This evening's episode of CNN's attempt to distract from its awful feature programming like Crossfire is notable not because it is perhaps the culmination of making Tony (I suppose as a fan I can call him that) more truly global, but also why he will endure as making what for North Americans, is refined eating, more than the aesthetic televisual experience given to us by Julia Child. Boudain's program premise of visiting cultures and their cuisines has gone under various names from his book to the Food Network to the Travel Channel and now on CNN weekends paired with some Anderson Cooper reports. the latest version Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown and most particularly this episode: Copenhagen, Sunday October 6 at 9pm ET/PT, shows how this program format and his writing style has achieved a kind of cinematic and gastronomic synthesis. This was the best of all those various iterations of craziness, snarkiness, and sometimes risky and even stupid behavior. For some reason this particular episode combined all of the best reasons to not only hate the Danes, but to go to perhaps the best restaurant on the planet, NOMA
Noma is a two Michelin star restaurant run by chef René Redzepi in Copenhagen, Denmark. The name is a portmanteau of the two Danish words "nordisk" (Nordic) and "mad" (food), and the restaurant is known for its reinvention and interpretation of the Nordic Cuisine. In 2010, 2011 and 2012, it has been ranked as the Best Restaurant in the World by Restaurant magazine
If there is a reason to think of slow food as a kind of lifelong graduate seminar, then this is the best reason to watch this one episode, since it does combine Bourdain's sacred and profane approach to cuisine and culture in probably the best version of all his programs and without the production issues that have tended to make his Scandinavian themed programs less palatable. It'll be repeated next weekend; and if you've never seen his schtick before, this is one of the best examples.
11:02 PM PT:
Curious how this wasn't mentioned: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/...
Spain’s El Celler de Can Roca seized the title of the world’s best restaurant from Denmark’s Noma on April 29, one month after dozens of people came down with a bout of food poisoning from the Copenhagen eatery.
It swapped places with Noma, the two Michelin-starred Danish restaurant which spent three years at the top but which apologized in March after it left 63 customers suffering from vomiting and diarrhea over a five-day period