Who

A chef, author, and TV host, Tony Bourdain is best known for his classic tell-all Kitchen Confidential. You may also know him as the ravenous, chain-smoking adventure traveler on the Travel Channel's No Reservations.

Backstory

The son of a Columbia Records exec (his dad) and a New York Times editor (his mom), Jersey native Bourdain attended Vassar—where he claims he wrote other students' papers in exchange for drug money—before dropping out and washing ashore at the Culinary Institute of America. The '80s weren't very productive years for Bourdain: He spent a good chunk of the decade hooked on drugs while trying to hold down jobs at various restaurants. He eventually sobered up and went on to run the kitchens of a handful of mid-range Manhattan restaurants in the '90s like the Supper Club, One Fifth, Pino Luongo's Coco Pazzo Teatro, Sullivan's, and finally Les Halles, the mediocre French steakhouse on lower Park Avenue.

In 1999 Bourdain's public persona began to take shape when he published an article in the New Yorker called "Don't Eat Before Reading This," a disturbing behind-the-scenes look at the New York restaurant industry. Filled with lessons that quickly became dining gospel (Don't order fish on Mondays, never order swordfish), in 2000 the article was turned into a bestselling book, Kitchen Confidential, earning Bourdain the kind of fame as a media personality that had always eluded him as a chef. He followed up a year later with A Cook's Tour, a book about his international search for "the perfect meal." Both titles helped him jumpstart a TV career, first as the host of A Cook's Tour on the Food Network (which has since been cancelled) and, later, No Reservations on the Travel Channel. He's since published another book (2006's The Nasty Bits) and fashioned himself into one of the food world's most prominent figures, alternately thought of as a tells-it-like-it-is iconoclast or a bombastic douchebag.

Of note

While Bourdain likes to present himself as a culinary expert, he's long been dogged by accusations that he isn't quite what he makes himself out to be. When Kitchen Confidential was first published, restaurant insiders pointed out that Bourdain had never worked in any truly elite New York kitchens, and argued that his descriptions of horrid conditions were grossly exaggerated. Critics also have also been quick to point out that despite Bourdain's frequent refrains about his expertise in the kitchen, he hasn't been the chef at Les Halles—or anywhere else for that matter—in at least eight years. (He's currently a consultant to Les Halles and the restaurant's "chef-at-large.") In lieu of actual cooking, Bourdain travels around the world, happily munching on seal eyeballs and warthog anus, although given his rep as a rather mediocre chef back in the day, it's hard to argue diners are missing much.

Grudge

Bourdain has emerged as the food world's house curmudgeon in recent years, gladly hating on vegans, vegetarians, animal rights activists, foie gras opponents, smoking abolitionists, and other celebrity food personalities like Jamie "Naked Chef" Oliver ("that guy is neither naked nor a chef"), Emeril Lagasse (an "ewok"), and Rachael Ray, whom he's described as a "bobble-head" and "freakazoid." Bourdain has earned his share of high-profile detractors, too. In 2008, GQ's Alan Richman penned a damning review of Les Halles and expressed indignation that Bourdain had become the " de facto public face" of the restaurant industry: "It's as if Steven Seagal had been named president of the Screen Actors Guild."

Vice

Bourdain has fastidiously styled himself as a rogue, and trots outs his bad-boy credentials with regularity. He drinks heavily, smoked for more than 30 years (he gave up his two-pack-a-day habit in 2007), and has half a dozen tattoos. He's also been frank about the fact that he was addicted to cocaine, crack and heroin for the better part of five years before spending another half-decade addicted to methadone. (Other drugs Tony says he regularly sampled when he was a chef in the '80s and '90s: LSD, Quaaludes, speed, codeine, Seconal, and Tuinal.) Bourdain says he hasn't touched the hard stuff for more than a decade. He still happily admits to smoking pot a regular basis.

For the record

While No Reservations is a big hit—it's now the Travel Channel's highest-rated show—Bourdain doesn't always have a magic touch when it comes to TV. In 2006, Fox tried to turn his book Kitchen Confidential into an hour-long drama. It didn't take, and the show was canceled almost immediately.

Personal

Bourdain married his high school girlfriend, Nancy Putkoski, in the 1980s. They split up in 2005 after close to 20 years of marriage. He's been connected to several women since then, including Page Six's Paula Froelich. In 2007, he settled down for a second time, marrying his Italian girlfriend, Ottavia Busia, who once worked at the restaurant Geisha. The couple tied the knot 11 days after she gave birth to their first baby, Ariane. The family lives on East 87th Street.

No joke

Before he was famous, Bourdain published two dining-themed mystery novels, Bone in the Throat and Gone Bamboo. Neither made much of a mark: "A sorry, soggy mess of a stew," wrote one critic about Gone Bamboo.