Anthony Bourdain: 9 best quotes from the celebrity chef

Celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain has died at the age of 61 - but his memorable quotes will be remembered for years to come.

News of his death was announced by CNN, on which he presented the award-winning Parts Unknown series.

He was found dead in a hotel room in Strasbourg, France, where he had been working on an upcoming episode of his programme.

Bourdain rose to fame in 2000 with a best-selling book that set out to expose the world of haute cuisine but his withering put-downs of the food industry, and just about everything else didn’t stop there.

A food, fiction and nonfiction author as well as TV presenter, Bourdain was a gifted storyteller who transported readers and viewers around the world.

Following the news of the talented chef’s untimely death, here are some of his best-ever quotes.

He had a secret guilty pleasure

Confessing his ultimate guilty pleasure, the top chef revealed that he likes nothing more than indulging in the carb-loaded comfort food powers of Popeye’s Mac and Cheese.

“My real guilty pleasure — my really disgusting, shameful pleasure — is the mac and cheese at Popeye’s fried chicken,” he said.

“Late at night, I’ve been known to sneak in there with a hoodie on — and I always get nailed,” he said.

He seriously disliked craft beer

Speaking to Thrillist, Bourdain compared craft beer obsessives to the emotionless humans in classic sci-fi movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

“You know, I haven't made the effort to walk down the street 10 blocks to the microbrewery where they're making some f****** Mumford and Sons IPA. People get all bent about it,” he said.

Alcohol was the only thing he’d consume on a plane

An avid traveller, Bourdain revealed that there’s only one thing he would trust air hosts and hostesses with, and naturally, it involved alcohol.

“Scotch on the rocks - they can’t f*** that up,” he revealed.

He wasn’t keen on the idea of meat-free burgers

Speaking about The Impossible Burger – a plant-based burger alternative that replicates the sizzle, smell, texture, flavour, and bleeding of a real burger, without the environmental consequences – Bourdain said: “As somebody who spent 30 years as a chef, of course I’m going to be resistant to the notion that there’s any replacement for the texture and musculature and funk of real meat.”

“It doesn’t fill me with joy.”

There was only one place he would settle down

Despite being well-travelled, Bourdain revealed that that there was just one place he would consider settling down: Tokyo.

“It's so different than the aesthetic I grew up with, the society and culture I grew up with,” he said.

“I compared it to taking my first acid trip: Nothing was ever the same for me. I just wanted more of it. If I had to agree to live in one country, or even one city, for the rest of my life, never leaving it, I'd pick Tokyo in a second.”

Slowing down was one of the important lessons her learnt about travelling

Bourdain said that too many of us are moving at lightning speed when we travel, eager to get to the next place without stopping to absorb the culture around us.

“You can’t take it in, driving by stuff. That’s not satisfying,” he said.

“Don’t be afraid to just sit and watch.”

He lifted the lid on “meathead culture”

Bourdain has been at the forefront of the crusade against men who abuse their positions of power to harass women. The chef even revealed that he felt troubled by the fact that women he was close to didn’t feel comfortable speaking to him.

“Why was I not the sort of person, or why was I not seen as the sort of person, that these women could feel comfortable confiding in? I see this as a personal failing,” he said.

He wasn’t afraid to call out male celebrities

The outspoken chef always spoke his mind and publicly criticised the likes of chef Mario Batali, Quentin Tarantino and James Corden.

Speaking of Tarantino’s knowledge of the allegations of sexual assault against Harvey Weinstein he discussed a decision to turn down a lucrative deal because he and his partners did not feel comfortable with the person offering it.

“It was a lot of money,“ he explained, but said that the deal ”would have been a slow-acting poison that would have nibbled away at our souls until we ended up like Quentin Tarantino, looking back at a life of complicity, shame and compromise.

He also called out James Corden for making Jokes about Harvey Weinstein’s sex abuse scandal while hosting a charity gala.

“James Corden reveals snickering Hollywood in all its grotesquerie. It's not about masturbation, asshole. It's about rape,” he tweeted.

“Mr Corden is free to tell whatever jokes he likes. As he should be. I'm free to suggest he's a porcine, pandering tool. #lowhangingfruit.”

He thought Donald Trump was narcissistic

Bourdain has said he wouldn’t sit down to dinner with Donald Trump because the US President “only talks about himself and he’s only interested in himself”.

“I can’t see the point, he only talks about himself and he’s only interested in himself,“ he said.

“I can't see that as being scintillating dinner conversation. Plus he eats his steak well done. I think that really settles it.”