Television series
Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown
- Dip in and out
Bourdain's late masterpiece: a travel show that keeps forgetting to be about food. He eats, sure, but mostly he sits with strangers in Beirut, the Congo, rural Kentucky, and lets them talk. It's melancholic, curious, occasionally furious about the world, and shot like a film rather than a program. Watch it for the company, not the itinerary.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you like travel shows that linger over a table and a conversation more than the sights, and want a host whose curiosity and sharp wit carry you into places you'd never plan to visit.
Skip it if you want tidy recipes or a lighter, cheerful tour, since the mood often turns heavy when the cameras reach conflict zones and hard lives.
What it asks of you: An hour an episode across twelve seasons, it moves at an unhurried pace and asks you to sit through long, quiet conversations over meals.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations2005
Bourdain's earlier, scrappier show on the Travel Channel — rougher around the edges, funnier in a meaner way, and the direct ancestor of everything Parts Unknown became.
But Lower budget, choppier editing, and Bourdain hadn't yet softened into the more reflective version you meet later.
Somebody Feed Phil2018
Phil Rosenthal does the same globe-trotting food thing but with total, uncool delight instead of world-weary cool — a genuinely joyful palate cleanser.
But If you came for edge and melancholy, Phil's relentless sunniness might feel like the wrong emotional register entirely.
Ugly Delicious2018
David Chang turns single dishes — fried rice, pizza, tacos — into arguments about authenticity, immigration and class, with real chef-brain heat behind it.
But More talky-panel-discussion than travelogue; less wandering, more debate.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Julia Child: The French Chef1963
Both use a meal as an excuse to talk about something bigger, but where Bourdain circles grief and politics, Child radiates unguarded optimism — the same idea in a completely different key.
Julia Child, decades before Bourdain, using food on television to open a door into another culture — clumsy, delighted, utterly sincere, and just as formative for the genre.
But Slow, studio-bound, and relentlessly cheerful — the tonal opposite of Bourdain's roving skepticism.
More like this (7)
Chef's Table2015
Gorgeous, near-worshipful portraits of individual chefs and their obsessions — the visual grammar Bourdain's crew helped popularize, taken to its glossiest extreme.
But Reverent to a fault; there's little of Bourdain's skepticism or interest in the people who aren't the genius at the stove.
The Mind of a Chef2012
Bourdain produced and narrated this one too — a nerdier, technique-obsessed show that follows chefs like Sean Brock and April Bloomfield down rabbit holes of craft.
But Narrower focus on cooking method means less of the cultural and political wandering that makes Parts Unknown sing.
A Cook's Tour2002
The very first Bourdain show — a younger, hungrier, less famous man eating his way around the world before he'd found his voice or his audience.
But Dated production values and a host still figuring out who he is on camera; interesting mostly as an origin story.
Salt Fat Acid Heat2018
Samin Nosrat's warm, science-curious series about the four elements of good cooking, filmed with the same lush, place-loving camera as Parts Unknown.
But It's about technique and joy, not politics or grief — a gentler, less haunted watch altogether.
Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives2007
The unpretentious opposite number: Guy Fieri celebrating strip-mall comfort food with zero cynicism, which is its own kind of honesty about how most people actually eat.
But No cultural context, no melancholy, no travel beyond America's highways — pure junk-food comfort viewing.
Documentary Now!2015
Parody as tribute: the show only works because Parts Unknown's style became so recognizable it could be lovingly mocked shot for shot.
A pitch-perfect mockumentary anthology with an episode, 'Juan Likes Rice and Chicken,' that lovingly skewers the brooding-narrator, exotic-locale travel-food show Bourdain basically invented.
But It's comedy, not documentary, and if you're not already steeped in the genre's tics, some jokes will sail past you.
Sans Soleil1983
Strip away the food and the CNN budget and this is the same animal: a lone, melancholic narrator using distant places to think out loud about the world and himself.
Chris Marker's essay film wanders from Japan to Guinea-Bissau on a hushed, philosophical voiceover about memory, displacement and the impossibility of really knowing a place — restless curiosity distilled to its purest form.
But No plot, no chef, barely any food — it's a meditation, not a travelogue, and demands patience rather than appetite.
People
Cast
Anthony BourdainHost
Production
- Anthony BourdainExecutive Producer
Recommended by
Chef's Table, Salt Fat Acid Heat, Ugly Delicious, The Trip, Somebody Feed Phil, The Trip, El Bulli: Cooking in Progress, Spinning Plates, Kitchen Nightmares, Julia, An Idiot Abroad, Better Late Than Never, Long Way Round, Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, The Mind of a Chef, Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted, Step Up to the Plate, Barbecue, Chelsea, The Trip to Italy, Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, A Cook's Tour, A Chef's Life, Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern, Departures, Man v. Food, The Detour with David Chang, The Layover, The Great Food Truck Race, The Best Thing I Ever Ate, The Taste, The Restaurant, Travel Man: 48 Hours in..., Hot Ones, A Film About Coffee, The Getaway, Two Fat Ladies, Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner, Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy, Great British Menu, Ride with Norman Reedus, Globe Trekker, Dark Tourist, The Kindness Diaries