Anthony Bourdain has hardly needed an introduction ever since his best-seller Kitchen Confidential was published in 2000. After a series of successful shows on the Food Network, he moved to the Travel Channel with “Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations,” still writes books and is the executive chef of Les Halles restaurants. He recently released a one-hour documentary titled “Decoding Ferran Adria,” in which he tries to understand the father of molecular gastronomy in context, and now plans on leaving the country for a while. The Main Course recently sat with him at Les Halles to take a closer look at this media darling who hates being called a celebrity chef.

How has the restaurant industry changed since the publication of Kitchen Confidential?

I certainly will not claim to have changed the business myself, or I don’t think the book changed the business. But I think the trend continues, this cult of celebrity chef and this foodie craze that's really a worldwide phenomenon. This sort of change in priorities has made cooking a glamour profession, which is an absolutely earthshaking change from when I started. The reason things were so wild I think in the kitchens that I came up in, for so many years, was that no one who cooked ever considered for a second that there was actually a future in it. It was something you did because it was a business you felt good in, that you were happy in and that would have you. Now there's a sense of pride in kitchens that didn’t exist before, coupled with an expectation, a reasonable one, that if you do well, you will reap actual benefits and prestige. Which is something that we never dreamed of enjoying.

Even when attending the Culinary Institute of America, which was quite a commitment of both time and money to such profession??

I just wanted to be good at what I love, at what I was doing. I think we saw a limited future for ourselves, certainly none of us anticipated ever having to be good at talking to the media. Now they teach media training at the CIA, if you want it. And I think it's become a necessary part of being any kind of a high profile chef, whether you're on television or write books or not, being able to represent your place well to journalists and on television. That has, for better or worse, become an important part of the job. You could argue that sure, Carême did that too---well yeah, he did that too, they were hustlers also. But never like this. The prestige of the cooking trade has risen fantastically. And that's good.

Tell me about your own experience as a filmmaker for “Decoding Ferran Adria.”

When I was doing the Food Network series, I developed a very close and happy relationship with the freelance producers and camera people who were employed to make the show. We traveled together, we spent a lot of time talking about what the show would look like, over time, and by the second season on Food Network, we were essentially, the three of us, making little mini movies and having a lot of fun doing it. I already had a window of opportunity to spend time with Adria. I had this incredible fortuitous access to the man. Because I'd met him on book tour and we'd gotten along famously, he'd agreed that we could shoot during this certain period of time. We didn’t have a deal with Food Network, so the three of us just said, to hell with it, and we all basically quit, walked away from Food Network, walked away from New York Times Television, and self-financed a trip to Spain to shoot what we knew was going to be something amazing.

I like to think I'm an essayist. Both when I write and when I'm making television, I'm at my best: it's an essay about things that happened to me, how I perceived them. I'm not an expert, I'm not a critic, but I'm an enthusiast and in the film I try to give a sense of what it's like, particularly for an old-school cook like me who's sort of instinctively hostile to the idea of what Adria does, to be exposed to both what he does in his workshop and in his restaurant, but also to him. It was a very traumatic yet enjoyable experience. My mind was changed to a large degree. I came to really respect what he does. And I like him. I hadn't expected to. So it's just this, an account, in this case a particularly straight forward account, of you watching me change, watching my mind being changed. It opens like an essay, with a central proposition that I don’t really like the idea of this molecular gastronomy and then over the course of the essay you see me kind of confused and come around to another way of thinking. It's fun setting up the show, it's fun editing, it's fun playing with the music, you're making things, it's not that different than making food. You're building a whole out of little pieces. In a perfect world I wouldn’t be in any of the shows.

Do you think that's the next step?

I'd love to just do voiceover, or write the voiceover. I like being able to show people what I see, and if I can induce them to look at things, some things that I'm passionate about or angry about or conflicted about then have them see it through my eyes. I don’t have any compulsion at all to be on camera; I'm a little embarrassed by it, frankly.

Do people expect you to be on camera now so you have to be?

It's an easy job, I'm not complaining. It enables me to do things that I'm passionate about like travel and see the world and everything else. So I'm hardly complaining. I'm just not always comfortable with seeing myself on camera. Half of me is an exhibitionist, the other half is actually kind of shy and embarrassed [laughs]. I'm kind of manic in the sense that one minute I'm there perfectly happy speaking in front of 300 people and the next I'm like, ah, I'm such an asshole. I feel that being good at talking in front of an audience is in some way shameful.

Why is that?

That it’s being a show-off. Like on most issues, I'm conflicted [laughs]. But not so terribly so that I’m not doing it.

How often are you here at Les Halles?

Not much. It depends. When I'm in New York I'm here a few times a week. But I travel about seven months out of the year now. Between making the new television show, promoting, for instance, the old show that was shown here on Food Network is just now starting to be aired in South Africa, England, parts of Europe that it wasn't before. It's been a huge hit in Southeast Asia for some time, so I'll be touring to promote shows I made two years ago, or a translation of maybe one book back and the current book. So I'm constantly on a book tour, making television shows, without ever having endorsed a single product [laughs]. I'm sort of out there flogging my books or something and seeing the world, which works out really well, actually, because I'll go to a country on book tour. So I, of course as I always seem to all over the world, meet a lot of chefs and cooks who tend to hang out in the same bars and all know each other. In a very short period of time I'm pretty well wired in the town and know all the chefs. So then later when I come back and I'm planning a television show I'm thinking hey well, we should go to Barcelona, I know a lot of people there. It's an amazing scene and I know just the people who'd point us in the right direction, so it all kind of feeds off itself and while I'm at it, while on book tour or making a show, I'll write a couple of magazine articles that will hopefully end up in a book or whatever I could do. I know I'm lucky to be able to get paid to tell stories and so I'm doing that with vigor.

You're moving to Vietnam for a year or more, is that right?

At least a year. I’m going over in April to set up, to find a house in the neighborhood that I'm interested in and make some preliminary arrangements and then I'll go back in December.
 

Is that sort of a sabbatical, is it for a show, for a book?

It's all of the above. First and foremost, I'm passionate about Vietnam and from the first time I went there I said I just need more of this. I sold a book based on the simple concept of me going to live in Vietnam for a year and writing about it, and I could continue to make shows. Since it's an international travel show I could certainly meet the crew anywhere in the world. It would be probably shorter from Saigon, where we're planning on shooting, than it would be from New York. So I might be able to pop out for a few weeks at a time and do that but largely, I don’t mind the idea of disappearing off the grid for a year.

Do you get recognized when you go to these places? If so, will you really able to disappear?

I’m more recognized in Malaysia and Singapore than I am here. Which is because I'm on TV more frequently and the show's a bigger hit there than it is here. They have the books, I'm on TV all the time, and they really like the show because I'm just so clearly giddy with enthusiasm about Asian food. I'm very Asia-centric, I'm really interested in the whole continent, particularly Southeast Asia, and they seem to like me back. It's nice to be appreciated in the very part of the world where you like making television best and you like being best and you're very interested in writing about.

Would you be interested in opening an Asian restaurant here in New York?

I would never presume to cook Asian food---I eat Asian food. Most of the people I respect who cook Asian food have been cooking the same few dishes for generations. I'm not so arrogant as to think that I could understand or reproduce that in my lifetime.

And no interest in fusion?

None. This [embracing Les Halles’ dining room in a sweeping gesture] is the type of food I should have been doing my whole career. This is what I'm good at. When I cook, this is what I should do.

What about cooking school curriculums? Should they still be very French-focused do you think? Is that still the base of cooking?

I think that when you are talking about western cooking, and cooking in any English-speaking country or European country, that's the basis. When you pick up a chef's knife, you understand that you already owe a debt to the French. I think they should be Franco-centric, for now, but at the same time, the more inclusive the better.

You've been pretty outspoken about the scandal at the James Beard Foundation. How do you feel about what's going on now? Is there hope for it?

I'm encouraged by the fact that the entire board is out. Hopefully, there's some soul searching going. I think the awards, let me include this in, are still the Oscars of food. Nobody else is going to step in and supplant that. This is a good gig here, whoever's in charge of this thing. It's an important one for this industry. I'm not suggesting they become like the Peace Corps. But if they are a non-profit that claims to love cooking, and presumably cooks, the people who actually do the cooking, then they should take a real hard look at who's doing the actual cooking, and what it costs them to do dinners there, and are they giving back to the industry what's appropriate? Until I see some Mexican faces out there or some Ecuadorians, then I think they completely abrogated any claim for legitimacy. They're no different than the food critics out there who are shaking you for free meals or to cater their wedding.

You always seem to stand out for the Mexicans in the kitchen and the people who are doing the real cooking. Have you thought about you establishing some type of scholarship?

I would like to. For the time being, I'm certainly as vocal on the subject as I can possibly be, and given any opportunity to write about it, talk about it, rave about it. I certainly helped shepherd many illegal immigrants over the years into situations where they got their green card and eventually citizenship. It's personal to me. It's not even a cause as much as it's personal. It's my whole career. It's been a constant in my life. The guys I've looked to for guidance and for support, who've been there for me, day in, day out, so many of them have been Mexican and Ecuadorian. I always like to see the good guys win one. More and more you see that, but that's because of their own hard work. .

You said in a November interview that if the whole writing and TV gig just stopped working, you'd be happy going back working the kitchen. Is that true?

I'd be happy doing it. I sure as hell wouldn’t be as good as I used to be. My God, I'm slowing down. Older, slower and stupider. You burn out. I go in for a vanity shift a few times a year, just to prove I can still move in there, which I can, but could I do it every day? Every day like I used to? Could I do 14 hours a day, five, six days a week, and do I want to? I might require slightly cushier arrangements [laughs].

What would be an alternative career, if someday you got tired of all that or it didn't work out anymore? Is there anything else you'd want to do?

I never even considered a writing career as a potential career, much less television. No, if I'm not a cook or a chef, I'm screwed. I don't think I could even do the other stuff. I definitely couldn't do the other stuff, had I not been a cook first. It's the source of everything. I'd be lost. Now I'm scared. No, I don't know what I'd do. I'd mop the stalls at Peepworld or something. I'd be in trouble. No other marketable skills.

What do you say to kids who are now in culinary school, be they 19 or 45?

They should understand how fortunate they are, and certainly make full use of it. They should try to do brilliantly and make maximum use of the connections they make there to do a post-school apprenticeship in the best restaurants that they can pester their way into. They should travel in as different an array of locations as possible. But they should always understand that there are a lot of people out there like me who, when they see them coming through the door, are going to think, who should I give the job to? This guy, or should I promote my Mexican dishwasher? They have both the huge advantage, but also the burden of an education and a life of relative privilege. The way to always have it in your favor is to go to work for the very best. You will not be able to afford to do that, basically, if you get out of school and start working, because with your education, you're probably making pretty decent money, okay money, better than you might had you not been to school. Suddenly, the idea of going backwards and taking nothing or even spending money to work with a great chef or go to Spain. But that is such a huge advantage. If you can go right from school to go work for [Thomas] Keller or Gordon Ramsay or [Juan Mari] Arzak or one of these guys, that's invaluable. That’s you resume for the rest of your life. You walk in the door, you tell people I worked for Gordon Ramsay for a year, they know everything they need to know about you. They know you can take an ass-kicking like a champion. Because I know you have worked for a guy with only absolute relentlessly high standards, who has impeccable work habits, a sense of humor and I can kick your ass around the block, and I know you'll still show up tomorrow. I don't need to look at your resume. Plus, chances are, if I'm a chef hiring, you come and you tell me you worked for Gordon Ramsay or Tetsuya Wakuda, if I don't know them already, I know somebody I can call.

And the names you mentioned are the people you would consider the best chefs in the industry?

Probably the best chef in the world is Thomas Keller. Then there are a lot of guys and women out there. It depends. Ferran Adria, it's a great thing to have on your resume, but that's going to change the way you look at food. I've been in that kitchen. That's very different than the kind of cooking you've be taught in school. You might never see flame the whole time. Going straight from school to Ferran Adria, I don't know if I'd recommend!