Quint: That day, Ariane said to me something like, "Is this something that people outside of New York are gonna know about?" And we were like, "Yeah. All around the world, people are sad about this." Telling her that made me realize, Jesus, God, this is world news. He changed lives around the world.

Froelich: I just think it's lonelier without him in the world.

Bourdain: I have in my possession the notes that people put up on Les Halles. I have them at the house. There was one woman who drove up from fucking Tennessee. Some dude took the back of an envelope to find some blank white space to write on, and he stuck it onto the glass at Les Halles with a Band-Aid. He wrote this personal, heartfelt little thing and then stuck it on with a fucking Band-Aid.

Fred Morin (co-owner, Joe Beef): I decided to put the bottle down. About 73 days.

Fallon: I've stopped drinking as a part of this whole thing, too.

Lajaunie: I'm moving to Vietnam. I think it's time for me to do it.

Zweig: I just assumed that we would finish [the show]. It just seemed wrong not to. It's his life's work. Why not take the material that we have and make the most of it?

Tenaglia: There has not really been a moment to actually sit and try to fully process the fact that he's gone. The producers and the editors were left in the aftermath to deal with all the footage for the five, six, seven shows of Parts Unknown we have to present. I know this one longtime director-editor, Nick Brigden, said it so beautifully: It dawns [on] you...I'm not going to [get his] feedback. But then at the same time, I know exactly what that feedback would be. Through all these years of working with him, through osmosis, we have the same creative force and integrity as that guy. Whether he was alive or not here, we have all ingested it. And we're trying to move forward with it.

Goulding: The one common thing you hear from everyone is "Why does this hurt so much? I didn't know the guy." Yes, you did know the guy. You shared 100 meals with him, if not more. He shared 1,000 meals with the world. He did that year after year, episode after episode. So to not be able to do that anymore, I think is a big hit for all of us. From President Obama down to your friggin' mailman, everyone feels that loss.

Boulud: When Tony passed away, I suddenly watched a lot on CNN to see all these retrospectives on him, because I needed to feel connected. But I haven't looked at the episode we did in Lyon since Tony passed. I want to do that in a moment where I can relax and enjoy and watch it maybe with my family in France. That would be nice.

Hamilton: I have a very, very, very, very tender, fond moment of saying goodbye to Tony in L.A. I had to leave, and he was napping on his couch in his trailer, sleeping with his arms across his chest. No blanket. Shoes on. And me going in and just touching him on the arm and saying, "I'm leaving, thank you," and going back to the airport. Just a brief kiss-on-the-cheek kind of goodbye.

Fallon: People have said to me, "Well, you probably don't wanna talk about that." I feel exactly the opposite. I want to talk about Tony. I want to make sure that people understand and know that that was the real deal, man. That was a singular, brilliant, magnificent human being.

Thornburgh: My wife's father's family is from Japan, so we went and did a month in Japan a few years back. We were at the last soba shop in Hokkaido, the northern island of Japan, a place you walk over wood planks over a pond to get to. It just felt like the edge of the earth. My kid, who must've been like 7 at the time or something, he taps me on the shoulder, and he's like, "Dad, it's your friend." I'm like, "What are you talking about?"

I turn around and, of course, because it's this planet we all share, there's a picture of fucking Tony shaking hands with the soba master in that noodle shop. You cannot go find something that he hadn't done or where he hasn't gripped and grinned. The end of the earth. "Daddy...there's your friend."

Drew Magary is a GQ correspondent.

A version of this story originally appeared in the December 2018/January 2019 issue with the title "The Last Curious Man."