Anthony’s FAVORITE Episodes of All Time | Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations | Travel Channel

Anthony Bourdain reflects on eye-opening experiences, fantastic food, and incredible company in this roundup of his all-time favorite episodes of No Reservations. His adventures span the globe: chatting with poet Jim Harrison in Montana, exploring Sardinia with his family, seeing Venice from the perspective of painter Geoffrey Humphries, stopping by a chaotic family-run restaurant in Rome, and enjoying his final meal at the world-renowned El Bulli before its closure.

For more of Anthony’s favorite episodes, check out https://www.travelchannel.com/shows/anthony-bourdain/photos/anthony-bourdains-all-time-favorite-episodes

Anthony Bourdain uncovers the best cuisine across the world. At each location, Tony dives headfirst into life’s colorful and rich pageant, bringing his intellectual curiosity, empathy, wit and boundless appetite.

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Anthony’s FAVORITE Episodes of All Time | Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations | Travel Channel

[Music]
there aren’t that many people I really
look up to in this world but Jim
Harrison I want to be him when I grow up
I’m never felt particularly ambitious
I’m just a writer so I have to write
it’s a calling in sort of a religious
thing you
know of course I’d have to write
brilliant Timeless poems and novels and
screenplays that have have known and
hung out with like Orson Wells and Jack
Nicholson and felini and all and oh yeah
been like really talented and Brilliant
meaning it’s too late for me if I knew I
was going to die imminently I would go
to Leon Leon you know you can have the
simple lunch and Dish s koson which is
like a little 7 lb Pig cooked five
different ways but what would the last
the last meal be though I mean I don’t
know I never been big on the last meals
I want lots of last reals but I do get
to bask in his reflected Glory now and
then and tonight he’s making dinner for
me in a few Pals I get to be his prep
For A Feast of local Wild game an
elk and analou carbonade which has to
get on the stove first sort of a generic
Belgian dish they make it out of beef we
do it a lot out of excess game and then
the onions brown with the
garlic carbonade you need beer and Jim
secret weapon taste this anvelope stock
grab a spoon
oh that’s good that’s a
flavor what do you think can’t lose with
the stock well the carbon odd simmers
I’m reminded that like many of his
characters Jim’s never been a guy to shy
away from getting his hands dirty just
pretend you’re sad of rubbing your
girlfriend as it were that’s a little
UND delicate but sort of a hairy
girlfriend also on the menu wild dove I
think Dan bagged these earlier in the
day you know my MTO don’t you comes from
larm to the Russian raer yep eat or die
where did he say that when talk he did I
made it up no way you have authority in
your quotes if you ascribe it to someone
[Music]
else these little birds gave their lives
for us that we may live to and eat again
you died in a noble cause the little
delicious ones and sit down to dinner
and some wine and let the Madness
begin okay everybody said down Bo that’s
really
[Music]
good Danny these are perfect Yep they’re
beautiful we did good I’m taking credit
parti credit for this already that that
looks good that’s smells good gravy
that’s working with those potatoes
really nicely huh
I can’t shake the feeling that round
here is good Country for Old
Men a place I’m not going to live out my
life but maybe had things been different
could have and maybe should have Jim
thank you Delight after
m a place where some must follow the
heart’s affection as to do otherwise
would be Unthinkable While others can
pursue with uncommon Vigor the truth of
the imagin
ation where people can hear their own
inner voices with great
clearness and live by what they
hear when you’ve got a big family in a
place where everybody knows everybody’s
people everywhere you go has a history
here at RAS in the mountains not too far
from noo tavia’s dad Angelo used to play
as a kid Ras an AG Turismo built cavik
back into the
Rocks what is an AGR Turismo I I think
it’s like the greatest institution ever
basically a funky little place in either
a home a farmhouse sure feel like a
drink they appear all over Italy in
Sardinia with the small usually set menu
is explicitly
local it’s fantastic you can easily eat
your way from town to town all across
the country scarfing up local
Specialties this one is a family
favorite meaning andreana likes it no
small accomplishment I can tell you and
tavia’s parents Angelo and Maro were
happy to trade babysitting duties for a
meal here I have many obsessions in this
part of the world but I’m really into
this a Turismo thing what does it mean
they live on what they produce so
they’re making the wine
clearly uh the vegetables or many or
most of them uh the main cor the goat
I’m guessing from around
here the typical Sardinian
sausage this is the cartilage of the pig
gelatin that sounds good I love fatty
cured meat the Catalin one is now Spain
occupied Sardinia for some time and
their influence appears in some of the
food most notably in the best effect in
the Sardinian ham strikingly different
from and so much better than Italian
Pudo around here they cut the p a little
bit thicker see it’s good to be invaded
by people foran it’s good for food I
know it is for you don’t want to be
around when it happens but look a place
that has been invaded a lot it’s sort of
like you’ve seen this show you know I’m
always going on about this yes this must
be terribly boring for you do you want
talk about this
now pasta of course here macaroni taboza
served with a simple tomato
sauce
oh at the table there is good food
everybody agree you know there is there
is no
fighting and this roast meat specialty
with a difference capretto
arosto which I I’m gathering means baby
goat spit roasted over the open fire but
but here it’s basted with the drippings
of flaming Lardo chunks of lightly cured
seasoned and herbed pork fat look at
that that glorious melting pork fat
gives the goat a dark golden color and a
crispness and intense flavor unlike
anything else
delicious so good sorry I’m having too
much
[Music]
WoW nicely the
ribs oh nice nice that’s a nice touch
last but by no means least roasted
cheese with local
honey oh that’s good is it okay good
time venice’s seeming timelessness the
assumption that well she’s been here she
surely always will be is a central irony
[Music]
tourists and shorttime visitors can
never fully grab Venice staying is
difficult and increasingly pricey costs
rise the number of natives shrinks the
buildings themselves slowly crumble a
Living Museum of Millennium old
Masterworks inexorably dying artists and
Poets from elsewhere have always been
transfixed by her Noble Rot we must
remember looking out of the window is
probably the biggest waste of time in
life but what else can one do if one has
to do nothing with it
whatsoever following in the footsteps of
fellow Englishmen boted with Venice like
Lord Byron artist Jeffrey Humphries came
to Venice 40 years ago coming for
instance for what one sees from his
window I found myself in a different
dimension and couldn’t get out of
it there was an artistic Community here
and a feeling um maybe I was going back
in time but I wanted to always go back
in time don’t we all all that and the
natural light makes painting like the
city itself a slowly passing thing
Jeffrey lives on the Juda the large
island saddling Venice proper nobody
would
touch it was
iser once a kind of low rent refuge for
the broke and Bohemian classes now as
with so many other formerly industrial
districts all the tis Posh hotels the
scourge of HP is spreading like
chlamydia Jeffrey unsurprisingly is not
too happy about the change Jeffrey leads
me back in time to a favorite restaurant
of his younger hungrier days atmosphere
was so rickety it was wonderful a meal
cost a th000 l Jeffrey’s Venice can
never be the same as the Venice of those
born to it he knows it yet he’s part of
a grand tradition a world of Misfits for
whom Venice is a stage and that too has
Nostalgia rights of Passage and special
entree for certain professions
loanda montin an old very old school
Tratoria simple Classics made well a
place about which venetians and
particularly longtime expats tend to be
sentimental very likely because of their
one-time view that art was acceptable as
legal tender the world was very
different there were no credit cards but
there was Credit in a funny way my bill
got so heavy so we picked up my paints
from an exhibition and I told him to
select one for himself to pay my cover
my buil when I got back I said where’s
the picture and he said it sold it and I
said how much for he said eat eat
eat this is mantis shrimp I’m afraid you
have to eat this by hand want a peti oh
boy they’ve gone overboard pasta in red
sauce very happy with us so what did you
call usapa just bed tomato and past mhm
as we settle in our meal I asked Jeffrey
what he remembers most about coming to
Venice as a young artist when I came
here everybody even the uh vegetable
sales or whatever they all know art it’s
their life Michelangelo big names well
you kind of can’t help but you you walk
down the street you’re chur over stuff I
learn a lot from the street people look
in my
way I don’t agree and he say you’re just
following the sun you know meaning I
keep moving the shadow which is right
you know and then you’re frightened of
the Void ah you just hear this from
passor by from from I picked up a lot of
Education from this tree in a city where
art is a Birthright everywhere you look
the streets a gallery and everybody an
art critic this artist has found a
Venice of his
[Music]
own I love this
city middle of tourist season you can
still walk down the street and right
back in
time sit down in a little Romans only
fish restaurant or just walk by yourself
through ancient
[Music]
streets I’m meeting up with Marco a
local fish bonger and friend of chz
who’s off on other business somewhere
and Sarah our fixer also a local who
knows this
place well where am I where are we the
food is excellent so the mother is the
owner the daughter runs the place and
the cousin is in the kitchen his name is
Marco this is fantastic I know her is
she she she gets upset for
anything and so I changed the name of
this place from to the angry cousins the
food looks good actually they have one
of the best in town I
guess they’re having the usual fight in
they always go
[Music]
okay now the angry cousin is definitely
hungry this is not a good thing
[Music]
[Music]
right to London because it’s not
possible you understand it’s not
possible
okay here we go somebody might think
that this is all fake but it’s real
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
not waiting that long either I’ve been
following their
progress even the dog is upset
[Music]
[Music]
now they were ready to cut each other I
think we’re full
[Music]
anyway now that the Carnage is over
where where we oh there we go oh yes oh
my God it’s too much ooh bra dox taale
my favorite and some more of those great
baby lamb chops and I need some more
wine I’m a little freaked out by all
that
melodrama better now I thought Europe
was a place you take your time you enjoy
what’s their that’s what I thought she
said that that has never happened to her
in seven years you tell her I had her
back cuz baly I had my eye on Baldi I
didn’t like his look and if he got up on
her face anymore it was being he’s out I
thought they showed remarkable restraint
I tell you you can’t beat this this is a
great meal I I feel bad because now like
you know thousands of people to come
here just to like do you know where’s
the fighting right yeah that’s good
[Music]
when Fon Adria announced he was going to
close elui it shook the world of
gastronomy but for him inventing new
dishes serving them to an Ever larger
public was not enough he needed both a
new challenge and a Next Step Beyond the
confines of four walls and a restaurant
business so this would be my last meal
at elui this is the octopus Galician
style okay the traditional one
again one two
right one two
three
very 1 2 3
4 it’s so beautiful I just watch that
all day like sorry baby octopus
[Music]
you know what was cool the sound of fan
next to me making little noises of
pleasure as he tasted his own
food that he was capable of both
entertaining others with his work and
being entertained himself by
it I love that you’re having so much fun
at your wrong restaurant that’s so
awesome for me the SEC that came next
somewhere near the end of 52 courses was
the most amazing the most brilliant and
yet strangely the most traditional a
genius Riff on traditional European game
dishes I remember n ninaki nyaki that’s
a typical Japanese fried dough these are
not so simple they’re filled with a
meticulously made Pate of wild hair
reduced stock and
[Music]
very difficult to
this okay sucking like a soup
[Music]
dumpling
hey the cappuccino is another reduction
of wild hair stock spooned into the
bottom of a cup the cappuccino foam is
actually chocolate air made with 99%
pure chocolate so this is a cappuccino
of game flavor all right of game
Aroma right then
[Music]
deeper the rotto of mulberries one side
of the spoon is an intensely flavored
consum of the Wild Hair the other
actually Mulberry kernels and Juice
finished with a drop of eucalyptus oil
and a dusting of green cardamom
the traditional mermade that they give
you always with the with the game dishes
right now that’s
[Music]
progression the ravioli with its bolog
and blood a delicate fet of wild hair in
the center of the dish is layered with
Iberico ham and pork belly on top of
each ravioli a ragu of carrot celery
tomato puree minced Wild Hair pork belly
and ve bone marrow and stock intensely
rich and intensely
flavored the blood is actually beet
juice concentrated with ginger
citronella Juniper and thy as you eat
each component you’re discovering all
over again the elements commonly found
in many many classical game dishes
berries cocoa but with a hair always
always as the main narrative how audrea
gets there build the same experience is
what sets him apart from everyone else