Bad-boy chef Anthony Bourdain spends 240 days a year traveling the world in search of exotic food and places. He s a frequent guest on Bravo s Top Chef, does No Reservations on the Travel Channel and will start a new program on the network at 9 p.m. Nov. 21, The Layover. He and noted chef Eric Ripert will appear together on Oct. 26 at Belk Theater for a night titled Good vs. Evil.
Q. How is your new show going to be different from No Reservations ?
It will be about things you can credibly and realistically do in a short time. These are obtainable experiences at variable price points. I m taking what is a pretty tired format, a useful travelogue, and in a very compressed time frame, showing in a personal way what I would do if I had a 24- to 48-hour layover in these places. I m cutting right to the good stuff, not telling about all the monuments in town, but here s where I think you should be going.
Q. You travel to some pretty sketchy places. How do you deal with security?
There have been some tense moments in countries where there s little law enforcement. We re getting pretty good at shooting in dangerous places. There s a certain protocol to be followed you find out which criminal controls that area and give them respect, asking if it s OK if you can shoot in their area. Bribing people or going through the government is rarely a good way to do that. It s rarely about money. It s about identifying who has the power and showing them the respect. We ve even had the local crime boss barbecuing for us.
Q. You once said that the most authentic American food came from the South. Why is that?
What we see as traditional Southern food shrimp and grits is probably the clearest example is basically African food and African ingredients translated through the American experience. Cajun and Creole that s something that couldn t or wouldn t have happened anywhere else. These are mutations that could only happen here and only in the South where you had African and French and Spanish cultures coming together.
Every area of the country has a regional favorite, but a lot of them are transplanted from Europe. If you re talking purely American, original American, post-indigenous, you re talking the South.
Q. Best food town in the United States?
You ve got to say New York City. We have the customers to support high-end restaurants and chefs from all over the world. Charlotte is a great chef town, but there aren t enough millionaires to support niche restaurants. There are pockets of greatness everywhere, though. Minneapolis is a great food town; Austin, Portland and Seattle are amazing. Chicago is a great food town, high end to low end, and a great beer city, too. Cleveland is great it s a quirky town with quirky people and somehow that atmosphere attracts great cooks.
Q. Nation s best barbecue Kansas City or North Carolina?
I think Kansas City has more variety, but if I had only one last barbecue meal to eat, it would be in North Carolina, whole hog. It s pristine, you don t have the sticky sauce and it s probably the original barbecue, or close to it.
