Inspired By Tony? Dishes From A Cook’s Tour To Explore

I walked into the theatre to watch “Tony” and came out craving oysters. The film is not the Tom Jones-esque bildungsroman you might expect from a story about Anthony Bourdain, tracing every chapter of his life. Instead, it takes one detail—the beginning of his tryst with understanding food—and enlarges it. By the end, you begin to understand the flicker of fire that set Bourdain on the path to becoming the chef, author and traveller the world came to know. Him learning to deshell oysters and prepare it acts as an anchor of this journey.

When Bourdain impulsively travels to Provincetown, Massachusetts, he finds himself washing dishes in the kitchen of Ciro’s restaurant, The Flagship. It is here, amid the clatter of utensils, shouted orders, exchanged stories and the dexterity required in a fast food kitchen, that he gets his first real glimpse of the strange chaos and magic of professional kitchens. His growing interest in cooking remains latent for much of the film, erupting only in occasional bursts of inspiration—whether he is refurbishing a restaurant or setting up a beach pop-up. Eventually, that interest takes him to the Culinary Institute of America.

Watching the film, I found myself wondering how much of the lives of celebrated chefs is defined by their big achievements and signature dishes, and how much is shaped by the things that happen away from the spotlight. That question led me back to Bourdain’s “A Cook’s Tour”, where food is rarely just food. Across the book, meals become ways of accessing childhood memories, landscapes, friendships, danger, politics and entire cultures. If you want to understand Bourdain the traveller, one way of doing so is to follow what he ate.

Oysters, Foie Gras And The Food Of Childhood, France

Start with oysters. They take Bourdain back to La Teste in Gironde, the small French fishing village where he first ate them as a child. When he returns to France in “A Cook’s Tour”, the journey is therefore as much about memory as it is about food. Travelling with his brother, he revisits the landscape of his childhood and searches for the tastes associated with his earliest experiences of French cooking, including oysters and foie gras.

Along the way, he encounters “tête de veau”, or calf’s head, in south-west France. What you see emerging from this journey is something that runs through much of Bourdain’s writing: food is deeply entangled with memory. A dish can transport you to a particular landscape, a particular age and a particular version of yourself.

Cobra Heart, Birds’ Heads And The Mekong, Vietnam

If you have read this section of “A Cook’s Tour”, you probably won’t forget it. In Saigon, Bourdain is presented with a live cobra, its heart removed and served to him while it is still beating. He also goes looking for fried birds’ heads and monkey steaks.

But the Vietnamese journey is not simply a catalogue of extreme foods. His travels along the Mekong take him into a different kind of food landscape, where he eats with people connected to the river and encounters local foodways rather than simply restaurant cuisine. The shock value of the cobra heart may be what stays with you first, but the larger story is Bourdain’s curiosity about how people eat within the landscapes and communities they inhabit.

Roast Sheep And The Feast At The End Of The Journey, Morocco

In Morocco, roast sheep becomes the defining food of Bourdain’s journey. In “A Cook’s Tour”, the country forms part of his search for meals that cannot be separated from landscape, hospitality or the circumstances in which they are prepared. That search culminates in a roasted sheep during his desert journey. The television series gives this experience its clearest form in “A Desert Feast”, where Bourdain travels into the Sahara to experience a traditional desert feast centred on a whole sheep. If you want to explore Moroccan food beyond that single meal, the separate episode, “Traditional Tastes” turns its attention to the country’s broader culinary traditions and home cooking.

Fugu, Sushi And Culinary Precision, Japan

Bourdain loved walking a culinary tightrope, and Japan gives him perhaps the most literal opportunity to do so. He travels there in pursuit of fugu, the poisonous pufferfish whose organs can contain lethal amounts of tetrodotoxin. The danger is part of the attraction. Yet when the chef prepares the fish with such meticulous precision that the experience feels almost disappointingly safe, Bourdain is confronted with an irony central to Japanese cuisine: the greater the skill, the less visible the danger.

Sushi is another major part of his Japanese journey. The television series takes Bourdain into Tokyo’s sushi culture, exploring bluefin tuna and the Tsukiji fish market. He also eats kaiseki at a traditional Japanese inn and encounters nattō, the fermented soybean dish. Elsewhere, the series takes him to sumo wrestlers and introduces him to chanko, the substantial stew associated with sumo culture. Japan, in other words, offers him both culinary danger and extraordinary precision—and makes him appreciate that sometimes the most remarkable thing about a meal is everything the cook has done to make it look effortless.

Pailin, Extreme Food And The Legacy Of The Khmer Rouge, Cambodia

In Cambodia, food cannot easily be separated from the history of the landscape. Bourdain’s journey takes him along the heavily mined road to Pailin, a former Khmer Rouge stronghold in western Cambodia. This is as much about the danger amidst contemporary political history as it is about eating. The television series broadens that exploration. Its separate “Wild Delicacies” episode takes Bourdain through Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, offering a wider view of the unusual foods and foodways he encounters. The result is a journey in which the act of eating becomes inseparable from understanding a place’s recent and often violent past.

Caviar, Vodka And Drinking In Russia

For Russia, think caviar and vodka—but Bourdain’s experience goes well beyond those familiar terms. “A Cook’s Tour” contains a chapter explicitly titled “How to Drink Vodka”, and Russia becomes one of the major stops in his search for the perfect meal. Here, drinking is as important as eating. Bourdain encounters Russian food alongside vodka, hospitality and the people with whom he shares the table. The television series carries this emphasis into its St Petersburg episodes, “The Cook Who Came in From the Cold” and “So Much Vodka, So Little Time”. The food matters, but so does the social ritual surrounding it.

A Village Pig And A Nose-to-tail Feast, Portugal

In Portugal, it is a whole pig that steals the limelight. Bourdain arrives at a village where an entire pig has been fattened for months in anticipation of a feast. He participates in the slaughter and the subsequent preparation of the animal, making this one of the most literal explorations in “A Cook’s Tour” of the question posed by the book’s chapter title, “Where Food Comes From”.

The experience also gives him one of his memorable food reactions: after eating pan-fried spleen, he describes it as simply “indescribably good”. Portugal introduces him to bacalhau, too—the dried, salted cod that is central to Portuguese cuisine. The television episode “Cod Crazy” takes that thread further, following Bourdain to Porto to explore the cultural importance of codfish.

Pintxos and the Basque gastronomic society, Spain

In San Sebastián, look beyond the pintxos. Bourdain’s interest in Basque food culture lies not only in what people eat, but in the institutions through which they cook, eat and socialise. One of his major encounters in “A Cook’s Tour” is with a Basque all-male gastronomic society, where cooking and eating function as forms of social life. The television episode “San Sebastian: A Food Lover’s Town” follows Bourdain and chef Luis Irizar through gastronomic societies and tapas bars, giving you a more visual sense of this culinary culture. Spain, in this part of his journey, becomes less about ticking off national dishes and more about understanding the communities and rituals built around food.

The French Laundry, USA

Then there is The French Laundry, Bourdain’s Napa Valley pilgrimage and one of the most important destinations in “A Cook’s Tour” precisely because it complicates the idea that his ideal meal must be rustic, dangerous or exotic. Thomas Keller creates a menu specifically for Bourdain. After travelling through markets and villages, remote landscapes and meals involving unusual ingredients, Bourdain arrives at one of America’s most technically ambitious restaurants. The French Laundry becomes another answer to his search for the perfect meal—one based not on spectacle, but on precision, ingredients and the accumulated skill of a professional kitchen.

Iguana and regional cooking, Mexico

A pet iguana belonging to the restaurant owner makes it to Bourdain’s plate in Mexico and his verdict is that the meat is tough and the claws inedible. Bourdain travels through rural Mexico with his Mexican sous-chef, while “A Cook’s Tour”‘s chapter “Where Cooks Come From” connects Mexican food traditions to the cooks who had become part of the professional restaurant world in the United States. The television series expands this exploration through separate episodes on Oaxaca and Puebla, including “Tamales and Iguana, Oaxacan Style” and “Puebla, Where the Good Cooks Are From”.

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