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As Anthony Bourdain’s legend continues to grow — the latest jolt coming from the new A24 biopic Tony, which focuses on the man-about-the-world’s formative years — fans, both old and new, are hungry to learn more about who the real Tony was.
And his close friends and colleagues would know best.
“Everybody asks, ‘Was he really that cool?’ But in reality, he was way f—ing cooler,” Tracy Westmoreland, owner of fabled drinking den Siberia, where the late chef, author, and globetrotting TV host would often be found recharging after sweaty shifts in NYC kitchens, told The Post.
Westmoreland said more recently he’s been bombarded by questions from patrons curious about the culinary great, who died by suicide in 2018, at age 61.
“People come in and usually start very softly, asking random questions,” he explained. “And then like five minutes later, it’s obvious they’re on a journey to learn more about him. I still get emotional talking about him, because I miss my friend.”
“I remember his first time coming in; he was so tall wearing ripped jeans and cowboy boots; I used to break his balls,” said Westmoreland, who figures he was one of the first people to tell Bourdain to write about his time as a chef during late-night, beer-soaked conversations in the 1990s.
“At the time, he was writing crime novels. So I said, ‘Yo, Tony. Not for nothing. You’re not a gangster, you’re a fucking cook.’ He goes, ‘I’m a chef.’ I said, ‘Blow me. Write about something you know. I’m gonna bar you if you don’t write about anything about food.’”
Bourdain and Westmoreland would eventually travel together to St. Martin, with Bourdain attempting to convince Westmoreland to open up an outpost of the bar on the tropical island — a plan that fell through as Westmoreland wanted to stay close to his beloved Big Apple.
But Bourdain definitely followed Westmoreland’s advice — and began writing about food. After an essay of his was published in The New Yorker, it led to a contract that would result in his breakout book, Kitchen Confidential, in 2000.
When Bourdain’s close friend caught wind of the Matt Johnson-directed film that focuses on one summer, pre-NYC, when the cantankerous and witty culinary icon was coming into his own both in the kitchen and as a blossoming writer, Westermoreland had low expectations for how his friend would be portrayed.
“First of all, I thought the movie was gonna be a piece of shit,” he confessed.
“But I gotta tell you, man, I thought it was good. I thought the guy (Sessa) nailed the way Tony was,” he added.
“He caught the essence of him. But I also have to say, while the actress who played Tony’s eventual wife was very pretty and very nice, Tony’s actual wife Nancy was prettier and hotter.”
A review for The Post called the film “supremely likeable.”
John Tesar is a fellow chef who worked in the kitchen trenches with Bourdain and makes a memorable appearance in Kitchen Confidential under the moniker of Jimmy Sears.
Tesar first became friends with Bourdain in the ‘80s — with the two eventually cooking together at the famed Midtown eatery The Supper Club.
“The first time I saw him, he walked in with that black leather jacket of his, tight blue jeans, cowboy boots and he was smoking a fucking Lucky Strike,” Tesar recalled to The Post.
“I was like, ‘Who the f–k is this guy? He had a very large physical presence,” he recalled of Bourdain, who stood at 6’4” tall.
Tesar said he felt validated when Bourdain eventually wrote about him in Kitchen Confidential, where he called Tesar “a brilliant cook.”
“He was sleeping on floors around Manhattan, dodging creditors and ex-girlfriends, and in general going through a rough patch,” Bourdain wrote of Tesar before he was recruited to cook alongside him at The Supper Club.
According to Tesar, the real Bourdain was “very charismatic, but also kind of naive in some way and sophisticated in others.”
As a result, he muses that Sessa “did a good job portraying the sensitive, vulnerable and sometimes full-of-shit aspects of Tony.”
Tesar revels in Tony, because it shows the man before the bright light of celebrity kicked in.
“He was a very complex individual before fame,” Tesar said.
“I think when you look at somebody who’s famous, it’s harder to know who they really are because then they’re acting all the time. What I loved about the movie is that it shows you who he was before everybody and anything.”
He also said modern culture is snuffing out even the idea of celebrity chefs like Bourdain.
“It’s been killed by ego, frosted tips and game shows,” he muses. “It’s a shame he passed away, because he was really on a roll. Even if he was the most self-destructive, rude motherfucker in the world, he was a brilliant food writer.”
As a result, when he heard Bourdain committed suicide in France, he had an immediate reaction.
“The first thought in my mind was, ‘What the f—k, you idiot. Why did you kill yourself?”
Michael Ruhlman, another close friend of Bourdain’s, characterized Bourdain as “a Jersey wisecracker who turned it into an art.”
A frequent travel companion and fellow food writer, Ruhlman said he isn’t surprised he’s still talking about his fallen buddy all of these years later.
“He was just so forthright and outspoken, and said what was on his mind with a humor and intelligence nobody could imitate or duplicate,” he told The Post of what made Bourdain stand out.
“He crossed all kinds of religious and political divides, and was this kind of unifier, connecting us all and I think people really took to that.”
The first time Ruhlman met Bourdain was in 2001; at the time Bourdain was assigned to review his book The Soul of a Chef for the New York Times Book Review.
“It was a great review and sold a lot of books, so I wanted to meet him and thank him.”
They eventually struck up a friendship and Bourdain would bring him along on his dining adventures.
“Once he was assigned to review Masa, a very famous and controversial sushi bar, for Men’s Health, but he got so drunk during the meal he couldn’t remember anything,” Ruhlman recalls. “So he had to go back, and brought me and (fellow chef and Bourdain’s close friend) Eric Ripert.”
The crew wound up getting hammered again after Ripert brought them to another bar afterwards.
“I woke up to an email from him; he had gotten so drunk he threw up in the Hudson River.”
According to Ruhlman, Bourdain lived life on his own terms.
“We got along because we both rejoiced in fatty things and innards,” he said. “I always liked the quote when he said, ‘People talk about treating your body like a temple, I treat my body like a fun house.”
Ruhlman marvels at Bourdain’s legacy and immense slate of projects.
In addition to Tony, A24 also released a companion book about the chef dubbed Happier, Stupider Times: Anthony Bourdain’s Provincetown Years. Earlier this year, select Bourdain writings were repackaged in The Anthony Bourdain Reader.
There’s also been the 2021 documentary Roadrunner, as well as Laurie Woolever’s Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography, and the posthumously released World Travel: An Irreverent Guide.
“Now he’s Saint Tony,” said Ruhlman. “Strangers are still wishing me sympathies, and to have that level of empathy for not the person, but his friends, showed me the sheer reach of his popularity.”
“There’s never been anybody like him before and likely never will be again.”
English (US)