Photographed for issue three of Observer Food Monthly, the chef is all innocence and enthusiasm, on the cusp of life-changing success
He sits at a round two-top in Les Halles restaurant on Park Avenue. The wall behind him is white-tiled and there are a couple of shabby little laser-printed notices. It’s obviously somewhere back of house, but Anthony Bourdain’s whites are immaculate and there’s a pristine cloth on the table. He holds a 12” knife like he knows how to use one. It is 2001 and Bourdain has just published Kitchen Confidential, the bestselling exposé of his life as a chef, which will change everything both for him and, arguably, many others in the same line of work.
For Chris Floyd, a young photographer with a reputation for brilliant portraits of rock stars, this commission, for issue three of Observer Food Monthly, was different. “I remember thinking it’s just going to be some shouty, annoying guy who’s got a book to plug, and I remember not going into it with a great deal of belief, really,” he says. “Within 90 seconds, I realised this man was special. He was physically incredibly striking. Chain-smoked, constantly. He had unbelievable charisma.”
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