He has been known for being an unrepentant drinker and smoker. In a nod to Bourdain's (at the time) two-pack-a-day cigarette habit, renowned chef
Thomas Keller once served him a 20-course tasting menu which included a mid-meal "coffee and cigarette": a coffee custard infused with tobacco, together with a
foie gras mousse.
[46] Bourdain stopped cigarette smoking in the summer of 2007 because of the birth of his daughter.
[47] He is also a former user of cocaine, heroin, and LSD. In
Kitchen Confidential he writes of his experience in a trendy
SoHo restaurant in 1981: "We were high all the time, sneaking off to the walk-in refrigerator at every opportunity to 'conceptualize.' Hardly a decision was made without drugs.
Cannabis,
methaqualone,
cocaine,
LSD,
psilocybin mushrooms soaked in honey and used to sweeten tea,
secobarbital,
tuinal,
amphetamine,
codeine and, increasingly,
heroin, which we'd send a Spanish-speaking
busboy over to
Alphabet City to get."
[48] In the same book, Bourdain frankly describes his former addiction, including how he once resorted to selling his record collection on the street in order to raise enough money to purchase drugs.
[49]
