Anthony Bourdain Day: Chef's notes on Glasgow and what…

Anthony Bourdain Day: Chef's notes on Glasgow and what TV star said of 'one of my favourite cities'

June 25 marks Anthony Bourdain Day, a celebration of the legendary chef, author, traveller and presenter who sadly passed away too soon, in June 2018.

This Saturday, the globally revered and incredibly likeable food personality, who brought the tastes of many a dinner table to our TV screens through his CNN travel series, would have turned 66 years old.

Touching every corner of the globe, Bourdain included Glasgow on his travel list, making a number of stops in the city.

In 2015, Scotland was the subject of a Parts Unknown episode and the American took trips to the sadly missed Old College Bar, Rogano, Mother India and the famous University Cafe.

Bourdain was so impressed by his experiences of Glasgow, his 'field notes' from his trips here reveal it as 'one of his favourite cities on earth'.

Anthony Bourdain at the University Cafe (CNN/Zero point Zero Production Inc)

Published on the explorepartsunknown website, the chef's 'behind the scenes' description of Glasgow talks of our city as a place 'for a beer and a beating'.

Here's what he said: "Glasgow is one of my favourite cities on earth. I was going to say one of my favourite cities in Europe, but is Glasgow Europe? I don’t think so. It feels somehow older than that.

"To many outsiders, Glasgow is seen as a hard-scrabble, even fearsome place, a place that history has moved on from. But there is definitely a sense here that something different is around the corner. There’s a terrific music scene in Glasgow. The pubs are among the finest anywhere. They say Glaswegians have more fun at a funeral than people in Edinburgh have at a wedding. That does invite, from time to time, a fair amount of knuckle-headed behaviour. If you’re looking for a beer and a beating, Glasgow will happily provide it.

"Like a lot of cities, Glasgow is divided. The river Clyde divides the north and south sides. But the bigger, more tangible divide is between east and west. In the west things are expected to be nice: nice cars, nice families, all the nice stuff that affluence supposedly brings. In the east, that’s where you grow up hard; where things are rougher; where you’ve got, according to legend, to fight to live every day. Heading north out of Glasgow, Scotland quickly becomes something else—a savagely beautiful, harsh, but absolutely mesmerising landscape that seems to have changed not at all for thousands, even millions of years."

And if you haven't seen Bourdain's tour of Glasgow and Scotland, you can catch the full episode on YouTube, here. To see his field notes of his Scotland trip in full, you can visit the explorepartsunknown website here.

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