Anthony Bourdain, the culinary innovator who took his own life in a hotel

Revolutionary, famous, connoisseur of dishes and accountant of the hard life of a cook. Who was Anthony Bourdain? Why was he so well known? What was, for him, behind the scenes of a kitchen? What was it that led him to take the sad end of it? Today, on Il Chef News, I will tell the story of one of the best chefs in history.

(Photo: Infobae)

June 8, 2018. American celebrity chef, TV presenter and writer Anthony Bourdain is found dead in a hotel room in Strasbourg, France, where he took his own life. The 61-year-old chef had traveled to the European country to record an episode of CNN's Parts Unknown, set in Alsace.

Eric Ripertt, chef and friend of Bourdain, and who found the body of his colleague, spoke six after what happened. On CBS This Morning, he said they had a 20-year friendship, on and off camera, and that "Anthony was a very curious person by nature. Very respectful of other cultures and wanted to share his discoveries with the public."

Bourdain began working as a cook in various New York restaurants. In the 90's, he had a large scale and ran the kitchen of Brasserie Les Halles, a French-style restaurant, which is now permanently closed since 2017. It was precisely in this restaurant, in 1999, that he wrote his first article for The New Yorker (titled "Don't eat before you read this") where he explains the difficulties of the world of cooking.

(Photo: "Tony"'s Facebook)

At this point his career as a writer was born. After the publication in the New York newspaper, he contacted several publishers to write about his experience in the kitchen. This is how Kitchen Confidential was born, a book that made him famous and that left him a place in the media. He first started out as a host for No Reservations on the Travel Channel and, since 2012, as a host for CNN.

In Confessions of a chef, he explains the truth, the reality that happens in large-scale kitchens, and that diners do not want to know. Topics such as labor exploitation, heat and the different types of food handling that nobody wants to know about or that they would not know about.

But the book does not only tell that. Drug abuse, which includes his struggle with cocaine, as well as alcohol abuse. These addictions led the chef to have a wild life, something out of the ordinary. He had it all: fame, partner, traveling the world for what he liked (cooking).

However, as we have already seen with his addictions, not everything was rosy. Shortly after his death, it was revealed that his estate went from $16 million to $1 million. Also one of the last of him said that "there is never a happy ending". An end that happened to him. He did not get to be as he would have wanted: to die "like (Marlon) Brando in The Godfather". (Infobae).

His life without limits also went through extreme loneliness and a mania with suicide. His last partner, the Italian actress Asia Argento, posted a series of "notice" from the chef about suicide on Twitter, but after a while he deleted it. There are too many mentions in them about taking one's own life. Which happened. Due to a possible depression, the chef hanged himself and committed suicide.

Innovative for his way of being, for his publications, for showing what was never shown before. Now, it exists in the memory of all cooks, chefs, and foodies. To remember him, there are several documentaries about his life: one of them is Roadrunner, a Morgan Neville production.