February 2012
4 posts
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January 2012
1 post
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December 2011
2 posts
7 tags
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DARK PASSAGE
What do Norah Jones, Christopher Walken, the band “ ****edUp”, Vegan Black Metal Chef, Sam Brown, nightmare of Eastern European folklore Krampus, the Catalonian Pooping Log, Dave Arnold, chefs Lidia Bastianich, April Bloomfield, Kurt Gutenbrunner, Eder Montero, Alexandra Raij, Carlos Llaguno Morales and the voices of Adam Richman and Andrew Zimmern have in common?
They all foolishly agreed to...
November 2011
2 posts
Tony's Playlist on iTunes
helencho:
If you’ve ever wondered what tracks Tony’s got on heavy rotation, you can now check it out for yourself here.
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OVER. AROUND. THROUGH.
Our late model SUV roars down the two lane highway between Nampula and Ilhe Mocambique. Two white guys in front: me (an American) and Fernando (Portuguese) and Carlos, our Mozambican fixer in the back. Fernando’s got the car pushing 80, blowing past mud hut villages with thatched roofs no power, no water, life inside largely unchanged in a hundred years but for the school children in their freshly...
October 2011
1 post
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August 2011
3 posts
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SOUTHERN COMFORT
I just got back from family vacation, where, for ten days, I violated all my rules and everything I’ve ever preached about how to travel. I stayed put. I rarely left the hotel grounds. I ate in the same two restaurants for most of my trip—rarely deviating from pasta, pizza and gelato. Though there was a lake a few hundred yards walk down, I never put so much as a toe in it—spending the bulk of...
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SAFETY FIRST
In the end, we were all fine—as untouched and untroubled as we’d been before Iraq. If anything changed, if there was a single takeaway from what we saw in Kurdistan and what we learned during three days of “Hazardous Environment Training” in what our British instructors called “Virginiastan”, it was the absolutely jaw-dropping realization of exactly how...
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DESERT SESSION: A Letter to Josh Homme’s Daughter
Dear Camille,
I hear you were very upset with me after seeing the promo for this show, which I filmed recently with your Daddy and his friends. You saw me take Daddy’s guitar and smash it against a tree and I’m sure that was upsetting. That this was in fact a not so subtle homage to the early works of John Landis and John Belushi is something you could have hardly been expected to know, ANIMAL...
July 2011
3 posts
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A BEGINNING. AN END
It all began with Ferran Adria in more ways than one. It was because he reached out to me in 2001, invited me to come see him (in spite of the fact that I had written unflatteringly of him in Kitchen Confidential) that my partnership with zero point zero productionbegan. It was because he agreed to throw his life, his restaurant, his workshop and creative process open to our cameras that we...
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The Red Sauce Trail
Growing up in New Jersey back in the bad old days of American gastronomy, “Italian” food inevitably meant the same thing, wherever you found it: deep fried, breaded and pounded veal cutlets, swimming in red sauce with a raft of gluey semi-melted cheese on top, overcooked spaghetti, usually pre-prepared in large batches, rinsed of its starches in cold water, reheated and then indifferently...
4 tags
CUBA, CUBA CUBA
Say what you want about Castro—(we CAN, after all, Cubans not so much)—he managed, through design or neglect, to keep Havana beautiful. Run down, crumbling, many buildings barely habitable—even the national baseball team has to play during the day because their stadium lights are broken and the country is too poor to fix them. Where things barely work, where time is arrested,...
June 2011
5 posts
1 tag
The Layover
You can say that we are deliberately tackling a tired and well worn format for the sheer challenge of seeing if we can make it interesting and possibly even useful. We are well aware that many of the meals and experiences on No Reservations are, frankly, impossible to duplicate. The upcoming last meal at El Bulli show being a particularly extreme example. The crew and I got drunk one night and...
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Local account of our recent adventure. →
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Tony's Top 10 Criterion Collection list →
My Criterion ‘top ten’ films are up.
April 2011
4 posts
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HAVANA CLUB…and LONELY T-BIRD
The ’66 T-Bird roared across the high desert somewhere between Morongo and Joshua Tree, sliding mushily across lanes as if guided by some reptilian death wish. Turning the wheel was like trying to slalom with an oil tanker, each time it would be a few long, long, and occasionally terrifying micro-seconds before there was any acknowledgement that there was anyone at all in control. In the...
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WHERE THE ROAD ENDS
Reportedly, there are about 4 million requests for reservations per year at EL BULLI, inarguably, the world’s most innovative and exciting restaurant. Only a few thousand are accommodated. There have been about as many words written on the subject, most of them focusing, understandably, on Ferran Adria, the chef, and on the wildly creative and forward thinking techniques and presentations he...
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March 2011
2 posts
NEW BOSS, SAME AS THE OLD BOSS
I admire people who live by their principles—even when I don’t agree with them. I don’t much like communism, particularly the soul crushing evil done in its name through much of history, but I have a romantic’s soft spot for an old Bolshie who took to the hills as a young man, believed in their heart that they were liberating their people from oppression (particularly if...
MEYER LANSKY and WONDER WHEEL (of HORROR)
A damn near idyllic few days in South Beach for the South Beach Wine and Food Festival, mostly holed up by the Raleigh pool with my family, venturing out only for the occasional meal. I worked as little as possible. Attended no parties. Swooped in to the Burger Bash early, scarfed up (in short order) an excellent, pleasingly funky tasting Ai Fiori burger from Michael White, an Umami Burger (about...
February 2011
10 posts
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BOTH ENDS BURNING
Eight shows into production for our seventh season of No Reservations with a whole bunch more to come. That’s a lot of years of traveling around the world, stuffing food and liquor into my face. Eight shows shot already and ready to go—or still being tended to carefully in a nerdly warren of editing rooms. In between shoots, I’ve been bouncing around the country doing public...
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Possible episodes: Hot and Spicy All Latin Action Asian on Asian! Smoky and Sticky (BBQ) Ripe and Gooey! Eat it Raw!! The Hard Way Nose to Tail.
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UPDATE!
helencho:
NEW PREMIERE DATE + NEW TIME : ALL-NEW SEASON OF NO RESERVATIONS STARTS MONDAY, FEBRUARY 28TH @ 9PM EST !!!
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HERE COME THE WARM JETS
An island in the Amazon river delta:
I had fallen asleep feeling like somebody dropped a bowling ball on the base of my spine. I woke up in the middle of the night, awakened by something unidentifiable but decidedly mammalian scrabbling on the roof, unable to even crawl to the bathroom for a percocet. I couldn’t roll over. Moving my legs was impossible. I just lay there, near tears on the...
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January 2011
9 posts
Current crew health status in Brazil...
helencho:
Tony: “From left to right (by ailment): back injury, unknown virus, Herzog Syndrome, diarrhea and unexplained rash. Photographer twisted ankle immediately after.”
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DEAR HANNAH
(in response to this essay by Hannah Hayes: “An open letter to Anthony Bourdain, a chef who hates my dad”)
I applaud and respect your loyalty to your Dad—and your impassioned and articulate defense. As a father myself, I would be very proud. And I do not for a second, see your Dad as some evil mad doctor, deliberately doing bad things to our food supply. I am not even—in...
“EVERYBODY EATS BACON BUT NO ONE WANTS TO STAB THE...
I want to urge you again to watch a really good new show on Travel. Yes. My own network. My friends and long time partners at Zero Point Zero Production have, for the last year, been humping up mountains and hanging from cliffs with an astonishingly interesting, articulate and foolhardy young man named Steven Rinella. He’s the author of a terrific book you might have read called “The Scavenger’s...
Watchhelencho:
Livestream of Tony and crew from the ABNR Boston shoot - January 5, 2010
STRAIGHT OUTTA BOSTON–AND THE WILD WITHIN
Finishing up in Boston today after a really good time. For what is supposedly the heart of enemy territory, this Yankee fan has to admit he was treated very, very well. Of course, I knew from the start that this was going to be all good. Except maybe the candlepin bowling–at which, it turns out, I profoundly suck. It did not help that after every gutter ball, the old guy in the Sox cap a few...
December 2010
7 posts
Christmas Listeria
I love pointless, end of year lists, don’t you? Here’s mine: some of the stuff I felt strongly about (one way or the other) this past year. Plus a whole bunch of other things I’ve been either enjoying or hating.
MOVIES: WINTER’S BONE—a terrific adaptation of Daniel Woodrell’s even more terrific book. Daniel, by the way, will be featured prominently in our...
The Helen Cho Interview
Anthony sat down with Helen recently and asked the questions America’s dying to hear answered. Or not.
Q: So, Helen, where does one hire a crackhead rodeo clown? Well Tony, I could tell you but then I would have to kill you, so let’s just say that we have many multi-talented ZPZ employees here…
Q And I’m wondering..cause I’ve seen people asking on the site: When DO the new...
