How the bad boy of world cuisine was tamed

In his 2000 best-seller Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, Anthony Bourdain uncovered the innards of the culinary world - and documented his and other chefs' personal descent into a drug-fueled hell while he was at it. The book became a New York Times bestseller and was followed by A Cook's Tour, which took aim at other kitchens he visited during his globetrotting trips around the world: "I get excited by everything that shakes my brain," he says with a devilish little smile.

Bourdain worked in kitchens in New York City for 28 years, ultimately working his way up to chef-at-large at Brasserie Les Halles in Manhattan, where he got the ideas for the book that made him a celebrity. Late last month, he and other culinary experts from Manhattan - including Daniel Boulud, David Chang, David Bouley, Wylie Dufresne and Thomas Keller - convened in the Basque resort of San Sebastián to talk about their experiences at a food symposium called San Sebastián Gastronomika, which drew 12,000 industry professionals. Spanish representatives of nouvelle cuisine included the stellar chefs Ferran Adrià, Juan Mari Arzak, Carme Ruscalleda and Martín Berasategui.

Bourdain admitted that he is a keen devotee of Basque cuisine

After telling his audience at the Kursaal convention center that they were "damn lucky" to be living in San Sebastián, Bourdain admitted that he is a devotee of Spanish gastronomy, in particular Basque gastronomy, and proceeded to tell a beaming Juan Mari Arzak - considered the father of Basque haute cuisine and a personal friend of Bourdain's - that "if I die, I would like to have the last bite at your restaurant."

This intense, outspoken man, who has traded in his apron for a successful career as a writer and host of food-related TV programs such as No Reservations, admitted that he likes to provoke his friends and interviewees, and that he is deeply suspicious of food critics.

"You just can't trust someone who complains that a dish has too many truffles. After doing the same thing for a long time, you lose the sense of novelty," he told his audience in San Sebastián, a city of around 200,000 people that shares with Paris the distinction of having three restaurants with three Michelin stars, the top culinary distinction, besides scores of bars serving traditional and innovative tapas, known as pintxos here.

Although Bourdain's uncouth language and roguish attitude remain an integral part of his persona, his earlier fierceness seems to have abated somewhat. "I am 54 and a father; I have a three-year-old daughter, I can't be a bad boy now," he says, with a 'that's-life' kind of expression on his face. It would appear that little Ariane and his wife, Ottavia, have filed the lion's claws.

The man who turned the spotlight on the little miseries that make up the behind-the-scenes life of many restaurants confesses that things today are not as bad as they were back in his time, when he wrote about drug-fueled sessions of culinary creativity in Kitchen Confidential. The atmosphere now, he says, is very different, although he also admits that he personally never worked at haute cuisine restaurants, but in more run-of-the-mill places. "And I was never a great chef," he adds. "I was never a creative genius. Although I don't particularly like what a chef does, I respect them because I understand that their job is genuinely difficult.

Bourdain has a new book out in the United States, Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People who Cook, which also deals with culinary affairs. But his next literary project is taking him to new territory: "I've gone over to fiction. I am writing a detective novel," he says. "And I will keep traveling to shoot more episodes in the [TV] series. Oh, and I'm going to be on The Simpsons!" Being a cartoon figure, he says happily, "is better than winning Bocuse d'Or!" - in reference to the prestigious award named after the French chef Paul Bocuse, who is credited with reinventing 20th-century cuisine.

The former chef said that he could not see his own daughter growing up to be a chef, "although deep down I would be proud; but I would tell her not to fall in love with another chef."