Anthony Bourdain on Why His Favorite Place to Travel in the World Is Japan

Tokyo skyline from the airplane (Getty Images)

Getty Images

Chances are you’re going to have some favorite places around the world if you host a travel show. And if you’ve hosted four different ones, well, then you’re likely to have some strong opinions about your go-to spot. When it comes to television hosts, there may not be anyone more opinionated than Anthony Bourdain, the chef-turned-host that’s visited 80 countries in his 15 years on TV. And above all, he says his favorite place to visit is Japan.

Bourdain has routinely said if he could choose his last meal, it would be at a Tokyo restaurant called Sukiyabashi Jiro. The restaurant has a team of world-class sushi chefs trained by eponymous Jiro Ono, who stars in the documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi. His meal of choice? Traditional Edo-style sushi from Jiro himself.

Out of the 80 visited, Bourdain’s favorite is Japan ( Paulo Fridman/Corbis via Getty Images)

But, it’s not just about the food. In an essay that accompanied his Parts Unknown episode in Tokyo, Bourdain extolled the country’s virtues as a travel destination:

“For those with restless, curious minds, fascinated by layer upon layer of things, flavors, tastes and customs which we will never fully be able to understand, Tokyo is deliciously unknowable. I’m sure I could spend the rest of my life there, learn the language, and still die happily ignorant….It’s that densely packed, impenetrable layer cake of the strange, wonderful and awful that thrills. It’s mesmerizing. Intimidating. Disorienting. Upsetting. Poignant. And yes, beautiful.”

But, there’s more to Japan than just it’s capital city. For the new season of his CNN show, Bourdain visits the country again, opting for the more low-key Okinawa Island. In advance of this, he sat down with Travel + Leisure for an interview, in which he says Japan would be the one country where he’d be happy if they forced him to stay. Bourdain also says Tokyo’s his No. 1 choice for solo-traveling, and shares a nugget of food knowledge he learned on his first trip there. To find out what that is, click here.

Before you do, though, watch these two videos below. The top clip is a Monocle Travel Guide to Tokyo, which the magazine ranks as the world’s most livable city. The bottom video is a travelogue of a couple’s journey (through Osaka, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Nara, Tokyo, Nagano, and Hokkaido) shot in stunning cinematic style.