFARLANE: He asked me, “What makes a great comic?” and I said, “Well, you can’t just do it once in a while, for your own fans. You have to do it every night, do it in front of people who don’t know you.” And he said, “Get me a set at the Comedy Cellar,” and so I did. I couldn’t make it that night, I couldn’t get a babysitter, but he went to the Comedy Cellar, and went onstage one night, like a real comic, and I guess he did pretty well. I don’t know if he used the jokes I wrote for him; I never asked him. He didn’t do it to get attention; he just wanted to be a real comic for a night and see what it was like.
ADAM EPSTEIN: Did he enjoy it? I never could figure it out. I mean, if he didn’t enjoy it, I think he wouldn’t have done it, but my instinct says that maybe he wanted to be at home. It was one of the reasons we got him a private jet, because we knew that this guy travels for a living, so the last thing he wants to do is get on another fucking airplane. It was an extraordinary measure for somebody playing theaters, very uncommon, but we knew that the only way he’d even consider doing it was if I took away the pains in the ass of traveling. And the money was definitely great on those last few tours.
FRED MORIN: When we did the live show at Place des Arts [in Montréal], that was a bit of another thing, you know. That was, uh—Tripes and Glory?*
DAVE MCMILLAN: We sold out. It was super expensive. We sold out the Place des Arts theater. It was fucking $300 a head, or something like that.
FRED MORIN: It was packed. Packed.
DAVE MCMILLAN: And he won’t say a word to us. Like, “You wanna tell us the questions first?” He goes, “No, no. It’s cool. I do it with Ripert all the time.”
FRED MORIN: He’s like, “Don’t worry, guys. I got it.”
DAVE MCMILLAN: We’re standing at shitty wood podiums, we know nothing of what he’s gonna say. And it was a very traumatic hour, sweating onstage; the jokes weren’t working. He underestimated that the crowd is French Canadian. So what he was getting laughs for in the United States, an American crowd, was just thud, thud.
And me and Fred, we said, “We have to live here once you leave. We’re gonna have to hear ‘I paid three hundred bucks. This was a lackluster performance.’” But he shook everyone’s hand, and took a picture with everyone—
FRED MORIN: Which, ultimately, is what people paid for. Like, he could have sat in a Santa’s throne in a shopping mall, and people would have paid a hundred bucks just to tell them about their grandma’s brownie, you know, and it would have been the same thing.
30
“He Was a Curator of People”
NIGELLA LAWSON: There are so many people whose lives he did try and make better. That’s what I mean about kindness. The worst sort of charity is giving and wanting to be applauded for it. He was very much at the upper echelon of the Maimonides table, because he didn’t make a noise about it. There were so many people he helped, silently.
JOSÉ ANDRÉS: You could see that he had other interests beyond the kitchen, beyond a TV show. Tony was here to be more than just a face on TV. He was the voice of those people who are voiceless, people whose story needed to be told. Tony was here to do many more things.
He supported a lot of things, for a long time, in very generous ways, in ways that people don’t even realize. He really fell in love with DC Central Kitchen. When we created Food Fight [a fund-raising event] and I asked him, “Why you don’t join me?” he didn’t even hesitate. He didn’t even look at his schedule.
He was super important in the making of that event, raised millions of dollars for men and women to get a proper education to work in the restaurant industry, and for feeding the homeless. He was a host at the event, and that was enough to start filling the room. He committed to it for so many years. Tony was this kind of guy who looks like he doesn’t give a shit. Tony was never the guy who will tell you that he gives a shit about things; he will always do things to help, in very silent, powerful ways.
DANIEL HALPERN: We had friendly talks, and about what I should be publishing. It goes back to the loyalty; once he liked you, or trusted or admired you, he’d do anything for you.
First he said, “You ought to publish [UK chef] Fergus Henderson,” and I said, “Tony, people don’t eat offal here.” Nose-to-tail eating, back then, in 1999, 2000—but he said, “You have to publish it. Just publish it.”
It was a really hard book to do, and the photographs were from above, half-eaten plates of offal, in black and white. Just ugly, ugly stuff. But the book did so well.
Then he said, “You have to do Ferran Adrià’s book, the El Bulli book.”
Those books were already produced. And they were $350 books. I thought, How are we gonna sell those? But he was relentless. He said, “You have to do it. Don’t you want to go to El Bulli? If you buy the book, you’ll get a table.”
So basically, that’s why I bought it, so I could eat at El Bulli. They’re huge books. There’s not a recipe you can make in it. There were four volumes, so we bought [the rights to] one. And it sold out immediately, at $350 apiece.
DAVE MCMILLAN: We’re very hard workers, and we’ve cooked for a very long time. I have no problem saying that we’re very good c
ooks. Tony was good at identifying those people.
FRED MORIN: Yeah, Roy Choi, Dave Chang, Ludo— All his friends, he was adamant about putting them together, in some context. He was a curator of people. He had little scenarios in his mind. He wanted to curate the situations and the soundtrack. He would have been a great restaurateur, because he had a dedication to creating restaurants, and dinners.
Going overboard for making meals was something we really connected in, you know?
DAVE MCMILLAN: Tony brought all his crew up at the same time, somewhat, [and] all of us maybe helped Tony in getting where he wanted to get.
FRED MORIN: It was very mutual.
DAVE MCMILLAN: And he had a humble sense of, I’m proud of these guys, it’s super great, but I know that I had something to do with helping these guys enrich themselves and their families.
ROY CHOI: He really shepherded me with the CNN thing. I got the opportunity to do a little web show with CNN, called Street Food, and he was there every step of the way. I got to experience his wisdom on a professional level. He did an episode with us, and then he really helped with promotion. He did interviews about the show, and he had us piggyback on his press junket when he was promoting season 3 of Parts Unknown. He was always there when I needed him.
MIKE RUFFINO: He was always very generous. He certainly gave me a lot, that’s for sure. The opportunity to suddenly be composing for someone with whom I basically shared a brain, musically, and in many other ways—that’s just not usual for the documentary television world. I had a lot of say in how things sounded. It was an incredible opportunity, and one I probably could have parlayed into more things, but I didn’t, because why ruin it, right?
PETER MEEHAN: When Lucky Peach magazine ended, he caught wind of it, after everything had gone south, and he asked me, “Do you want me to buy it? I’ll buy it for you.” It was the most amazing thing to have Tony Bourdain come out of the woodwork and be like, “Do you want me to go to bat for you? I’ll go to bat for you.”
Things were already so fucked at that point and it was so clear that it never would have happened, and I didn’t want to put Tony on the peg for it; it was time for it to die. But that was a pretty amazing thing for him to come through and offer.
NARI KYE: If Tony hadn’t been attached, I don’t know if Wasted! would have gotten made.* The funders were obviously very keen on having Tony. Initially, I had written him about it, and he wrote me back and said, “This is a little too activist style for me. It’s not really me. I wish you the best of luck. You’re going to kill it.”
He was very apologetic, and I was like, Well, I guess we’re not making this movie. And then the next morning, I checked my inbox, and he’d written, “Actually, I changed my mind; I will be attached to it. Let me know how I can help.” I was elated.
When he sat down in that interview chair, we had him for only two hours, but we could have made a whole series out of what he said. Because he is so good, such a good talker, so funny, and so knowledgeable, even about something like food waste. Of course, he knew a lot about that because he was in the kitchen for thirty years, but it was amazing that even something like food waste he could make thoroughly entertaining.
But what was really funny was when we’d be rolling, and I’d say, “Hey, Tony, can you say that exact same thing one more time?” And he would never say it the same way. We’re like, “Can you just say it like how you said it before?” He would always change it a little bit. He was always trying to improve what he’d just said. He was always tweaking and editing in his mind. Or maybe he just wanted to drive us all crazy. It was thoroughly fascinating just watching him on camera, the things he would ask, and [his] follow-up questions.
MIKE RUFFINO: There was a big book event [when Adios, Motherfucker was published, in 2017], in which I was, not for the first time, a bit embarrassed by his public praise. I don’t know—he always gave me a lot more confidence than I should rightly have had. Over and over again, I felt very protected by him. I always got paid on time.
I learned a hell of a lot with other musicians in various places, and even when I didn’t travel, there was a lot of collaboration. I was absolutely in a bubble. I had no idea. If I had actually known what a composer was supposed to do, and what the compensation for that would be, I think I probably would have just gone back to working in a pizza place, you know what I mean? It certainly would have been more lucrative.
He had a lot of pull, and certainly more than he would really discuss. I just assumed that’s how everything worked. I mean, my entire perspective on television, and my musical life, since meeting him, was all through the filter of Tony.
DAVE MCMILLAN: People whom he had deep affection for, we also had deep affection for; and the people who he knew who had deep affection for us, had told him that we were the good guys here. So it was like, “These are your friends in Montréal. When you’re in Montréal, these are your friends.” But Tony had a Fred and Dave in every fucking city.
It takes sixteen weeks to get a reservation at Joe Beef. It’s been like that for ten years. And that’s not because we’re really good at cooking. There’s a lot of guys who cook better than us. We have people coming here from Taiwan. That’s because of Tony.
PETER MEEHAN: The bulk of my relationship with Tony was doing Lucky Peach. I was always anxious about emailing him or asking him to do anything, which is insane, because he never didn’t get back to me immediately, and he never didn’t say yes. He wrote great stuff; he turned in things early. Who turns in things early? The fact that he was so good and he was so Tony, and he was turning in copy that was generally pretty sparkling and early, was very offensive to me, as a failing writer. [Laughs]
JASON REZAIAN: When you’re dealing with people who are very well known, and who travel a lot, your interactions with them are not necessarily very many, right? And so, there’s a different quality to the moments that you do have together. Something that Kim [Witherspoon] told me, pretty early on, was, “Tony, he chooses people, and he sticks with them. He’s loyal to some people, even when he shouldn’t be. I’ve got no doubt that you and Yegi are deserving of his loyalty, but he’s not going to turn his back on you.” And he never did.
YEGANEH REZAIAN: He never stopped advocating for us, not even after we were released. Sometimes people cause you a problem and they totally want to disassociate themselves from you. Tony wasn’t like that at all. He was the opposite. He wanted to make sure that, despite the fact that he didn’t cause anything like this, he’s still there for you, and it matters even more.
JARED ANDRUKANIS: Tony had an impact on everyone around him . . . and it came from somewhere else. There’s no training for it or anything; it’s a personality thing, but way deeper. He makes people look good. I’ve had to work with other hosts where you’re really trying to rein it in and make them look good . . . but you didn’t have to ever do that with him.
Tony would make you look good, his writing, how he talked in scene. And even when we knew things were bad, he still made you look OK. Even the “worst” episodes were better than most anything else out there.
PAULA FROELICH: He was insanely loyal. I remember he had a gazillion people wanting to be his agent. And he was like, “Nope, I’m with Kim.” And when I had just gotten back from Afghanistan, he said, “Oh god, I want to go, but I can’t get insurance for the crew.” I actually have a good Afghan crew whom I used, whom Tony could have used, but he said, “I can’t shoot without my crew.”
FRED MORIN: And he’s like, “Oh, yeah, I’m getting this show on CNN, and we’re gonna go on a train trip, we’re gonna go ice fishing. Do what you want.”
We’re like, “We can do what we want? We want an ice-fishing cabin, we want four cooks, we want no budget, we want four trucks—” They were unflinching. This ice-fishing scene, that’s the only time I had as much fun for real on TV and enjoyed it as much as I appear to.
DAVE MCMILLAN: The highs were euphoric, like drug use. All the planets have to be in line—
FRED MORIN: Like, this is never gonna happen again, you know? People were playing hockey—
DAVE MCMILLAN:—there were snowflakes, and the sky was extra black, and the food was delicious, and everybody was happy. We were all comatose drunk. And that was an epic, for real—screw the TV—that was one of the most beautiful meals of my life in that ice-fishing cabin, you know. We drank well, we ate well.
The most fun thing was the steamship dinner at the Wolfsonian Museum [in Miami, for the South Beach Wine and Food Festival in 2014]. And, you know, Fred and I are from Montréal; we have Impostor syndrome.
So it was us, Daniel Boulud, Eric Ripert, François Payard, Andrew Carmellini—these are monster, legendary cooks from Manhattan, three-Michelin-star, everyone—
FRED MORIN: And Tony said, “Make sure you book a few extra days; we’re gonna hang out at the Raleigh.”
DAVE MCMILLAN: We’re in the pool with Tony, Ottavia, the kids, Debi Mazar and her husband and kids, for a week. It was amazing. We just, like, every day watched Tony hide cigarettes from Ottavia. He goes, “Where’s Ottavia? Is she going to the bathroom? I’m going for a smoke. Cough. Cough if she’s coming back.”
FRED MORIN: It was surreal, in retrospect, too, you know? He’s this very faithful guy, where things like that make you realize you can’t fuck that up, you know? The friendship, not the perks. We can afford the Raleigh.
DAVE MCMILLAN: He was a real friend. He said, “Tonight, I rented out Cheeseburger Baby. We’re going to watch the UFC. Just us.”
FRED MORIN: “We’re going to a lesbian cheeseburger restaurant. They set up the big screen in the back. Make sure you come.”
31
“He Was a Man of Extremes”
EILEEN OPATUT: I don’t know what he believed about god, but I suppose this [life] isn’t a greenroom for something else, and he went for it, and he was able to.
JOSÉ ANDRÉS: The first time I met Tony, what I sensed was this amazing big man, tall man, with a body to command respect—his charisma, and the way he was made, and dressed, and hair, and voice tone, and hand movement, and long, thin legs. He looked like the Marlboro Man. I saw a person with an amazing sense of respect for others, giving respect to legacies, the work of others, the opinion of others.
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