A 19-year-old Anthony Bourdain travels to Provincetown and stumbles into the chaotic world of a restaurant kitchen, setting off a summer that will shape the course of his life.
In 1975, one summer proved a transportive experience for a then 19-year-old, “spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive, and thoughtless” Anthony Bourdain (Dominic Sessa – ‘The Holdovers’), as the late author and food connoisseur wrote in his 2000 book ‘Kitchen Confidential’. Arriving on the beachy tip of Cape Cod, he cut his teeth working there in several of the seaside community’s restaurants, including the famed Ciro & Sal’s, which took him under their wing. Antonio Banderas plays Ciro, the Brazilian restaurateur who hired Bourdain, and Leo Woodall (‘Tuner’, ‘Bridget Jones: Mad About a Boy’) and Stavros Halkias are two of Bourdain’s co-workers.
Bourdain’s estate is firmly behind Matt Johnson’s film, saying: “We chose to support ‘Tony’ because it is not a standard biopic and doesn’t attempt to summarize a life. It depicts one transformative summer in 1975 in Provincetown, Massachusetts”.
Anthony Bourdain made his mark in the culinary world as an executive chef in Manhattan during the 1980s. His breakthrough came with the release of Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly’, a bestselling memoir that propelled him to stardom. Known for his raw honesty and no-nonsense perspective on food and culture, he became a beloved figure through his Travel Channel series ‘Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations’, which aired for eight seasons. He took his own life in 2018.
USA 2026 Matt Johnson 106m
