Inside Anthony Bourdain’s New Cookbook, ‘Appetites’

Home cooking from the globetrotting ‘Parts Unknown’ star

by Hillary Dixler Canavan@hillarydixler Oct 17, 2016, 2:30pm EDT

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Hillary Dixler Canavan is Eater's restaurant editor and the author of the publication's debut book, Eater: 100 Essential Restaurant Recipes From the Authority on Where to Eat and Why It Matters (Abrams, September 2023). Her work focuses on dining trends and the people changing the industry — and scouting the next hot restaurant you need to try on Eater's annual Best New Restaurant list.

Anthony Bourdain is many things: He’s the host of the wildly successful CNN show Parts Unknown; he’s a father; he’s the author of best-sellers like Kitchen Confidential; and way back when, he was just another restaurant chef trying to make it through a shift. According to the introduction to his eagerly-awaited new cookbook Appetites, he is also someone with a "psycho–Ina Garten–like need to feed the people around me," "obsessive-compulsive in my work habits and anally retentive in ways that you’d find ideal in a professional brunch cook, but probably disturbing in a husband or parent."

Written in collaboration with his longtime colleague Laurie Woolever, Appetites brings the reader into Bourdain’s home kitchen. Recipes range in inspiration from classic French to Vietnamese street food to homestyle Italian cooking, which will surprise no one familiar with Bourdain’s culinary explorations and predilections. Like many other celebrity-authored cookbooks of late, Bourdain tackles the subject of home entertaining head-on. But instead of focusing on crowd-pleasing favorites, Bourdain refocuses on the work of cooking, advising readers to treat their home kitchens a bit more like prep kitchens.

Edgy, evocative photography by Bobby Fisher and a cover from artist Ralph Steadman (known for his work with Hunter S. Thompson) make Appetites a visually distinct entry to the 2016 cookbook lineup. Go, take a look inside: