Skip to main content

London Calling: Bourdain's Trip to the Culinary Capital Leaves Me Hungry

I love the Travel Channel's Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations. It's a travelogue with a bit of snark, a love letter to the culinary world from a guy you'd sooner expect to sneer than smile. So why did last night's episode, in which Tony traveled to London and Edinburgh, leave me so cold?

At the start of the episode (in addition to footage of Tony recording a song with British trip hop group Morcheeba), Tony posed an interesting question: what happened to British cooking? With the very best traditional ingredients, centuries of good food, and a history of uniting those two things, where did British cuisine go wrong? It's an intriguing thought to ponder, even if it does seem, in the age of London gastronomy, a little outdated. But still, in a land that can produce Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver, Nigel Slater, Tom Aikens, Nigella Lawson, Marco Pierre White, and a slew of other celebrity chefs, why does the turkey twizzler exist?

I was excited to see Tony tackle the London restaurant scene. After all, for nearly two decades England has been my home away from home and I hoped to see Tony heading off the beaten path for some novel culinary explorations before jetting off to Edinburgh to do the same up north.

Sadly, I was really let down by this episode. I think it was a bit of a misstep to combine the London and Edinburgh chapters into one episode (both could have been expanded into their own separate entities) and I don't think that the question was ever answered, not fully anyway.

Yes, British cuisine saw a downward turn a few decades back and somehow became entrenched in the minds of Americans (not this one, mind) as synonymous with overcooked, boiled foods. Since then, London has become one of the world's great gastronomic capitals but I wanted to Tony to really cut away the gristle from the meat and answer that query: how did it happen and why?

I wanted answers, not just the sight of Tony eating a deep-fried haggis with crime writer Ian Rankin. For an episode that I had anticipating for so long, I do have to say that I felt let down and disappointed, as though Bourdain had missed the point of London, missed the opportunity to explore its backstreets, farmers markets, haute cuisine temples, and its pub grub.

What did you think? Was the episode another sterling example of Bourdain's chic and smart foodie travel series? Or were you too let down by this sub-par installment? Discuss.

Comments

I am a huge Tony Bourdain fan but I haven't been that impressed with this season of No Reservations. The last episode in New Orleans was interesting but the preceding episode in Greece left much to be desired. It was obvious that Tony did not want to be there and so it was easy to feel, like him, apathetic about the whole experience.

The London show was definitely a let down. I don't know why you would split it up with Scotland as there's so much to explore in London itself. I thought that the questions he was asking about British food were both interesting and important but, ultimately, I felt like he got sidetracked (what was with the music recording stuff?) from those questions and didn't come up with any real answers.
iko said…
I agree that the episode was rushed - having never been to England or Scotland, I would have loved to see an hour devoted to each country, or at least an hour to London. That said, I think Tony did get the answer he was looking for: that processed, convenience foods became too available and easy. He then went on to relate that back to the current state of (food) affairs here in the U.S. This may be the trendy answer to the problem currently, but I don't think it makes it any less valid as a reason why most people have lost their taste for good food.

I did love how riled up Tony got over the blood cake, though. He looked so happy...

Popular posts from this blog

Have a Burning Question for Team Darlton, Matthew Fox, Evangeline Lilly, or Michael Emerson?

Lost fans: you don't have to make your way to the island via Ajira Airways in order to ask a question of the creative team or the series' stars. Televisionary is taking questions from fans to put to Lost 's executive producers/showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse and stars Matthew Fox ("Jack Shephard"), Evangeline Lilly ("Kate Austen"), and Michael Emerson ("Benjamin Linus") for a series of on-camera interviews taking place this weekend. If you have a specific question for any of the above producers or actors from Lost , please leave it in the comments section below . I'll be accepting questions until midnight PT tonight and, while I can't promise I'll be able to ask any specific inquiry due to the brevity of these on-camera interviews, I am looking for some insightful and thought-provoking questions to add to the mix. So who knows: your burning question might get asked after all.

What's Done is Done: The Eternal Struggle Between Good and Evil on the Season Finale of "Lost"

Every story begins with thread. It's up to the storyteller to determine just how much they need to parcel out, what pattern they're making, and when to cut it short and tie it off. With last night's penultimate season finale of Lost ("The Incident, Parts One and Two"), written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, we began to see the pattern that Lindelof and Cuse have been designing towards the last five seasons of this serpentine series. And it was only fitting that the two-hour finale, which pushes us on the road to the final season of Lost , should begin with thread, a loom, and a tapestry. Would Jack follow through on his plan to detonate the island and therefore reset their lives aboard Oceanic Flight 815 ? Why did Locke want to kill Jacob? What caused The Incident? What was in the box and just what lies in the shadow of the statue? We got the answers to these in a two-hour season finale that didn't quite pack the same emotional wallop of previous season

In Defense of Downton Abbey (Or, Don't Believe Everything You Read)

The proof of the pudding, as they say, is in the eating. Which means, if I can get on my soapbox for a minute, that in order to judge something, one ought to experience it first hand. One can't know how the pudding has turned out until one actually tastes it. I was asked last week--while I was on vacation with my wife--for an interview by a journalist from The Daily Mail, who got in touch to talk to me about PBS' upcoming launch of ITV's period drama Downton Abbey , which stars Hugh Bonneville, Dame Maggie Smith, Dan Stevens, Elizabeth McGovern, and a host of others. (It launches on Sunday evening as part of PBS' Masterpiece Classic ; my advance review of the first season can be read here , while my interview with Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes and stars Dan Stevens and Hugh Bonneville can be read here .) Normally, I would have refused, just based on the fact that I was traveling and wasn't working, but I love Downton Abbey and am so enchanted with the proj