How TV chef Anthony Bourdain exposed the vicious, druggie underbelly of the restaurant world

WHEN chef Anthony Bourdain was at his drug-crazed worst, he would comb carpets for paint chips in case some of them were actually crumbs of crack cocaine – then smoke  all he found, just in case.

He admitted his addiction turned him into a “complete asshole, selfish, larcenous, druggy, loud, stupid, insensitive and someone you would not want to have known.”

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But Bourdain beat the drugs, transformed his life and became a hugely popular writer and America’s top TV chef  — making his apparent suicide yesterday, when he was found hanged in a hotel room, all the more shocking.

The father of one, 61, died in Kaysersberg, near Strasbourg in France, where he was filming an episode of his CNN foodie travel show Parts Unknown.

Fans including ex-US president Barack Obama — who Bourdain taught to correctly “slurp” noodles in a  cafe in Vietnam — yesterday shared their horror on Twitter.

Obama wrote: “He taught us about food — but more importantly, about its ability to bring us together.”

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Fellow TV chef Nigella Lawson, who became close friends with Bourdain after working together as judges on US TV show The Taste, said she was “heartbroken”.

Bourdain was born in New York in 1956 and raised in New Jersey by French music executive Pierre Bourdain and his wife Gladys, an editor at the New York Times.

He credited summers spent in France as a child with his food obsession, but did not think about cooking for a living until he began working as a potwasher in restaurants after dropping out of college.

He noticed the chefs’ wild, swaggering drug-fuelled lifestyles — and was smitten.

Every time I watch his show, I want to go back in time and bully him at school

Anthony Bourdain talking about Brit chef Jamie Oliver

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Bourdain went on to study at the Culinary Institute of America and to work at some of New York’s most famous restaurants during the Eighties.

This was when he developed his drug addiction — downing cannabis, Quaaludes, cocaine, LSD, psychedelic mushrooms, sedatives, speed, codeine and heroin.

Reflecting in 2013, long after he had stopped his habit, he said: “Most people who kick heroin and cocaine have to give up on everything. Maybe because my experiences were so awful in the end, I’ve never been tempted to relapse.”

By 1999, drug-free, he lifted the lid on what goes on in restaurant kitchens in a hair-raising article for the New Yorker aptly titled Don’t Eat Before Reading This.

This became the best-selling tell-all book Kitchen Confidential about his experiences, which was an international sensation when it was published in 2000 and made him a household name.

In it, he warned diners not to order fish on Mondays as it would not be fresh, and informed those who ask for their meat to be well-done that they will be given “scrapings from the bottom of the barrel”.

He also revealed his own “naked contempt” for vegetarians and customers who ask for their sauce on the side.

In his vivid description, kitchens are “insular, chaotic, drenched in drugs and alcohol and accompanied constantly by loud rock and roll music.”

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They were also saturated with, “heavy drinking, drugs, screwing in the dry-goods area” and on payday money was exchanged “as the cooks settled up the previous week’s drug debts, loans and wagers.”

As one reviewer in the UK noted:“It’s not exactly Delia.”

Bourdain never predicted his swashbuckling memoir would become so big, saying in 2001: “I won’t be totally miserable if the whole writing thing goes sour in a couple of years and I end up cooking eggs Benedict in some little restaurant where no one knows who I am.”

Instead he became more and more famous, fronting cookery and travel shows all over the world.  Kitchen Confidential was even turned into a sitcom starring  Bradley Cooper as Bourdain.

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He soon drew natural comparisons to loudmouth Gordon Ramsay, who Bourdain decided was “England’s greatest chef — or biggest bully” but whose food he declared “stunning”.

Bourdain was not as kind about Jamie Oliver. He said of hit series The Naked Chef:  “Every time I watch his show, I want to go back in time and bully him at school.”

But Jamie was still a fan, writing yesterday that Bourdain “really broke the mould . . . he leaves chefs and fans around the world with a massive foodie hole”.

Bourdain admired another British TV chef, Nigella Lawson, long before he worked with her, noting that she was: “The object of desire of nearly every male I met in England, and the apparent dream of perfection for most women.

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“She does seem to cook a lot of exuberantly greasy stuff — which puts her on the side of the angels in my book.”

The pair appeared together as judges on The Taste in 2013, forging a close friendship which saw them meet for pints in London as she navigated her split from Charles Saatchi.

More recently he became an ally of the Me Too movement, supporting his actress girlfriend Asia Argento, one of the first women to speak out about being abused by disgraced Harvey Weinstein.

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Last month, after Asia, 42, gave a speech at Cannes about her experience, Bourdain said: “I am  honoured to know someone who has the strength and fearlessness to do something like that.”

Bourdain, who has a daughter Ariane, 11, with his ex-wife, admitted that his heavy drug use should have killed him in his twenties, and that those experiences had made him think about death.

He wrote in Kitchen Confidential: “In your last few moments of  consciousness, what kind of final regrets go through your mind?

“My regrets will be more along the lines of a sad list of people I’ve hurt, people let down, assets wasted and advantages squandered. I will decidedly not be regretting missed opportunities for a good time.”

Last night Bourdain’s girlfriend Asia  said in a statement: “Anthony gave all of himself in everything that he did. His brilliant, fearless spirit touched and inspired so many and his generosity knew no bounds.

“He was my love, my rock, my protector. I am beyond devastated. My thoughts are with his family.”

If you are affected by any of the issues raised in this article, please call the Samaritans on 116123.