There was nothing quite like a cigarette break with Anthony Bourdain, say Maggie Meskey and Jamilka Borges.
Both women made appearances in the Pittsburgh episode of CNN’s “Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown” (season 10, episode four) that aired in October 2017, about eight months before Bourdain took his own life at a hotel in France. The two veterans of the local food scene talked with Bourdain about Pittsburgh’s present and future.
Meskey, 42, of Swissvale, told Bourdain that his cookbook was the reason she knows how to smoke a chicken. Borges, 35, of Lawrenceville, sipped a glass of bourbon as Bourdain, cigarette in hand, asked her about the difficulties she faced as a female restaurateur. He apologized for how his previous show, “No Reservations,” romanticized the idea of “the macho chef.”
Meskey, Borges and other Bourdain admirers are getting nostalgic this week with the theatrical release of “Roadrunner: A Film about Anthony Bourdain,” a documentary about the late celebrity chef and television host from director Morgan Neville. Also director of the 2018 Mister Rogers documentary “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?,” Neville says the two public figures had one thing in common: a sense of mission.
“They were all about making us see ourselves in the other, making us understand we have a shared bond in our neighborhoods and the world,” he told the Post-Gazette.
The searcher
“Roadrunner” captures Bourdain’s life from when he entered the public consciousness after the meteoric success of his book, “Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly,” to his suicide. It’s still a difficult topic for many of his colleagues, loved ones and fans.
Starting at that point of Bourdain’s sudden rise allows Neville to explore this question: How does someone who seems so fully formed as a character just appear in middle age out of nowhere?
Much of the behind-the-scenes footage in the documentary comes from 60 hours of tape that someone else had shot for a Bourdain documentary that was never completed. Using that footage and interviews with those closest to him, Neville spliced together what he hopes is an accurate reflection of the man behind the television persona.
“Watching the show, you never understood what a searcher he was,” he said. “He was always excited and curious, and you had this sense of energy that was intoxicating to watch. Those are all good things, but when you get into it, you see how those are also bad things.
“To have wanderlust means you’re also not comfortable being home. I started to see how difficult it was for him to balance all those things.”
Persona non grata
Bourdain created some controversy in the Steel City in 2017, with some locals feeling his “Parts Unknown” Pittsburgh episode was uncharitable to the city. Some saw his examination of gentrification in the Pittsburgh food scene as a fair critique. Others didn’t think he got it right.
He told the Post-Gazette in September 2017 that he wanted to do a Pittsburgh episode because he had been here on a few occasions for speaking engagements and “was just really struck by how the place looked.”
“I’m just really interested in American cities that are changing, company towns transitioning to service industry or other industries,” Bourdain said. “So, I think, frankly, it tipped me over the edge to hear there is a really thriving food scene and a lot of interesting chefs doing interesting things. I kind of fell in love with Pittsburgh because it looked awesome, and I liked the place.”
Meskey understands why the episode was divisive, but she says critics missed the point.
“I don’t think that the producers had bad intentions,” she said. “I think that when people see an outsider’s perspective on the city and it’s not as favorable as they feel like it is, that’s going to be a pretty natural and swift reaction.”
Neville spent quite a bit of time here while making “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” and grew to appreciate Pittsburgh.
“I loved the city. It left a huge impression on me, being in Pittsburgh and the sense of character that comes from Western Pennsylvania. It’s a unique thing that I had never really experienced before. I’m looking for an excuse to come back to town.”
Pittsburgh’s Wild Child
Borges is a San Juan, Puerto Rico, native who is about to open her new restaurant, Wild Child, in Etna. When she met Bourdain, she was the executive chef at the now-defunct East Liberty restaurant Spoon. She said she was “super flattered and completely nervous” to meet him at Kelly’s Bar & Lounge in East Liberty.
“What you see is what you get,” Borges said of Bourdain. “He walked in, sat down, I poured him a beer, and he just started talking and asking me questions. We had one of those conversations where we went from politics to Puerto Rico to Pittsburgh to sexism in the kitchen. He’s one of those people who pays attention and makes you feel even when there are so many people around you that it’s a one-on-one conversation.”
Meskey, who works for Richard DeShantz Restaurant Group, participated in a roundtable discussion during a pig roast in the North Hills with Bourdain and local chefs Justin Severino and Sonja Finn. She said Bourdain was the same on and off camera and recalled his curiosity, “real dry humor” and that he seemed “a little bit shy.”
Both women were shocked by Bourdain’s death. It “triggered so many emotions” for Borges, whose father died by suicide when she was 18.
Meskey remembered watching a “Parts Unknown” marathon a few days after Bourdain’s death.
“I couldn’t get through one without crying,” she said. “After everything he lived through and how happy he seemed to be with his life ... it was really sad and still really sad.”
Both said that Bourdain’s suicide continues to spark important conversations about mental health and restaurant workers. Meskey said she’s seen changes in how industry heavyweights hire and train people “so you’re not overworked in the kitchen or life.”
“We romanticize the craziness of the career when we all know it’s not healthy, and we should not be proud of working 17, 18 hours a day and drinking after, not having a life,” Borges said. “It’s not sustainable, and you can only do that for so long.”
Borges has seen “Roadrunner,” and Meskey plans to “bring a box of tissues” when she goes to see the movie. Neville thinks that viewers like them will get a lot out of his raw, honest portrayal of the man someone described to him as “the nicest [expletive] you’re ever going to meet.”
“The hard part about making a film about somebody who’s this beloved is that everyone has their own version of Tony that they want to see,” he said. “No matter what you do, there’s no way to be all things to all people. At the end of the day, I had to do a film that I felt was true and something that I think Tony would at least recognize. Beyond that, it’s out of my hands.”
Joshua Axelrod: jaxelrod@post-gazette.com and Twitter @jaxelburgh.
First Published: July 19, 2021, 9:55 a.m.
Updated: July 19, 2021, 1:15 p.m.
