Anthony Bourdain’s “Gone Bamboo” Is His Ultimate Fantasy (from Kitchen Knives to Hitmen)

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Anthony Bourdain wasn’t just a chef or a travel show host, he was a storyteller, a provocateur, and a lifelong lover of noir. In Gone Bamboo, his second work of fiction, Bourdain trades stainless steel countertops for sun-bleached beaches, and swaps out simmering sauces for simmering mob drama. The result? A tropical noir cocktail that’s equal parts pulp fiction, midlife fantasy, and chaotic shoot-‘em-up.

If Bone in the Throat was Bourdain’s kitchen-side mob caper, Gone Bamboo is its beach-bar sequel—both in setting and tone. It opens like any good assassin’s tale should: with a job gone wrong. Henry, our laid-back but deadly protagonist, botches a mob hit at a ski resort and retreats to his Caribbean hideout with his equally dangerous (and, of course, stunningly beautiful) wife, Frances. They try to return to their idyllic lifestyle of cocktails, guns, and marital banter—until a fresh batch of trouble follows them to paradise.

The plot? Loosely structured, full of action, and peppered with Bourdain’s familiar snark. Mobsters from New York want revenge, old connections surface, and Henry finds himself balancing the desire to stay off the radar with the increasingly violent obligations of his past. There’s also a crossover cameo from Bone in the Throat characters Tommy and Cheryl, now trying to open a restaurant far away from the city’s crime scene. Naturally, that dream doesn’t go smoothly.

Let’s be clear—this isn’t literary fiction. It’s beach pulp. And Bourdain seems fully aware of that. In the book’s introduction, he unapologetically labels it “entertaining and escapist,” and he’s right. This is fiction as fun, not philosophy. Think Jimmy Buffett meets John Wick, but with mobsters who are more caricature than character, and dialogue that’s hit-or-miss.

See Also: the “mobster” chef Tony drew in a copy of Les Halles Cookbook

The biggest flaw is that no one is particularly real. Henry reads like the author’s fantasy self: cool, deadly, well-dressed, and unfazed by chaos. Frances is the dream-girl version of a femme fatale. The bad guys? Interchangeable thugs with food habits and New Jersey accents straight out of central casting. No one has a redemption arc or emotional core—and maybe that’s intentional. As Bourdain once said, “redeeming qualities are overrated.”

But despite the clichés and shallow characters, Gone Bamboo is fun. It moves fast, drops plenty of witty one-liners (“The kitchen smelled of cloves and gun oil”), and reads like a fever dream Bourdain wrote during a long vacation—probably with a rum punch in hand and a hangover in the rearview. There’s also just enough culinary flair, travel detail, and cultural references to remind us who the author is, even if those elements feel more name-dropped than plot-driven.

So is it a great novel? Not really. Is it a good time? Absolutely.

Gone Bamboo isn’t about growth, meaning, or literary finesse. It’s about mob hits on mopeds, sun-drenched shootouts, and cocktails shaken with gunpowder. It’s an entertaining detour from a man whose true mastery lay in memoir and non-fiction—but as a side dish in the Bourdain oeuvre, it’s worth the taste.

*These older copies of Bourdain’s first writings are becoming more scarce, so you may want to obtain a hardcover 1997 copy of Gone Bamboo (Amazon currently has used offers).

Verdict:
Come for the chaos, stay for the charm. Just don’t expect to leave full.