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Do NYC restaurant workers have their knives out for the Anthony Bourdain movie?
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Oysters are a hard-earned delicacy; shucking them requires precision and a great deal of patience. In the new film “Tony,” much of which takes place in the kitchen of a seafood restaurant in 1970s Provincetown, Massachusetts, a young and unseasoned Anthony Bourdain (Dominic Sessa) holds an oyster in his bare hand while struggling to pry it open with a small knife. Seasoned shuckers can probably imagine what happens next.
That scene ranked among the most triggering for the New York City restaurant workers who poured into Midtown’s Mermaid Oyster Bar on Monday after attending an “Industry Night” screening of “Tony,” which opens for general audiences Friday. Many attendees recalled the naivete of their own early days in hospitality and food service: “It was like, ‘Oh no, he’s going to go to the emergency room. There goes that finger. Please don’t do that,’” said Melissa Quayle, who works as an events planner for restaurants around New York.
“Tony” had a very high bar to clear with this particular audience, given that it fictionalizes a celebrity chef beloved for his unvarnished perspectives on the restaurant business. The film manages to get a lot right about the industry, according to workers who spoke to Gothamist at the reception hosted by distributor A24. It’s true that kitchens pulse with frenetic energy. And a lot of people do end up working in them because they don’t feel like they fit in anywhere else. Ultimately, however, the Matt Johnson-directed film, which derives its premise from a few chapters of Bourdain’s best-selling memoir “Kitchen Confidential,” is still narrative fiction.
Rowan Spencer, who runs the pop-up restaurant series Mon Petit Canard with his partner Emma Leigh Macdonald, went into the screening worried that “Tony” would fall into the usual traps of a Hollywood biopic. That happened at times, he said, especially when the film ties things up with a neat bow. “I did think it was a little corny,” he said. But he was pleasantly surprised to discover that it mainly serves as an emotional snapshot of the earliest days in Bourdain’s culinary career.
“I really liked the theme of lying,” Spencer said, adding that in kitchens, “there’s a lot of getting found out. There’s a lot of letting people down.” He related to Bourdain deciding to embellish his resume to land a job with the unnamed chef played by Antonio Banderas. The greatest tension can come from ruining a service for the team, Spencer said.
Substance abuse can contribute to some of these problematic behaviors. Bourdain’s troubled colleague Sal (Leo Woodall) offers him cocaine during a service and later shows up late to work — a fireable offense in this kitchen — because of his own heroin usage. While many restaurant workers who spoke to Gothamist were surprised the pair would snort drugs in front of their chef, rather than in a cold room or pantry, they reasoned that things might have been different back in the 1970s.
“Tony” doesn’t dwell on Bourdain’s drug usage or mental health struggles, despite the tragic circumstances of his real-life death. The film, set decades earlier, is a coming-of-age story that helps establish how he developed his keen storytelling ability.
Pablo Vidal, the chef de cuisine at Momofuku Noodle Bar, said that the film effectively conveys the range of personalities that can exist among a kitchen staff.
“When you first start working, you start identifying who is who,” said Vidal, who started as a line cook at Momofuku. “Like, ‘Oh, this is the grumpy line cook, but he knows a lot. This is a guy who doesn’t really talk, but you can learn from him.’ You start identifying those little details about people. I saw him doing that in the movie.”
There are several moments scattered throughout “Tony” that reminded Jihan Lee, chef and partner at Nami Nori, of his own teenaged start in the industry. The botched oyster shucking, for instance, made him recall when he tried to catch a falling knife.
But what resonated the most was the tough love that Lee received from mentors like Banderas’ chef character. The chef looks after Bourdain. He allows the teenager to sleep on a hammock in his backyard and wakes him up each morning by throwing a bucket of icy ocean water at him. While Lee’s father didn’t adopt such a harsh tactic, he did teach his son to respect a strict restaurant schedule.
Years later, Lee began to slip. Like Bourdain, he picked up restaurant shifts with the sole intention of making money to support another endeavor (Lee hoped to pursue a career in criminal justice; Bourdain wanted to be a writer). “I was coming to work late all the time, hungover,” Lee said. Eventually, his boss couldn’t stand it any longer. The chef yelled at Lee, absolutely furious — but not for the reasons Lee would have expected.
“I remember him saying to me, ‘Jihan, you’re so talented. If you just put a little bit more effort into what you’re doing, you’ll be a much better chef than me one day,’” Lee said. “That woke me up.” Like Bourdain, he decided to make a career of it.
Sonia Rao is a culture reporter for WNYC and Gothamist. She previously covered entertainment and breaking news at The Washington Post. Got a tip? Email [email protected] .
Sabrina Robinson and Nylah Ramirez both join the Boston Hunters.
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