Remembering Anthony Bourdain

THERE’S A CERTAIN THRILL IN MEETING ANY celebrity; the chance to bask in the ambient glow of art and fame and TV magic. But the people who encountered Anthony Bourdain rarely walked away with anything as mundane as an autograph or a stolen selfie.

Though he was physically larger than life—lean and leathery, he stood 6'4" without boots on (even taller, if you counted his perpetually windswept shock of silver hair)—his energy and magnetism felt like the true measure of his size. On camera and off, he was endlessly fascinated by everyone he met: demanding to know where they were from, what they ate growing up, their all-time favorite meal.

Whether downing bun cha and cold beers with Barack Obama in a Hanoi noodle shop on his Emmy-winning CNN travel show Parts Unknown, or just messing around with his friends and fellow chefs, Bourdain always seemed fully engaged in every moment. And unlike most of his colleagues, he never spoke about food in a vacuum. After a 2006 trip to Beirut landed him and the crew of his Travel Channel series No Reservations in the crossfire of a very real war, Bourdain returned to Lebanon four years later to film a follow-up, recalling his heartbreak at seeing cluster bombs fall on a city only recently freed from Syrian occupation—and the bizarre experience of watching it unfold from the relative safety of a hotel pool. (He also managed to revisit a very nice kibbe and hummus with pine nuts.)