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. Anthony Bourdain
You'd have a hard time finding anything better than Barcelona for food, as far as being a hub. Given a choice between Barcelona and San Sebastian to die in, I'd probably want to die in San Sebastian. Anthony Bourdain
Tokyo would probably be the foreign city if I had to eat one city's food for the rest of my life, every day. It would have to be Tokyo, and I think the majority of chefs you ask that question would answer the same way. Anthony Bourdain
Meals make the society, hold the fabric together in lots of ways that were charming and interesting and intoxicating to me. The perfect meal, or the best meals, occur in a context that frequently has very little to do with the food itself. Anthony Bourdain
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. Anthony Bourdain
I'm not Ted Nugent. My house is run, essentially, by an adopted, fully clawed cat with a mean nature. I would never hunt. I would never wear fur. I would never go to a bullfight. I'm not really a meat and potatoes guy. Anthony Bourdain
I try to very hard to avoid a situation where I would be eating cat or dog; I've managed to gracefully avoid that. It's hypocritical of me and an arbitrary line, but one that I have managed to avoid crossing. Anthony Bourdain
What you're going to be eating in the next year is decided by chefs. If the consensus is that pot-bellies are in next season, that's what's on your plate. And I think that's a good thing, because we know, obviously, about food. Anthony Bourdain
For a dinner date, I eat light all day to save room, then I go all in: I choose this meal and this order, and I choose you, the person across from me, to share it with. There's a beautiful intimacy in a meal like that. Anthony Bourdain
Those places I don't understand, just doing bad food. It takes some doing. Making good pasta is so much easier than making bad stuff. It actually takes quite an effort to make poor linguine pomodora. Anthony Bourdain
Jiro Ono serves Edo-style traditional sushi, the same 20 or 30 pieces he's been making his whole life, and he's still unsatisfied with the quality and every day wakes up and trains to make the best. And that is as close to a religious experience in food as one is likely to get. Anthony Bourdain
I was a journeyman chef of middling abilities. Whatever authority I have as a commenter on this world comes from the sheer weight of 28 years in the business. I kicked around for 28 years and came out the other end alive and able to form a sentence. Anthony Bourdain
I do not have a merchandise line. I don't sell knives or apparel. Though I have been approached to endorse various products from liquor to airlines to automobiles to pharmaceuticals dozens of times, I have managed to resist the temptation. Anthony Bourdain
Going to Southeast Asia for the first time and tasting that spectrum of flavors - that certainly changed my whole palate, the kind of foods I crave. A lot of the dishes I used to love became boring to me. Anthony Bourdain
When I'm doing a book tour in the States, I'll wake up in the room sometimes in an anonymous chain hotel, and I don't know where I am right away. I'll go to the window, and it doesn't help there either, especially if you're in an anonymous strip and it's the usual Victoria's Secret, Gap, Chili's, Applebee's. Anthony Bourdain
There are people with otherwise chaotic and disorganized lives, a certain type of person that's always found a home in the restaurant business in much the same way that a lot of people find a home in the military. Anthony Bourdain
The fact that over 50 per cent of the residents of Toronto are not from Canada, that is always a good thing, creatively, and for food especially. That is easily a city's biggest strength, and it is Toronto's unique strength. Anthony Bourdain
The Kobe craze really annoyed me. Most of the practitioners had no real understanding of the product and were abusing it and exploiting it in terrible and ridiculous ways. Kobe beef should not be used in a hamburger. It's completely pointless. Anthony Bourdain
One of the things is challenging yourself to do a Rome show when everybody's done a Rome show. To find some aspect of food culture or chef culture that people can look at in a new way. Anthony Bourdain
I'm married to an Italian woman, and I used to love cooking Italian at home, because it's one-pot cooking. But my wife does not approve of my Italian cooking. Anthony Bourdain