‘Tony’ movie review: A young Anthony Bourdain finds his calling in this warm, spirited origin story

Without romanticising the burns, cuts and pains of being a young chef, the Matt Johnson directorial tells the story of the one summer that changed Anthony’s life

Published - August 29, 2026 03:06 pm IST

Dominic Sessa in ‘Tony’ | Photo Credit: A24

You’re going to find out about it anyway. So, here’s some preemptive truth-telling. There’s no way to tell what Anthony Bourdain would have thought about Tony. Would he have hated the attention? Would he have brushed it off? There’s more than enough discourse about it.

But one thing’s for sure.

Anthony Bourdain has left the kind of impact on the world that only a handful of others may have managed to. Every generation comes around to him one way or the other through books, his shows or bits and pieces now trending on social media platforms.

A still from ‘Tony’ | Photo Credit: A24

So, I will let you find and get to know him in your own way, as I did. I’d recommend starting with his book, Kitchen Confidential, but I digress.

It has been three weeks since the release of Tony in the US, and we finally have the India release. I thought it would be difficult to avoid the critics and articles and keep them from colouring my opinions. Still, despite engaging with all the online chatter, I came away feeling anew.

Tony is a film that demands to be experienced. Whatever the Internet has decided it is — masterpiece, misfire, or something in between — feels besides the point until you have sat through it yourself and felt passion, urgency, joy, pain and sorrow all at once.

Tony does not tell the story of Bourdain’s entire life, and I doubt any single piece of media is capable of doing so (looking at you, Roadrunner). It tells the story of a lost, rebellious college kid who finds himself in Provincetown, Cape Cod, one summer, and how the kitchen makes him a man. A coming-of-age, if you will.

Anthony (Dominic Sessa), or Tony as he likes to go by, is a brilliant liar. He almost convinces the jury of a writing fellowship of his abilities to write a book on a story that he makes up on the spot. Arrogant, egotistical young Tony walks up to his high-school crush Nancy (Emilia Jones) in a bar afterwards with confidence, and claims to have the fellowship in the bag and invites her to New York. The words “I’m going to Cape Cod for the summer” change the trajectory of his life.

An expert liar, now heartbroken after being rejected from the fellowship, Tony follows a girl to Provincetown. His parents celebrate his acceptance into the fellowship while he angrily punches a Bruce Lee poster, steals money from his father and gets on a bus only to find the object of his desire working in a pizza parlour and gleefully kissing another guy.

A still from ‘Tony’ | Photo Credit: A24

Drunk and heartbroken again, Tony picks a fight with the kitchen staff and gets thrown out on the street. The chef (Antonio Banderas), an old, seasoned professional, gives him refuge on his porch and appoints him as a dishwasher. The humble beginnings.

“I was — to be frank — a spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive, and thoughtless young lout badly in need of a good a**-kicking,” writes Anthony Bourdain in the chapter titled ‘Food is Sex’ in Kitchen Confidential. And a good a**-kicking he got.

Tony is woken up brutally with a pot of salty seawater on his face every morning, and spends his days hunched over the sink washing dishes, and his evenings under the influence and indulging in healthy teenage activities. It is a way of life in P-town summer. Somewhere along the way, the kitchen becomes the place where he is no longer just washing dishes, but dreaming of something big. Bigger than himself.

He shucks oysters, portions fish, learns how to make sauce and reads Auguste Escoffier’s 1903 classic cookbook, Le Guide Culinaire from the chef’s bookshelf.

In a rather casual scene, one day when the restaurant is shut, Tony is woken up again with a pot of water in his face and accompanies the chef to the restaurant to do prep work. While filling salt shakers, Tony is handed his first chef’s coat. A pristine white jacket that he looks at in awe before going right back to the shakers.

A still from ‘Tony’ | Photo Credit: A24

It is moments like these that makes Tony lived-in. The quiet thrill of being allowed to imagine a different life gives us a glimpse into the mind of a young, misguided boy who had big dreams. Without romanticising the burns, cuts and pains of being a young chef, it brings on screen a story of the one summer that changed his life.

Dominic Sessa’s portrayal of the late chef, with the lose clothing, wide smile, hunched back and brooding look is uncannily convincing. His gait is confident and Sessa is able to bring out a disarmingly tender approach to not just the mannerism but also in the vulnerability beneath. The picturisation of the sleepy beach town in Cape Cod is beautiful and intimate, and almost makes you want to spend a summer there hoping to bump into Tony and dine at the Lobster Pot.