- From Tokyo’s Park Hyatt to Los Angeles’ Chateau Marmont, Anthony Bourdain had a varied stable of favourite hotels.
- These were are all determined across the course of his 16-year career, spent roaming the globe as a celebrity chef, author, & travel documentarian.
- Bourdain was a self-confessed (and self-described) “hotel slut.”
Between his stints in front of the camera for A Cook’s Tour, No Reservations, The Layover, as well as CNN’s Parts Unknown — and all the supplementary travel he undertook for pleasure/literary inspiration — Anthony Bourdain checked into more than his fair share of hotels.
Here are the places that earned his vaunted seal of approval.
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Park Hyatt, Tokyo (Japan)
For Anthony Bourdain, his love affair with world travel began with Tokyo, Japan.
As the location of his televised debut in A Cook’s Tour, the man described his first sojourn to the Land of the Rising Sun as a “transformative, powerful, violent experience.” And time after time, the known film geek would opt for the very centrepiece of Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation: The Park Hyatt.
Here you’ll find unparalleled comfort, breathtaking views, and luxury in spades… along with a decked-out gym that includes an indoor lap pool and one Tokyo’s most iconic skyward steakhouses, the New York Grill & Bar, perched on the 52nd floor.
Fullerton Singapore (Singapore)
“If you want to do the whole old-world British colonial thing.”
Style points aside, given where the Fullerton is placed along the Singapore River, it’s the perfect base for exploring the Lion City. All the more so if, like Uncle Tony, you’re keen on authentic hawker dining.
The city’s Grand Hyatt outpost was also a known Bourdain favourite.
Mandarin Oriental, Hong Kong
The history and sterling international reputation… it isn’t hard to see why Hong Kong’s Mandarin Oriental always had Bourdain’s number.
Plus, high tea in the Clipper Lounge — the iconic, inimitable, relentlessly photographed all-day eatery located on the hotel’s mezzanine — certainly helps.
Read Boss Hunting‘s full Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong review here.
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Hotel Continental Saigon, Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam)
Much like Japan, Vietnam held a special place in Anthony Bourdain’s heart. And as someone with an affinity for antiquity, unsurprisingly, the Southeast Asian country’s first (and oldest) hotel routinely enjoyed his patronage…
Hotel Metropole, Hanoi (Vietnam)
… though whenever Bourdain found himself in northern Vietnam, the Grand Damme of choice was the renowned Hotel Metropole; which he claimed was a nod to The Quiet American author Graham Greene.
The deliciously French-colonial architecture and proximity to Hanoi’s thriving dining scene certainly wouldn’t have hurt, either.
Raffles Grand Hotel d’Angkor, Siem Reap (Cambodia)
Speaking of iconic colonial-era hotels, which have been something of a theme among the assorted Asia-based entrants on the list thus far, we arrive at Siem Reap’s Raffles Grand Hotel d’Angkor.
“I’m a sucker for grand, colonial-era hotels in Asia,” wrote Bourdain.
This grand and historic address, nestled in the heart of the ancient Cambodian city, is perhaps the entire continent’s most authentic expression of 1930s French Art-Deco style.
Hotel Oloffson, Port-au-Prince (Haiti)
What you have to understand about Anthony Bourdain’s travel philosophy — and, by extension, this entire list — is that it was never about picking the hotel that was objectively the best.
Rather, it was about making the best out of wherever you ended up, hence character-rich favourites like Port-au-Prince’s Hotel Oloffson.
This “sagging, creaky, and leaky but awesome” Gothic-style stay is elite in its own way (beyond the calibre of company it attracted); marrying a classic 19th-century aesthetic with a decidedly luxe ambience.
Chiltern Firehouse, London (England)
You better believe a Victorian-firehouse-turned-London-hotel was an Anthony Bourdain favourite. So much so in fact, that he dubbed it “pretty much perfection.”
Hotel de Russie, Rome (Italy)
“Blow it out and live large… and pay big time for the privilege.”
Words to live by, really.
St Regis, New York City (USA)
Anthony Bourdain held a certain fondness for New York’s St Regis, especially around Christmas time: when all the property’s shop windows on 5th Avenue are dressed up for the festive season (“It’s pretty cool.”).
White glove hotel service in New York has never looked better.
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The Edgewater Hotel, Seattle (USA)
On the waterfront. Fireplace roaring. Watching the ships go by… what more could an award-winning chef, author, and TV personality ask for?
The Raleigh, Miami (USA)
Bourdain praised The Raleigh for having the best pool in all of Miami. That’s quite the achievement for a joint in the famously swim-obsessed Floridian coastal city.
Chateau Marmont, Los Angeles (USA)
In an unintentionally tragic declaration, Anthony Bourdain once said, “If I have to die in a hotel room, let it be here. I will work in LA just to stay at the Chateau!”
The legendary Hollywood establishment has solidified its eternal status, by both reputation and total number of pop culture namedrops over the last century. But the eerie kudos from a man who has pretty much seen and done it all may well be its biggest endorsement.
We like to imagine Bourdain is lounging somewhere in the afterlife’s version of Penthouse 54; chowing down, fittingly, on some In-N-Out.
Other notable hotels where Anthony Bourdain enjoyed staying throughout his storied career are as follows:
- andBeyond Ngorongoro Crater Lodge (Tanzania)
- Wabe Shebelle Hotel (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia)
- Hotel Sakamanga (Antananarivo, Madagascar)
- Maison Fahrenheit Hotel (Lagos, Nigeria)
- The Ranee Boutique Suites (Borneo)
- Galle Face Hotel (Colombo, Sri Lanka)
- Pan Pacific Singapore (Singapore)
- Banyan Tree Club & Spa Seoul (South Korea)
- Park Hotel (Shanghai, China)
- L’Hôtel (Paris, France)
- Chalet Valhalla (Chamonix, French Alps)
- Hazlitt’s (London, United Kingdom)
- Hotel Alvear (Buenos Aires)
- Palacio de los Patos (Granada, Spain)
- Skt Petri (Copenhagen, Denmark)
- The Confidante Miami Beach, formerly Thompson South Beach (Miami, USA)
- The International House (New Orleans, USA)
- The Murray Hotel, Livingston (USA): “You want the Peckinpah Suite.”
- Four Seasons Resort Rancho Encantado (Santa Fe, New Mexico)
- Market Pavilion Hotel (Charleston, South Carolina)
- Heathman Hotel (Portland, Oregon)
- The Wynn (Las Vegas, USA)
- Caesar’s Palace (Las Vegas, USA)
- The Cosmopolitan (Las Vegas, USA)
- Condado Vanderbilt Hotel (San Juan, Puerto Rico)
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