At A24's Tony Premiere Party, Stars Celebrated Anthony Bourdain's Memory

Golden Steer, with its deep-button tufted leather banquettes, its mirrored columns, its dark wood paneling, is glitzy. So glitzy, in fact, that the steakhouse hardly seems an appropriate place to celebrate the late Anthony Bourdain, who preferred a more salt-of-the-earth version like Keen’s. He’d have likely scoffed at the $240 steak, but the building at One Fifth Avenue holds a special significance in Bourdain-iverse: in the ‘90s, the space housed Vince and Linda's, where he was the chef.But those days are long gone, and on this Tuesday night, the Greenwich Village steakhouse played host to the premiere party for Tony, A24’s Bourdain biopic.Golden Steer has all the accoutrements of a classic steakhouse The air at this party was thick with Bourdain’s spirit, but among the glam of the Golden Steer, it was hard not to be reminded of just how much has changed in the eight years since his death. Viral food culture has gone into hyperdrive. The business of Bourdain-ing a fantastic hole-in-the-wall restaurant has been taken over by influencers (to mixed results). It’s enough to make you yearn for a simpler time in food—one where mimosa towers didn’t yet exist and brown butter was still a novelty.As celebrity guests and stars escaped the rain, more than a few grabbed a frosty martini from servers standing near the entrance as trays of lobster thermidor tartlets were passed about. The star of the film, Dominic Sessa sported his Bourdain-esque curls (absent were the accompanying mutton chops), and swirled a glass of red wine while tucked into one of the massive banquettes. His co-star, podcaster Stavros Halkias, maneuvered through the crowd in a salmon pink leisure suit. Subway Takes creator Kareem Rahma stood in a corner with Cole Sprouse, poring over the A24-produced Bourdain coffee table book that was on display.Sessa (right) stars as Bourdain in the new film Naturally, the room was crawling with writers, editors, and all manner of media: Food writers (and former Bon Appétit editors) Christina Chaey and Aliza Abarbanel, author of the forthcoming book Bad Foodies Ludwig Hurtado, podcaster and writer Peyton Dix among others. Chefs Anthony Ha and Eric Ripert attended the premier, but apparently, dipped before the after party. Top Chef’s Gail Simmons floated past Jonah Reider, who you might remember for the restaurant he opened in his Columbia dorm room.As I bounced through the crowd of 300, there seemed to be a consensus: the movie was good. Chaey told me between sips of her martini that she was surprised to find the film made her cry a few times. “Who among us hasn’t gone to Provincetown, said we’re writing a book, and hasn’t written anything?” Hurtado said of the film.The party's catering: a smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel from Barney Greengrass and a bowl of Mapo Tofu from Danny Bowien. It was heartening to celebrate Bourdain’s long, beloved legacy with a biopic and a party to match. Would Bourdain have liked it? Maybe later in his life when he’d matured, said another guest who’d met him several times.One person I had been chatting with left to go find a cigarette—an apt quest at any Bourdain-adjacent function. Further to Bourdain’s hypothetical opinions on the movie, I imagine he’d be more focused on grumbling about the reservation-obsessed, influencer-heavy restaurant scene in which even legacy stalwarts headed by beloved chefs can’t remain open due to sky-high rents. My conversation partner returned, somehow unable to bum even a single cigarette from anyone at this party.I’m not foolish enough to believe Bourdain would love the challenging, impossible, dazzling food world of 2026. But I’m not cynical enough to think he’d surrender to it. Restaurants, food culture—hell, culture, more broadly—is ephemeral, as Bourdain often reminded us. So are people, no matter how iconoclastic. So are legacies and the worlds in which they’re forged.