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Eric Ripert didn’t meet and befriend Anthony Bourdain until Tony was well into his 40s, but, in a new film, he gets to have a moment with a teenage version of his late buddy.
In the A24 biopic “Tony,” out Aug. 7, a wayward teenage Bourdain, played by Dominic Sessa, 23, works as a dishwasher and line cook one summer in Provincetown in the 1970s, falling in love with the grimy, gritty restaurant world that would become his life and work. Antonio Banderas also stars as his boss and mentor, Emila Jones is his crush, and Leo Woodall and Stavros Halkias play misfit kitchen staffers.
In the closing scene, Ripert, the acclaimed 61-year-old Le Bernardin chef and restaurateur, has a cameo, interviewing Bourdain about why he wants to be a chef and attend the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in Hyde Park, NY.
The movie “describes a different Anthony Bourdain that I didn’t know. I’m basically accepting Tony to the Culinary Institute – it’s a defining moment in his life and his career,” Ripert told The Post. “It’s the moment he starts taking cooking seriously.”
In real life, Bourdain graduated from the CIA in 1978 and went on to work in numerous New York City kitchens, including the Rainbow Room and Coco Pazzo Teatro, for decades. In 1999, he was working as the executive chef at Les Halles in the Flatiron when the New Yorker published an essay of his — “Don’t Eat Before Reading This” — about the brutal realities and dirty secrets of restaurant kitchens. It caused a sensation and launched his career as a writer and TV host.
A year later, the essay was expanded into Bourdain’s first book, “Kitchen Confidential,” a chronicle of sex, drugs, rock-and-roll and oyster shucking.
Ripert first met Bourdain the same year the book came out. He invited him to launch at Le Bernardin to thank him for his positive portrayal in the book.
In the memoir, Bourdain noted he had a “never order fish on a Monday” rule — claiming that restaurants sometimes unload their weekend stock and claim it’s fresh — but said he’d make an exception for the pristinely sourced fare at Ripert’s three-Michelin-star seafood temple.
“I know they are buying their fish directly from the source,” Bourdain wrote, praising Ripert’s genius and commitment to quality ingredients
The French chef wasn’t expecting the accolades.
“I was pleased by all the compliments and very surprised,” he said. “We had so much fun at that lunch … He asked me when I’d be free again. He wanted to invite me to a dive bar he loved.”
Later that week, the refined French chef found himself inside the 50th Street subway station at the Hell’s Kitchen dive bar Siberia with his new chain-smoking, leather jacket-wearing friend from New Jersey.
“It was a culture shock. I didn’t know that a kind of bar like that existed. It was my first dive bar experience,” said the straight-laced Antibes native known for his calm demeanor.
They went on to become the closest of friends.
In 2013, Ripert appeared with Bourdain on his travel show “Parts Unknown,” as his culinary sidekick.
Together, they visited Peru, touring through the remote Andes Mountains on a quest for the rarest variety of wild cocoa — considered the finest chocolate in the world.
“When I was with him, I always felt like nothing wrong could happen to us. He would always be so cool and so protective and so natural — making you feel comfortable and safe next to him,” Ripert recalled.
“For me that was very important — especially when we were traveling to Peru in the middle of the jungle where it was a little bit dangerous,” he said, adding that Bourdain talked him out of carrying a machete with him.
“He’s laughing and he says, ‘Look, don’t embarass us — put it back in your room, you don’t need a machete. Nothing is going to happen. He’s like, ‘Dude this is nothing.’”
For another episode, the pair visited China where Bourdain made him try a Sichuan hotpot for the first time.
“He was trying to take me out of my comfort zone and surprise me and embarrass me sometimes, but it was well understood that I was Tony’s sidekick and I was going to play along,” Ripert said.
“The interaction on camera and off camera was very different. When we were off camera, Tony was not trying to take me out of my comfort zone — we had a real friendship with a lot of respect.”
Ripert says he’ll always admire how human Bourdain was.
“You were always traveling with him — the food was an excuse to discover the countries he was visiting.
“We all loved that because he was not lecturing you, he was inspiring you.”
In 2018, Ripert was shooting “Parts Unknown” with Bourdain in Alsace, France, when he found his comrade unresponsive in his hotel room. He’d taken his own life at age 61.
“Anthony was my best friend. An exceptional human being, so inspiring and generous,” Ripert said in a statement he shared on social media at the time.
“One of the great storytellers who connected with so many. I pray he is at peace from the bottom of my heart.”
Being a part of the upcoming movie helped Ripert to stay connected with the late great, and see a different side of him.
“I thought it was a nice way to remember Tony,” he said. “The Anthony Bourdain that I met and knew was very different than the Anthony Bourdain when he was 19.”
Ripert noted that the Bourdain he engaged with was “charismatic” and “very confident,” not the rebellious, mendacious teen of the movie who is just finding his path in life.
In the film, Tony learns how to prepare lobster thermidor to impress his crush. Offscreen, Ripert remembers his friend as much more humble.
“We cooked for each other many times. Especially when we were in the Hamptons. It was when he had the most time to cook. He was renting a house for the summer. He was an excellent cook and a great technician. He always downplayed that side of him,” he said.
“When he was cooking for me, he was reproducing professional kitchen in his kitchen – mis en place – he was very methodical. He didn’t want me to do anything at all. He wanted to do everything himself. Whatever he was cooking was always fantastic.”
One day Bourdain whipped up a particularly delicious spaghetti vongole (pasta with clams) that Ripert’s never forgotten.
“They were so delicious I was blown away. It’s a fairly simple dish, but a lot of people don’t make it as delicious as it could be,” he said. “I remember that dish, still.”
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