The BEST episodes of A Cook's Tour
Every episode of A Cook's Tour ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of A Cook's Tour!
The #1 food writer and television host in the world, Anthony Bourdain reinvented the food travel genre. In his groundbreaking first series, Bourdain travels around the world indulging his taste for local cuisine and eccentric characters.
#1 - San Sebastian: A Food Lover's Town
Season 1 - Episode 8 - Aired 7/5/2002
In San Sebastian, Spain, Tony explores the food-crazed Basque culture. Tony's guide, Chef Luis Irizar, takes Tony into the exclusively male underworld of Basque gastronomic societies. Later, Tony explores the tapas bars that reflect the city's finest example of everyday Basque delights.
#2 - A Taste of Tokyo
Season 1 - Episode 1 - Aired 1/8/2002
Tony travels to Tokyo where he discovers a radically new cooking attitude with a delicate respect for ingredients. He begins in the Tsujiki market, Tokyo's largest fresh fish market. and then is introduced to the sophisticated techniques involved in preparing edomae sushi. Finally, Tony is introduced to the hefty, yes sophisticated, culinary diets of Sumo wrestlers.
#3 - Dining with Geishas
Season 1 - Episode 2 - Aired 1/12/2002
Moving on from Tokyo, Tony decides to look for a more relaxing, traditional Japanese culinary experience in the countryside. Aboard the ultra fast Shinkansan bullet train, Tony travels to an old-style Japanese inn that specializes in kaiseki cuisine, ancient tea ceremony, and local ingredients served by women in traditional geisha attire.
#4 - Eating on the Mekong
Season 1 - Episode 4 - Aired 1/15/2002
Tony soaks up the intoxicating beauty upriver of Ho Chi Minh City as he samples the wares of the Cai Rang floating market. Further upriver, Tony shares laughs, sings, and drinks a lot of Mekong moonshine with the welcoming owners of a duck farm. Although thoroughly seduced by his Vietnam experience, Tony is not sure the royal dish "Bird's Nest Soup" is all it's cracked up to be.
#5 - Wild Delicacies
Season 1 - Episode 5 - Aired 1/22/2002
With a friend along for the ride, Tony travels to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where he explores a food culture that is both pleasing to the palette and slightly frightening. Scouring the local outdoor market for delicacies, they experience a sensory overload, finding everything from deep-fried crickets to flourescent Jello-like substances and steaming containers of tripe and tongues.
#6 - Stuffed Like a Pig
Season 1 - Episode 10 - Aired 7/8/2002
Visiting his boss's family farm in Portugal, Tony helps slaughter and feast on a pig the family has been fattening all year. Having had enough pork, Tony heads to France to experience the rich delights of a foie gras farm. Finally, Tony revisits Arcachon with his brother Chris, where he attempts to devour a veal's head.
#7 - Singapore: New York in Twenty Years
Season 2 - Episode 10 - Aired 4/18/2003
Chef Tony Bourdain decides to find the real Singapore with its multicultural restaurants and markets. He samples prescription food dishes, explores the Geyland Serai Market, rides the clean and efficient subway and sees Singapore's diversity in the "Little India" neighborhood.
#8 - Highland Grub
Season 1 - Episode 21 - Aired 7/12/2002
Adventuring to the outer reaches of the United Kingdom, Tony insists that Scotland is a place of extraordinary cuisine. Beginning in Glasgow, Tony experiences the heart-clogging glory of a deep fried pizza, deep fried mars bars, deep fried pickled eggs, and deed fried everything! Moving on to more traditional fare, Tony tastes a classic haggis and learns to hunt and fish for his food.
#9 - Thailand: One Night in Bangkok
Season 2 - Episode 13 - Aired 6/27/2003
A spontaneous layover in Bangkok leads Tony into the city, where he tries strange meals of deep fried frog skins and pla rah-a fish paste that has fermented for three months to a year.
#10 - A Pleasing Palate
Season 1 - Episode 22 - Aired 4/20/2002
Tony lands in London on a mission to dispel the myth that all English food is disgusting and over-boiled. Trying Nose to Tail Eating, Tony enjoys a meal of kid liver salad, whole roasted pig head, grilled ox heart, and breaded pigtails. Tony also explores traditional fare at Pie and Mash Shoppes and then visits a predominantly Indian community and indulges in a home-cooked London Punjab meal.
#11 - Food Tastes Better with Sand Between Your Toes
Season 2 - Episode 1 - Aired 2/21/2003
In an attempt to escape the stress of city life, Tony visits the island of St. Martin. In this Caribbean paradise, Tony eats a healthy Rastafarian meal with a freedom fighter, helps prepare grub for a food caravan, discovers foodstuffs not available at American supermarkets and, finally, relaxes at a beach bar.
#12 - No Beads, No Babes, No Bourbon Street
Season 2 - Episode 2 - Aired 2/28/2003
In New Orleans, Tony catches a Bayou alligator, cools off with a world famous sno cone, gets in trouble with the law, eats jambalaya with a dancing chef and, finally, relaxes to some local jazz.
#13 - A Mystical World
Season 2 - Episode 3 - Aired 3/7/2003
Known as Brazil's capital of happiness, Salvador da Bahia offers fruitful local markets and rich Bahian cusine: fried shrimp, palm oil, chili peppers, and coconut. Here, Tony takes part in a traditional ceremony and experiences the culinary talents of the famous Bahian, Chef Dada.
#14 - How to Be a Carioca
Season 2 - Episode 4 - Aired 3/14/2003
What is a Carioca? These natives of Rio are lovable scamps who somehow find ways to avoid work altogether, preferring the beach, flirting and hanging out at restaurants and bars. Tony, under the tutelage of an exemplary Carioca, gives the lifestyle a try, enjoying a savage tan, Brazilian barbecue and one too many caipirinhas!
#15 - Elements of a Great Bar
Season 2 - Episode 5 - Aired 3/21/2003
Join Tony on his quest to characterize the perfect bar. With him, discover the importance of a "maniacal bartender", the proper chemical makeup of drinks, the joys of seedy dive-bars and the need for late night snacks.
#16 - The Struggle for the Soul of America
Season 2 - Episode 6 - Aired 3/28/2003
Tony travels to the grain belt capitol, Minneapolis, to inspect the conflict between creative independent operators and generic franchises. Beginning in the food nightmare within the Mall of America, Tony vows to find good cuisine within the city.
#17 - The BBQ Triangle
Season 2 - Episode 7 - Aired 6/13/2003
Which style of BBQ reigns supreme-Kansas City, Houston or North Carolina? Tony journeys to all three, judging the secrets behind sauces, wood pits, and slow smokers.
#18 - Mad Tony: The Food Warrior
Season 2 - Episode 8 - Aired 4/4/2003
Chef Tony Bourdain embarks on a pilgrimage through Australia so he can indulge in a meal made by one of the world's best chefs, Tetsuya Wakuda. When Tony's car breaks down in the outback, he is found wandering about by a veteran of the bush who feeds him a slap-up meal of bush tucker, including kangaroo and wattleseed-bush tomato. Days, miles and many Australian meal later, Tony finds himself unable to describe Tetsuya's delicious and well-earned meal.
#19 - Down Under: The Wild West of Cooking
Season 2 - Episode 9 - Aired 5/2/2003
Melbourne boasts a bunch of hard-living, good-natured and eccentric food-lovers-Tony's kind of people. In search of the outlaws of food, Tony explores a pasteurization-free cheese factory and an old-world cured jamon workshop. Alas, no trip to Australia is complete without an authentic "barbie", so Tony settles down with new found friends for an afternoon meal of surf n' turf.
#20 - Let's Get Lost
Season 2 - Episode 11 - Aired 5/16/2003
Jumping into a Thai tuk tuk taxi, Tony attempts to soak up Thai culture and get lost in the cuisine of Chiang Mai. From spicy soups and noodles in the busy city marketplace to the hospitality and delicate salads of the countryside, Tony learns to appreciate all things Thai.
#21 - My Friend Linh
Season 2 - Episode 12 - Aired 5/30/2003
Tony returns to his beloved Vietnam to visit his friend, Linh, for the Vietnamese lunar New Year holiday, Tet. Together, the friends enjoy the holiday and indulge in all the exotic delicacies Vietnamese culture offers.
#22 - My Life As a Cook-NYC
Season 1 - Episode 20 - Aired 2/5/2002
Experience the formative moments of Tony's career as he revisits his first job, the culinary institute that taught him the basics, a normal workday at Les Halles Brasserie, and his mysterious mentor, Bigfoot.
#23 - MY Hometown Favorites
Season 1 - Episode 19 - Aired 4/23/2002
Passionate about his city, Tony gives us an intimate tour of the New York City foods he knows and loves-sturgeon and bagels, fluke ceviche, pan-seared foie gras, braised veal cheek, authentic cheese and, of course, a hotdog at Papaya King Frankfurters and Juices.
#24 - The French Laundry Experience
Season 1 - Episode 18 - Aired 4/30/2002
Marooned in San Francisco, Tony tastes local shellfish and durian ice cream before embarking on a pilgrimage to experience the genius of Thomas Keller, chef and owner of The French Laundry.
#25 - Los Angeles, My Own Heart of Darkness
Season 1 - Episode 17 - Aired 2/26/2002
New York chef, Anthony Bourdain, descends into the culinary underbelly of his metropolitan nemesis, Los Angeles, where he experiences the trials of celebrity fame and the joys of West Coast cuisine.