Anthony Bourdain, star chef and Leonia native, dies at 61

Show Caption Hide Caption Anthony Bourdain shared his travels, and expert tips, with the world Anthony Bourdain had a passion for food and travel, which he shared with the world through shows like CNN's 'Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown.' Here are some nuggets of travel wisdom he gathered on the road.

Growing up in Leonia, Anthony Bourdain was part of the infamous “bridge and tunnel crowd,” the New Jersey partygoers who traversed those tunnels and bridges to reach the nighttime dens and lounges of New York City.

For those long nights of revelry, he would need sustenance. And so he turned to Hiram’s, a hot dog stand on Palisade Avenue in Fort Lee. Bourdain would fuel up on Rippers, deep-fried hotdogs that were more carb than anything else.

On Friday, Bourdain, 61, died by suicide in Kaysersberg, France. The Internet coursed and pulsed with condolences and tributes, seemingly devoid of a bad word about him. One of North Jersey’s favorite sons had died.

Years after Bourdain had made his fortune as a world-renowned chef and television personality, there was no longer a need for Rippers. He had access to the Michelin-star-rated restaurants and the dimly lit speakeasies reserved for VIPs.

But Hiram’s, Fort Lee and New Jersey had shaped him. So he continued to visit Hiram’s as recently as 2015. And he’d buy a Ripper.

"He was a foodie that hated to be called a foodie," said Jason Perlow, a former Tenafly resident who got to know Bourdain through eGullet.org, a food message board. "He was just as passionate about getting some weird Asian street food in Vietnam in some weird town that you had to be brought to by horses as going to Napa and eating at French Laundry catered on personally by (chef Thomas) Keller."

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A magnificent meal at #Hiram’s in Fort Lee this afternoon. Untouched by time. A family tradition. — Anthony Bourdain (@Bourdain) June 29, 2014

“Leonia was a fairly quiet, small town that was a short, eight-minute drive from New York,” Bourdain said, in a 2015 interview with (201) Magazine. “That helped shape me in terms of what my aspirations and hopes were. I grew up like a lot of suburban teens, with a lot of the same pathologies. When bored, we’d drive around, looking for trouble.”

A begrudging wunderkind

In fourth grade, on a family vacation, aboard a boat, Bourdain’s desire to become a chef was sparked by a bowl of soup, he told The New York Times.

But the road that led him to the Culinary Institute of America threaded through North Jersey, where his parents would take Bourdain to eat.

“We’d eat at Sol & Sol in Englewood and Hiram’s in Fort Lee,” Bourdain said in the 2015 interview with (201) Magazine. “There was a place that’s no longer around called Jerry’s, also in Fort Lee, and they did New Jersey Italian…red sauce, deep-fried veal parmigiana. We’d get Chinese in Englewood Cliffs. For a big night out, we’d go to New York to eat.”

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Bourdain began his career as a wunderkind in the culinary world, helming some of New York City's most high-profile restaurants. At different points in his life, Bourdain had stints at The Supper Club and Sullivan’s before serving as the executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles.

It was during his time at Brasserie Les Halles that he covertly mailed a story to The New Yorker about the drug- and alcohol-fueled underworld of New York restaurants. The untold story cleared much of the sheen of the highbrow culinary world, revealing much of the grimy reality.

“As most of us in the restaurant business know, there is a powerful strain of criminality in the industry, ranging from the dope-dealing busboy with beeper and cell phone to the restaurant owner who has two sets of accounting books,” Bourdain wrote in the 1999 New Yorker article. “In fact, it was the unsavory side of professional cooking that attracted me to it in the first place.”

In Bourdain's first show, “No Reservations” on the Travel Channel, he brought his own reality to the screen. He glowered. He smoked when he felt like it. He used salty language that had to be bleeped out of the shows. And he had no qualms about sharing some of the darker details of his personal life, including his heroin use.

"There are a lot of people who do these travel and food shows, but they don’t have the passion for pursuing the crazy — going to the ridiculous ends," said Perlow. "The Indiana Jones-style excavation of culture that he does wherever he goes."

"It was also his commentary," Perlow conitnued. "There was this constant level of snark that he had that I don’t think anybody else also had. He wasn’t afraid to comment on the dark aspects of what he was doing."

In a 2004 visit to The Record’s Hackensack office, Bourdain was "dour," but whipped up Daube Provencale, a lamb dish, in The Record kitchen.

“I had never met him before, although we had talked on the phone,” Patricia Mack, who was The Record’s food editor during the 1990s and early 2000s, recalled of the visit. "But, when he came in he didn’t say a word. We had asked about the ingredients he needed, but he brought everything in a big trunk. Everything came with him and he checked everything out."

“As for his dourness,” Mack said, “even our photographer, Peter Monsees, whispered to me, ‘What are we going to do with him?’”

Mack said that as the day went on, however, Bourdain “lightened up considerably.”

“He was very content with the cooking facilities we had and the rest of the day was fine. We had coffee in the cafeteria and he was cordial to everyone who came up to him,” Mack said.

The globetrotting chef

Much of Bourdain's popularity came from his bucking of trends, often speaking out against many of the highbrow conventions of cuisine for the elite. The New Yorker article ultimately became Bourdain’s first book “Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly” and signaled his departure from the restaurant industry and his full-fledged dive into exploring the world through food in all its forms.

With "No Reservations," Bourdain would trek across the world, eschewing the Michelin-star rated restaurants in favor of street food vendors. He’d often espouse the virtues of cheeseburgers over caviar.

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In 2005, Bourdain revisited Bergen County for "No Reservations," retracing his roots through food. He went back to Hiram’s and ate the deep-fried hot dogs that he used to chow down on before venturing into the city.

"He was a great guy," Jeff Escudero, co-owner of Hiram's, said. "He always came in here. He'd come in at least once or twice a year. He brought his kid. Or he’d just stop in. By himself."

In 2015, Bourdain filmed an episode of his CNN show "Parts Unknown" highlighting New Jersey, focusing on the cities whose notoriety derived from crime and casinos rather than cuisine.

"It's easy enough to sell New Jersey if you're going to beautiful farmland and attractive bedroom communities and fine dining," Bourdain said, in a 2015 phone interview with The Record. "That was the challenge — to look at what most people make fun of about New Jersey or look down their noses at, and still sell it as an amazing place brimming with potential and beauty, if you bother to look.”

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Call him 'storyteller'

In a 2015 interview with the Star Tribune, Bourdain denied that he was a teacher, advocate or a journalist.

But he advocated for groups who were normally left unheard. In an impassioned open letter published on Medium, Bourdain reprimanded the community of food lovers who talked about loving Mexican food but would not lift a finger to help the many undocumented immigrant workers who filled the kitchens of some of their favorite restaurants.

Toward the end of his life, Bourdain became a fervent advocate for victims of sexual abuse. Asia Argento, an actress and Bourdain's girlfriend at the time of his death, accused disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein of rape.

He’d emphasize the immigrant communities that made some of the best food in North Jersey, crediting diversity for the variety of dishes everyone enjoyed without a second thought. He cited as “the greatest single advance, the greatest shift,” the influx of Koreans and Japanese to Palisades Park, Fort Lee and Edgewater.

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WATCH: Anthony Bourdain remembered at Frank's Deli in Asbury Park WATCH: Anthony Bourdain remembered at Frank's Deli in Asbury Park

“It’s a different world now, as far as food options in Bergen,” Bourdain said in the 2015 interview with (201) Magazine.

And much like the journalist he claimed not to be, Bourdain aimed to be an expert storyteller. He would delve into the stories of the far-flung foreign communities he visited. Often times, the food would become secondary to the people making it.

“I try to tell the best, most-interesting stories…stories my crew and I find rewarding to work on,” Bourdain said in a 2015 (201) magazine interview. “We challenge ourselves. If you start wondering what people want, you repeat yourself and shoot for the middle, and we try very, very hard not to do that. I’d rather fail in an audacious manner than succeed by relentlessly giving people what they want."

How to get help

Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.

Email: torrejon@northjersey.com