Bourdain to Cook at Les Halles, Yearns for Giant Food CourtsTony Bourdain was at the Union Square Barnes & Noble last night to do a joint reading and signing with Michael Ruhlman, author of The Elements of Cooking. Interviewing Bourdain is effortless: The man is a nonstop font of opinions and bons mots, so we just took out our notebook and started writing. What, for instance, did he think of the reopening of his favorite bar, Siberia? (“When Siberia closed my life as an alcoholic ended,” he said wistfully. “Tracey [Westmoreland] is a man of many mysteries. I’m skeptical. Siberia reopening? [Sarcastically] Yeah, I’d like to see that.” Bourdain also told us that, sometime in the next two weeks, he was going to go back for one night to his old job at Les Halles, personally working the sauté station on a crowded night for his TV show, No Reservations. And he would not be alone back in the trenches: A few feet away, Eric Ripert would be working the grill station, cooking meat all night.
Given all of his travels, what does Bourdain think New York needs? A giant food court, of course.