Anthony Bourdain Quotes

Good food is very often, even most often, simple food.

Everything important I learned, I learned as a dishwasher.

Food is everything we are. It’s an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It’s inseparable from those from the get-go.

I can unload my opinion on anybody at anytime.

I hated the Naked Chef. Fine, yes, he did good things for school food or whatever, but, you know, I don’t want my chefs to be cute and adorable.

In college, I think I probably positioned myself as an aspiring writer, meaning I dressed sort of extravagantly and adopted all the semi-Byronic affectations, as if I were writing, although I wasn’t actually doing any writing.

The journey is part of the experience – an expression of the seriousness of one’s intent. One doesn’t take the A train to Mecca.

I’m very type-A, and many things in my life are about control and domination, but eating should be a submissive experience, where you let down your guard and enjoy the ride.

I’m not looking to freak people out – eating rodents or bugs. I don’t do that anymore.

Big stuff and little: learning how to order breakfast in a country where I don’t speak the language and haven’t been before – that’s really satisfying to me. I like that.

If you’ve ever hauled a 28-pound two-year-old around New York, you’ll find that men fold at the knees a lot quicker than women.

The cooking profession, while it’s a noble craft and a noble calling, ’cause you’re doing something useful – you’re feeding people, you’re nurturing them, you’re providing sustenance – it was never pure.

Hong Kong is a wonderful, mixed-up town where you’ve got great food and adventure. First and foremost, it’s a great place to experience China in a relatively accessible way.

When I’m back in New York – and this is a terrible thing to complain about – I eat a lot more really, really good food than perhaps I’d like to. So many of my friends are really good chefs. It’s kind of like being in the Mafia.

I’m never a reliable narrator, unbiased or objective.

I’ve been really fortunate in that I guess I was hired to do ‘A Cook’s Tour;’ I was already a known quantity, meaning I had written a really obnoxious book and nobody expected me to be anyone that I wasn’t already.

Context and memory play powerful roles in all the truly great meals in one’s life.