Why Anthony Bourdain Hated Brunch With A Passion

Witty, charming, and full of culinary sass, Anthony Bourdain loved good food. However, the chef and cookbook author was also a discerning judge when it came to deciding which dishes didn't pass muster. For instance, Bourdain loathed pretentious Kobe burgers, described Chicago deep dish pizza as "an abomination," and refused to eat food served on airplanes. He also hated brunch with a passion, according to an interview with The Globe and Mail back in 2016.

"No matter how badly I screwed up in my life or how unemployable I was, I could always get a job as a brunch cook because nobody wants to do brunch," said Bourdain. "I would find myself cooking these massive brunches on weekends, often for cash off the books, often under another name. So for me, the smell of eggs cooking and French toast and home fries in the oven was always the smell of shame and defeat and humiliation."

Bourdain described himself in a Men's Journal interview as a "long-time drug addict" and a product of 1980s drug culture that pervaded professional kitchens. By the sounds of it, he equated these low periods of substance abuse with having to prepare brunch orders to stay afloat financially, and it was this correlation that made him dislike this mid-morning meal with such gusto. 

While Bourdain hated brunch for many years and avoided preparing foods like hollandaise sauce for eggs Benedict, it was fatherhood that eventually coaxed him into whipping up eggs and bacon again. Many chefs tend to dislike brunch service, so Bourdain's distaste for it didn't make him an anomaly on the culinary scene. However, their reasons differed. Firstly, brunch dishes are often unimaginative in comparison to dinner menus, which offer more variety and use greater technical skill. Secondly, chefs tend to be exhausted during brunch because they've often worked the dinner shift the evening before. 

So, when is brunch, technically? Mid-morning seems to be the consensus — seeing as the term brunch itself is a portmanteau of the words breakfast and lunch — but some restaurants will happily serve it until much later into the afternoon on the weekends. For instance, some of the best brunch spots in San Francisco and the best restaurants to grab brunch in Boston serve dishes like pancakes, eggs, and shakshuka until 4 p.m.