Anthony Bourdain was born in New York City in 1956, studied at Vassar College, and graduated from the Culinary Institute of America. His exposé of New York restaurants Don’t Eat Before Reading This was published in The New Yorker in 1999 attracting huge attention in America and the UK and formed the basis of his bestselling book, Kitchen Confidential.

Anthony Bourdain's forthcoming book, A Cook's Tour, is published in December 2001 to accompany a 22-part television series to be shown in early 2002 in which he travels the world on an unconventional culinary tour, including sampling the still-beating heart of a live cobra, dining with gangsters in Russia, and returning to his roots in the tiny fishing village of La Teste where he first ate an oyster as a child.

Anthony Bourdain has plied his profession on both sides of the Atlantic for over twenty years. Now married and a resident of New York City, Anthony Bourdain is the executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles.