8/6

Bourdain

Eight years ago Anthony Bourdain hung himself in a hotel room in Alsace. Where were you? I had just got to back to work after lunch at Le Baratin. As my usual routine I’d been into the restaurant that morning to put deliveries away and start any of the jobs that took time. Sometimes I’d go there and find I’d have nothing to do- I’d have a coffee and write my menu ideas for the week after. Work back then was my second home, the home I spent the most time in. The hum of the fridges, ovens and extraction switched off a part of my brain that made me think about my life. I’d left the kitchen that day, rode my bike up the belleville hill and met the other chef I worked with who was from America and had never been had Raquels’ food. The episode The Layover where he visits Le Baratin and Au Passage along with my fascination for visiting haunted cities made a huge impression on me. Living in London I’d often take trips to Paris on the Eurostar. There was a site that sold last minute tickets, with the oddest times (that didn’t bother me) for 25 pound each way. Le Baratin went straight to the top of my list. My first time was like a few other first times for me, dissapointing. I had walked up the hill on a balmy Tuesday in August at noon- only to find it closed. Rejection and disappointment were feelings I was well used to. I came back a few weeks later and had a lunch of veal tongue vinaigrette, tripe and chickpeas and cheese with one glass of white and red and declared to myself that I’d found my French St John. A year later I was living in Paris and this restaurant became where I would eat once a week. The lunch was 15 euro.

At no point have I ever considered myself a Anthony Bourdain wannabe, his influence is enormous though. I can’t shake it off - in 2002 my dad gifted me Kitchen Confidential which just like Fear and Loathing or The Sun Also Rises changed the way I saw the world. Three very famous books by three very famous men for living hard. Living hard looks easy. Its not. Not giving into the 9-5 and not liking what everyone else likes and is often a lonely experience when sober. When waking up or not being able to sleep in a hotel room or a pull out bed somewhere, without being able to look into the face of your loved one and everyday starting again, talking to strangers it can wear anyone down. They will tell you though and that voice will tell you its not your place to complain - you should happy and when you’re being told to be something, it doesn’t work.

When the other chef I’d had lunch with told me after looking at his phone the Bourdain had killed himself I was at the coffee machine. My heart stopped for a second, my brain went into a million reasons why he wouldn’t do it but I then I went downstairs and finished the mis en place, did a Friday night service and tried to not think of the reasons why. It was his life he ended, no one else’s. He had his reasons, when you’ve had enough you are able to put a stop to it, no one can stop that. If this is a tribute then I’ll finish this by this- I’m here in Paris again at a bar that Sartre and others would drink at that isn’t as popular as those places on the blvd Saint Germain. I’m not far from the grave of Beckett or Matisse’s atelier. On this day I say thank you to Anthony Bourdain for his words that will live alongside those he also strived to become.