When Anthony Bourdain brings his Guts & Glory tour to the Schuster Center on Sunday, it will be his first visit to Dayton. It’s also his first solo tour, and Bourdain describes it as ” a rant, a talk, even some kind of imitation of stand-up,” with video clips and a lot of Q-and-A. He said he’s been secretly doing 5 -10 minutes sets, practicing in comedy clubs around New York City. “The audiences are incredibly honest,” he says, “and what better way to you find out right away in a brutally painful fashion whether something is amusing or not.”
The notoriously opinionated Chef, who gained fame as an author of Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, launched the tour just three days after the final episode of his eighth season of “No Reservations” on Travel Channel. His second/final season of The Layover launches on The Travel Channel the night after his live show here in Dayton. He says there are 10 episodes of action-packed, food-filled travel layovers filmed in Chicago, Atlanta, Dublin, New Orleans, Paris, Philadelphia, Sa Paolo, Seattle, Taipei and Toronto. Each episode will have him telling stories about a place, it’s people and their food.
After that, Bourdain will move over to CNN to launch a new travel docu-series, to launch in early 2013. The show will be shot on location and examine cultures from around the world through their food and dining and travel rituals. “I’m really looking forward to coming over to CNN. I think the world is going to get a whole lot bigger for me,” said Bourdain, “traveling with producers that understand shooting in places that are difficult. I should be able to make smarter tv, but it will still be a travel based show”
In a group interview for the tour, I had a chance to ask a couple of questions and here’s how it went:
DD: This tour has you making eight stops in under two weeks. How does a travel expert pack for such an excursion?
AB: I pack for security, and it’s all carry-on—shoes that slip on and off quickly, jackets that I can beat into submission, shirts that don’t require pressing. I pack light. I’ve always got my iPad with a lot of entertaining apps and books I’ve downloaded to keep me busy when I’m hanging out in the airport.
DD: What can your audience expect from the show?
AB: I’ll talk about food and travel, whatever’s pissing me off that day, whatever’s exciting me that day, travel tips. Of course I’m going to be talking about people, GuyFieri just opened a 500 seat restaurant in my hometown, that’s very much on my mind. I worry for Adam Richman’s health,( the host of Man vs Food) I expect he’ll die of a heart attack soon. . I’ll come out and talk for an hour or so and answer questions. It could go in any direction, depending on how good or how bad the questions are.
DD: You’ve just finished The Taste, ABC’s new cooking competition show, how was that experience?
AB: It’s a network reality show, it’s completely different from what I’ve done on No Reservations- there I had complete control, where we went, what we did, I really didn’t care if people like it. This was a really tight show and I had a really enjoyable time doing it. I coached a team of cooks, we judged them and one wins.
DD: If you had to choose 5 ingredients to put in a basket for a Chopped style competition, what would you include?
AB: I’d keep it really basic, a chicken, egg, salt, butter and an onion – keep it simple – you can learn every thing you need to know about a cook by what they do with these ingredients.
DD: What’s on your rider? What do you have stocked in your dressing room before the show?
AB: I never eat before a show. I’m really simple, I just want a six pack of some local beer and Red Bull.
As much as Bourdain has a reputation for being a hard ass, I have to say, I found him charming and
real. I think the audience for the show will get exactly what they’ll expect from the celebrity chef, world traveler and hater of most Food Network Chefs. He’s got an opinion, he’s happy to share it, and he’s entertaining as hell. Of course, this show is not for the easily offended, Bourdain does not censor his thoughts or his words. If you’re brave enough to ask a question, be ready for whatever might come out of his mouth. And don’t ask him about Dayton restaurants- he’s never been here, he won’t know about them!
Tickets are still available for the Sunday, Nov 18th show and are available at Tickets CenterStage for $52-$122, plus service charges.
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