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Anthony Michael Bourdain ( bor-DAYN; June 25, 1956 – June 8, 2018) was an American celebrity chef, author and travel documentarian. He starred in programs focusing on the exploration of international culture, cuisine, and the human condition.

Bourdain was a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in 1978, and a veteran of many professional kitchens during his career, which included several years spent as an executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles in Manhattan. In the late 1990s, Bourdain wrote an essay about the ugly secrets of a Manhattan restaurant, but was having difficulty getting it published. According to The New York Times, his mother Gladys—then an editor and writer at the paper—handed her son's essay to friend and fellow editor Esther B. Fein, the wife of David Remnick, editor of the magazine The New Yorker. Remnick ran Bourdain's essay in the magazine, kickstarting Bourdain's career and legitimizing the point-blank tone that would become his trademark. The success of the article was followed a year later by the publication of a New York Times best-selling book, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly (2000).

Bourdain's first food and world-travel television show A Cook's Tour ran for 35 episodes on the Food Network in 2002 and 2003. In 2005, he began hosting the Travel Channel's culinary and cultural adventure programs Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations (2005–2012) and The Layover (2011–2013). In 2013, he began a three-season run as a judge on The Taste and consequently switched his travelogue programming to CNN to host Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown. Although best known for his culinary writings and television presentations along with several books on food and cooking and travel adventures, Bourdain also wrote both fiction and historical nonfiction. On June 8, 2018, Bourdain died while on location in France, filming for Parts Unknown, of suicide by hanging.