Anthony Bourdain, celebrity chef, master storyteller, found dead at 61

MANILA, Philippines — Anthony Bourdain, the celebrity chef, award-winning host and gifted storyteller, has died of suicide, according to CNN. He was 61.

CNN, which has confirmed Bourdain's death in a statement, said that the celebrity chef was found unresponsive in his hotel room in France Friday morning by his close friend and French chef, Eric Ripert. Bourdain was working in Strasbourg, France for an upcoming episode of his series on CNN, "Parts Unknown."

"It is with extraordinary sadness we can confirm the death of our friend and colleague, Anthony Bourdain," CNN said.

"His love of great adventure, new friends, fine food and drink and the remarkable stories of the world made him a unique storyteller. His talents never ceased to amaze us and we will miss him very much. Our thoughts and prayers are with his daughter and family at this incredibly difficult time," the network added.

In 1999, he wrote a New Yorker article, "Don't Eat Before Reading this," which became the book "Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly" in 2000.

This book propeled him to international stardom.

He has visited and filmed in the Philippines, where he has expressed fondness for sisig, a Filipino dish made from parts of pig head and liver and seasoned with calamansi.

"It’s simple, flavorful, delicious and goes perfectly with beer. All you can ask for," he said in Manila last June 2017.

In the "Parts Uknown" episode on the Philippines, he immersed himself in the streets of Metro Manila as the country prepared to celebrate what was dubbed to be the longest Christmas celebration in the world.

He visited a popular Filipino fastfood chain, tried halo-halo, ate pork sisig and partied with locals while he tried to discover why Philippine nationals were some of the most generous people one could meet.

"Filipinos are, for reasons I have yet to figure out, probably the most giving of all people on the planet," Bourdain said in that episode.

Strasbourg police and emergency services did not immediately have information about the death.

Bourdain's death came after designer Kate Spade hanged herself in her apartment in Manhattan in the US on Tuesday.

Chefs, fans and U.S. President Donald Trump were among those stunned and saddened by the news. "I want to extend to his family my heartfelt condolences," Trump said.

Bourdain was twice divorced and has a daughter from his second marriage.

Bourdain's death drew new attention to celebrity suicides. It came three days after fashion designer Kate Spade died of apparent suicide in her Park Avenue apartment in New York. Spade's husband and business partner said the 55-year-old business mogul had suffered from depression and anxiety for many years.

Bourdain's "Parts Unknown" seemed like an odd choice for CNN when it started in 2013 — part travelogue, part history lesson, part love letter to exotic foods. Each trip was an adventure. There had been nothing quite like it on the staid news network, and it became an immediate hit.

He mixed a coarseness and whimsical sense of adventurousness, true to the rock 'n' roll music he loved.

"We are constantly asking ourselves, first and foremost, what is the most (messed) up thing we can do next week?" he said in a 2014 interview with The Associated Press.

Besides showcasing food, a "Parts Unknown" trip to Japan in the series' first season included an odd show with robots and scantily clad women, a visit with a death metal band and a meal shared with a woman involved in the city's sadomachistic community.

In 2017, he sat down for some bun cha in Hanoi, Vietnam, with President Barack Obama.

Bourdain was reluctant to analyze why his series succeeded.

"If you think about who the audience is and what their expectations might be, I think that's the road to badness and mediocrity," he told the AP. "You go out there and show the best story you can as best you can. If it's interesting to you, hopefully it's interesting to others. If you don't make television like that, it's pandering."

The American chef, author and television personality was born in New York City and was raised in Leonia, New Jersey. He had written that his love of food began as a youth while on a family vacation in France, when he ate his first oyster.

Bourdain also mentioned his youth was punctuated by drug use and he dropped out of Vassar College after two years.

Working in restaurants led him to the Culinary Institute of America, where he graduated in 1978, and began working in kitchens in New York City. He became executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles in 1998.

In the preface to the latest edition "Kitchen Confidential," Bourdain wrote of his shock at the success off his book, which he wrote by getting up at 5 a.m. in the morning to steal a couple of hours at the computer before appearing at the saute station for lunch.

He said he never intended to write an expose or to "rip the lid off the restaurant business." He said he liked the restaurant business the way it was.

"What I set out to do was write a book that my fellow cooks would find entertaining and true," he said. "I wanted it to sound like me talking at say ... ten o'clock on a Saturday night, after a busy dinner rush, me and a few cooks hanging around in the kitchen, knocking back a few beers and talking."

Bourdain said he really had no idea that anyone outside the world of chefs would even pay attention to his comments.

"The new celebrity chef culture is a remarkable and admittedly annoying phenomenon. While it's been nothing but good for business — and for me personally — many of us in the life can't help snickering about it," he wrote. "Of all the professions, after all, few people are less suited to be suddenly thrown into the public eye than chefs." - Audrey Morallo, AP

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