Anthony Bourdain on The Layover, Airport Food, and the Art of Eating Well

Anthony Bourdain said it plainly: "My stomach has a limited amount of real estate. And if I'm going to fill it, I'd like to fill it with good stuff, rather…" — and Premier Guide Miami was in the room when it happened.

A master chef turned avid traveler, Anthony Bourdain is not only a star in the kitchen — he has going through airport security down to a science as well. Premier Guide Miami caught up with the traveling chef to learn about some of his food discoveries and his then-new show, The Layover on the Travel Channel.

In what ways does The Layover differ from No Reservations?

Other than the fact that it's a lot more fast-paced and a lot more scenes jammed in there and destinations — unlike No Reservations, it is our hope that this will actually be useful. No Reservations is all about me, me, me and me having fun and satisfying my curiosity about the world, and less about whether or not anybody in the audience will actually be able to replicate the experience. So with this show we're actually trying to be useful. We've unmasked a lot of information about places around the world over the course of eight years. We've gotten pretty good at cutting right to the heart of the matter. If you're only in Rome for 24 hours, I feel very strongly you should be eating cacio e pepe rather than in a bad touristy restaurant.

Describe some of the destinations featured on the show.

Particularly local, unique-to-that-location places that we've come to know and like, or that in some way I'm personally connected to or clued into over the course of many years making television — and all of them in locations where a traveler might reasonably expect to find themselves at some point in their life. As with No Reservations, it's not about the museum or the Eiffel Tower or the major sightseeing spots. We kind of assume that you will know about those things already.

What do you do better in New York than any place else?

We're looking for the Hong Kong version or Singapore or Montreal or L.A. or San Francisco version of the pastrami sandwich — the local dive bar as well as uniquely weird and wonderful places around the world that you might not be able to stumble upon yourself. If you find yourself in New York for a brief period of time, I always advise people to go for a pastrami sandwich. So it's very much a departure for us in that, again, you will actually be able to go to these places and do these things.

What is your favorite place in New York to visit or for recommendations?

I'm passionate about the Bemelmans Bar at the Carlisle Hotel because it's just something I think a lot of people who visit New York haven't seen, and yet so many of us grew up with the Madeline books. Particularly as a dad I feel this is something that new parents would think is really cool, especially somebody who's read that book aloud to their kid. And then some quirky restaurant favorites that are for the most part really affordable but a little bit off the beaten track and unique to New York. We did a place on Hudson Street, which is an awesome and mind-boggling relatively new place, the burger bar at the Park Meridian — I only found out about it a few years ago. A good dive bar right in the middle of the upper east side, which you might not know until you stumble on it. So we're trying to be helpful in our own dysfunctional way.

You were able to shed some light on the situation in Haiti and Iraq. How do you feel representing social issues like these?

It's something I never set out to do, but I've changed over the years. I never set out to let politics intrude into a scene. But again and again the elephant in the room makes itself so obvious. You have to ask: what happened to your arms and legs? How did we get to this point? Why are you eating what you're eating? Why are you cooking the way you cook? No Reservations is very much about what's behind who's cooking and why they're cooking what they're cooking. I'm not trying to be an advocate. I'm curious about the world. I'm fascinated by history and current events. On one hand I'm indulging my curiosity. On the other hand, it's clearly something people should know.

Fancy restaurant or a local joint?

Chances are on any given day I would much prefer to be having a beer in a late afternoon in a favorite dive bar or at a family-run place — no tablecloth, not fancy, sleeping dog on the floor. It would be very hard to do better than having cacio e pepe and a local pasta in Rome or a bowl of noodles in Singapore. That's hard to beat for just pure pleasure and satisfaction, especially for a jaded guy like me. Puts me in my happy place every time.

Since you travel a lot and are constantly going from airport to airport, how do you find culinary offerings in airports compare to other countries?

It's really dismaying. I'm a guy who grew up to believe that we have the best of everything in our country. So yes, it's really dismaying when you see better mass transit all over the world. When you go to an airport like Changi in Singapore, it really makes it tough to travel through American airports. They have a swimming pool and a movie theater and actual good food, run by individuals who are nice to you. It makes it all the more enraging when you're treated with callous indifference at these half-assed chains that you find in so many of our airports. We have an immigrant population capable of making extraordinary food. We lag behind, and yet we have all of the elements in place.

When you travel do you worry about gaining weight or any healthy or unhealthy eating habits?

I don't snack. I eat when I'm hungry. I'm not eating to fill some other yearning. If I know I'm having a big lunch, I eat like an Italian — a little coffee and maybe a bit of croissant in the morning, nothing more. And if I know I'm going to overeat tomorrow, I'm going light today. It's all about pace. I look at my stomach as being a limited amount of real estate. And if I'm going to fill it, I'd like to fill it with good stuff, rather than waste it with crap. You're never going to see me eating a Cinnabon.

You mentioned you do not snack — what do you do when you feel hungry and you are not close to a restaurant or home?

I really don't snack. The crew will eat those nasty health bars that taste like stable floor. But they're carrying cameras — I guess they need the energy. I'd rather hold out. I'll wait for the good meal rather than settle for a crummy one now if at all possible. Maybe it helps that I really don't care about sweet much. I'm not a dessert-type guy. And I think there's a point after the third or fourth mouthful of a lot of things where you've pretty much enjoyed it all you're going to enjoy it.

Do you exercise at all?

No.

Are you a note taker?

I'm a yellow legal pad kind of guy. I'll write very, very quickly on yellow legal. If I'm writing a book I'll take notes on the road and then do the actual writing when I'm home. Voiceovers for the show, scripts — stuff like that I'll do on my laptop while I'm in a backup car, hotel, wherever.

On your travels do you plan layovers to experience a particular city or place?

I have, not often. I travel so much and have so little time at home with my family. But every once in a while I have. A two-day layover in Singapore would be something I've done before — I see friends, catch up, and get some good food. Also Hong Kong. I hate the thought of just changing planes in Hong Kong and at least not running into town and grabbing some roast goose or something.

Is it a challenge for you to highlight these foreign locations to the American audience?

The challenge is making places like Saudi Arabia or Liberia more accessible. And I think the way you do that is you sit people down at a table and you relate. It takes us four hours to do a five-minute meal scene for No Reservations — that's the end result of a lot of time spent getting to know the family, playing with the kids, petting the dog, and drinking the local moonshine. I think it's bringing people into the human dimension, relating to people over food, being open to the experience on camera — that maybe allows those off-the-road places and cultures to be at least more emotionally accessible and understandable to American viewers.

Do you think doing these shows affect your cooking abilities as a chef?

It's taken me out of the kitchen. I think anytime you're able to see how other people live around the world, it makes you more compassionate and tolerant. Maybe I'm a little bit smarter, a little bit more optimistic about my fellow man. But as a cook, if anything, it's taken me away from cooking. The one way it may have changed my cooking usefully is seeing how much people make with very little around the world, and how delicious so many cultures' food is that you wouldn't think of as being delicious. It's made me a lot less likely to waste food. It's made me a little more careful about the respect with which I treat it.

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Do you miss the kitchen?

I miss the first beer after being in the restaurant kitchen — that sense of triumph and camaraderie of having survived another busy night, the sense of certainty, the sense of closeness to the people you work with, of being part of this sort of cult. I miss that. I had 28 years of it. I don't miss standing on my feet for 16 hours, not at my age.

Any chance of you opening a restaurant?

I would never open a restaurant. If I've learned anything in 28 years of being in the restaurant business, it's that I never want to own a restaurant. That's a marriage.

Since you travel a lot, how do you prepare yourself for TSA?

I'm very, very, very good at going through security and I'm unflustered. I don't get cranky. I just go limp, like a guy who's been to prison many, many times. I'm ready for the worst. I always wear a particular set of shoes. I've got my belt off by the time I'm anywhere near the machine. I dress for security. I'm not approaching that thing with any liquids or gels. I've got my shit together. I don't want to be that guy that everybody else is waiting for. Long, painful experience has taught me that other than relax, there's really nothing you can do.

You are often in an airport — any favorite airport bars?

The last place I want to be drinking is an airport. I like Narita in Tokyo, Changi in Singapore, and Frankfurt's not bad. It's cool because Frankfurt tweets you if you're complaining about something — if you complain about an experience you're having at Frankfurt airport, they get back to you in like three seconds and try to help.

Wouldn't it be great to have a genuine dive bar at an airport?

My gosh, I would schedule myself around that. That would be the answer to a prayer.

How did you come up with the idea for The Layover?

Probably in Italy. The idea came together slowly over time in a series of post-shoot sessions. We'd finish the day shooting and we'd be sitting in some terrible cocktail lounge in a hotel somewhere, getting our nightcap before we'd stagger off to our rooms — at which point we tend to blue-sky and throw ideas around. It's where we make a lot of our major decisions, a lot of our creative decisions as well on the show.

Where was the last place you traveled for the first time?

Just a couple weeks ago I went to Mozambique. It happens all the time. I'd never been to Croatia. For No Reservations I try very, very hard, whenever possible, to go someplace I've never been.

What country do you think the average American would have the most difficulty adjusting to food-wise?

There are parts of China where it would be a real shift if you grew up eating meat and potatoes from rural America. Sichuan Province might be a real shock to the system. Certainly Saudi Arabia — the traditional Arab meals, particularly in the desert where you're eating with your hands, sitting around all eating out of one big platter. The very things that are in the end the most rewarding for me — the learning curve is maybe a little steep early on.

Has there ever been a restaurant that refused to be on one of your shows?

Sure, it's happened. In Eastern Europe, a lot of places in the post-communist world are instinctively wary of cameras. Someone pointing a camera at you during Soviet times was seldom a good thing — it generally meant they were coming for you the next day. So a lot of that carried over. They don't care about any business it might bring them. They're just worried. Also really exclusive places. And In-N-Out Burger didn't want us shooting there years ago. We really wanted to shoot inside an In-N-Out Burger and they were not excited at the prospect.

Do you have a preference for writing or filming television shows?

Hard to say. They're just so linked at this point. Making the television shows, seeing all of these places gives me things to write about. So I'm always writing in my head. It's all part of a big, happy mess at this point.

Have you ever gotten sick while sampling dishes for the show?

I've been really ill twice on the show. Once was after Namibia — I was not well after a tribal situation. And then Liberia, I was really, really badly poisoned.

Is your crew as open as you are in eating while filming?

Yes, they are as adventurous. Most of the time they'll sit down and eat after me or before me in the same environment. Everybody on the crew more or less eats and is open to eating what I eat. You don't work on this show year after year if you've got a fussy palate. In fact, maybe the most enjoyable thing about making these shows is that we get to hang out after and have a casual meal together.

After this many years of filming, is it still fun for you?

It is still fun. It's still exciting. The minute it stops being fun I will stop doing it.

What do you listen to when traveling?

I bring a lot of stuff with me — rock and roll, early funk, movie soundtracks, rap, mid-'80s pop, everything.

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Anthony Bourdain on the layover — this is the kind of conversation Premier Guide Miami was built to have. Follow us for more Love Miami.