Why Anthony Bourdain Suggested Avoiding Menu Items With Cute, Punny Names

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Anthony Bourdain was a culinary icon whose brutally honest advice resonates to this day. Nearly a decade since his passing, Bourdain continues to change how people perceive food with his unique take on the culinary industry. Indeed, his opinion has an effect in unlikely ways. Consider his tip of avoiding menu items with cute, punny names. Put simply, Bourdain felt that a restaurant's reputation and its menu should speak for and sell themselves. Certainly, Bourdain was opinionated and respected for it, providing many suggestions for diners to get the most out of their meals.. 

The celebrity chef felt that gimmicky and quirky descriptors were a red flag for the food's quality. For example, Bourdain told First We Feast, an item with a name like "the bro-tastic burger" is a definite "warning sign." This makes sense. Giving a menu item a cutesy name (such as a certain pancake-based franchise's rooty tooty item or fancy terms like dragon-glazed anything) may be meant to entice patrons, but it could simply confuse them or worse, wind up being embarrassing to order. For Bourdain, this lined up with his dislike of food trends like pumpkin spice and the shady Kobe beef craze. In 2016, he went on record with the Today Show about pumpkin spice, wondering, "Who eats this stuff?" He also expressed his disdain for Kobe sliders, a trend that Bourdain couldn't wait to fade away. He believed it gave into the industry's "bro" culture by being more about the price and flex of ordering it than the quality of the meat. 

Anthony Bourdain had similar feelings about craft beer and cocktails, believing that it shouldn't take longer to make or describe either than it does to drink them. Still, this stance may be debatable, as craft beer and cocktails often require much care and thought in their recipes. That said, Bourdain dropped other essential ways to maximize your food experience. Among the more obvious are avoiding bargain sushi and eating out during the week for a relaxed environment, potentially fresher seafood, and a chef who's more apt to flex their creativity. Additionally, being nice to the waitstaff is a key tip that he stood passionately for, maintaining that they could be instrumental in making or breaking the restaurant experience.  

Bourdain left a lasting impact not only within the culinary realm but also in travel and journalism. In addition to food, Bourdain offered thoughtful life advice, believing that a sense of humor was crucial for navigating the world. He also stressed the importance of eating local, adventurously, and with an open mind. As Bourdain poetically wrote in his book "Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to The World of Food and Those Who Cook," "Without experimentation, a willingness to ask questions and try new things, we shall surely become static, repetitive, moribund."