Recovering Anthony Bourdain's (really) lost Li.st's
25 comments
·December 13, 2025thecsw
cbarrick
Almost all.
According to the article, we are still missing one: "David Bowie Related" 1/14/2016
coderintherye
The missing David Bowie related list ( https://li.st/l/7SmVwCFEU6JDQ2jKQfeJzh ) has an image preview shared on Reddit, though sadly not the text https://www.reddit.com/r/AnthonyBourdain/comments/40wkx3/ant...
tsujamin
> Great Dead Bars of New York:
> 1. SIBERIA in any of its iterations. The one on the subway being the best.
Timely, as the latest reincarnation of SIBERIA just re-opened in 59th Street/Columbus Circle station
wintermutestwin
I know we shouldn’t be discussing website design, but using light grey font on a white background is not only ugly, it is basically illegible for anyone with oldster eyes.
Aurornis
> but using light grey font on a white background
The page does not have light grey text for me. Checked on desktop and mobile.
The #2B2B2B color should not look like "light grey" or be hard to read on a white background unless your display setup has a severely broken color calibration or gamma curve.
bunnybomb2
and the dotted background just ever so lightly still visible. Contrast is king
thecsw
Tell me more—these colors, #2B2B2B for fg and #F7F3EE for bg pass accessibility checks. See something like coolors [1] or WebAIM [2]
You could run something like https://motherfuckingwebsite.com/ but contrast doesn't mean to run with black/white, http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/ is better on the eyes.
If it's bothering the eyes, like many more of other websites would, feel free to pull up your favorite browser's reader mode with your preferences. Cheers!
bunnybomb2
i think the white dots add another factor to my brain i have to decipher. It doesn't make or break the site but its like id rather not have to deal with a pattern and text. Just make the background white.
If you really love it, keep it. I dont know anything. Im just a human
wffurr
Raw colors are not the whole story. Font weight matters too. Being just on this side of passing the check is also not great, just better than bad.
Ambient lighting and display quality matter a lot too.
antihoney
Very happy to see these recovered and archived :)! I hope images are able to be recovered, super curious about which records he was talking about.
treesknees
At the risk of being downvoted… for the uninitiated among us, what’s interesting about these or the person? I understand he was a chef and had several TV shows. Is it just celebrity fascination?
bunnybomb2
Kind, curious, open minded, down to earth with a big mouth . Like any other common interest. Watching his stuff shows you how to open your eyes
Papazsazsa
He was the last cultured dude before tech made everyone into a superficial arrogant lmgtfy'er, disinterested in true discovery. (Heap your downvotes on me HN, I've seen what makes you cheer!)
MY BOURDAIN LI.ST:
1) Masculinity without cringe: Tough, profane, credentialed through actual kitchen labor (not culinary school pedigree), but also emotionally literate, openly vulnerable, willing to cry on camera. He modeled a masculinity that wasn't apologetic but also wasn't performative.
2) Articulate outsider: Self-educated. Could reference Conrad, punk rock, and Apocalypse Now while maintaining blue-collar credibility. His book Kitchen Confidential read like a war memoir/crime novel.
3) Permission: He made it acceptable for men to care deeply about food, travel, culture -- interests traditionally female coded. The guy had done heroin and worked the line and was 'allowed' to opine about pho. This was before the internet or at least before the internet got ultra stupid.
4) Wanderer: Not tourism, not expat pretension, something closer to seeking, now dead thanks to social media influencers, and he was curious not escapist.
5) Recovery: Open about addiction, chaos, bad decisions. A redemption narrative for men who've made mistakes.
6) Tragic: Suicide landed hard because many recognized something in him of themselves in him.
P.S. He's more elder millennial/genx coded for a lot of reasons so don't feel bad about not getting it but definitely read his book and watch his show, it's different than the slop you're probably used to.
Aurornis
> He was the last cultured dude before tech made everyone into a
I enjoyed Bourdain, but this level of hero worship is really excessive.
He was enjoyable to read and watch, but claiming he "made it acceptable" for men to care about food, travel or culture is weird.
He was an entertainer. An interesting guy. A great storyteller who lived an interesting life. Charismatic and fun to watch. But he was not the "last cultured dude" or some demarcation point between the past and present.
shikkra
Let's not forget his connection with Epstein before deifying him.
itomato
He took the easy way out and fucked over his kid in the process.
Complaining 24/7.
A regular hero.
Papazsazsa
read Spinoza
throwaway12345t
love these, wonder what avenues still exist for the image archives
I imagine they exist in an AWS or GCP rack somewhere, too bad
thecsw
Someone must have their browser untouched since 2015, which has all of the li.st content stored in their cache :D
null
A companion to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46054879, we now had successfully recovered all the remaining li.st entries of Anthony Bourdain that were thought to be lost to time.
Please enjoy—there is nobody like Tony.