Recovering Anthony Bourdain's Li.st's

Archive & Missing Pieces

• Commenters appreciate the successful recovery of almost all of Bourdain’s li.st entries and the effort to “rescue from the sands of time.”
• One list remains missing (“David Bowie Related”), though an image preview exists on Reddit, prompting talk of a “community challenge” to reconstruct it.
• Several people hope the associated images can also be recovered, speculating that they may still exist on cloud infrastructure or in old browser caches.
• Another independent attempt to mine Common Crawl for the same content is acknowledged, with mutual credit added after the fact.

Site Design & Accessibility

• Some readers find the light-on-light design, dotted background, and font choices hard to read, especially for older eyes, and argue that passing automated contrast checks isn’t sufficient.
• Others report that dark-mode browser extensions are actually what make the text illegible. With extensions disabled, they find the site fine.
• The author defends the current palette, suggests reader mode if needed, and asks for more concrete feedback.

Bourdain’s Appeal and Legacy

• Fans describe him as kind, curious, open-minded, profane, and emotionally candid, modeling a non-cringey masculinity and making food/travel/culture feel accessible.
• His mix of literary references, blue-collar kitchen background, and openness about addiction and depression resonated deeply; his suicide hit many hard.
• Some see him as a cultural touchstone or even generational figure; others think that level of hero worship conflicts with his own anti-idolatry stance.

Critiques of Bourdain and His Shows

• Skeptics emphasize he was an entertainer with a carefully curated persona; viewers never really “knew” him.
• Several cite serious moral failings (e.g., paying to silence abuse allegations linked to his partner, abandoning family obligations) as disqualifying him as a role model.
• Others report episodes where he misrepresented their hometowns, relied on dubious local “progressives,” or romanticized poverty, leading them to question the authenticity of other episodes.
• There is discomfort with a rich Western man “holding court” abroad, sometimes appearing to speak as an expert on places he barely visited.

Tourism, Travel, and Ethics

• A long subthread uses Bourdain as a jumping-off point to critique “travel is my passion” culture: affluent tourists consuming food and aesthetics in poorer countries, then returning home feeling enlightened.
• Some view this as shallow “cultural primitivism”; others counter that tourism provides crucial income, and if it were net harmful, governments would restrict it.
• Another faction notes that policy is set at national level while burdens (Airbnb conversions, rising rents, crowding) hit specific neighborhoods, fueling anti-tourist protests in places like Barcelona, Hawaii, and parts of Latin America.
• Debate unfolds over whether anti-tourist sentiment is mostly economic, cultural, or a socially acceptable outlet for xenophobia, with examples of graffiti, “expat vs immigrant” double standards, and resentment of foreigners who never learn the local language.
• Some argue that the problem is not travel per se but mass imitation of a certain “Bourdain-esque” aesthetic by people who lack his experience or depth.

Miscellaneous Notes

• Multiple commenters value the lists for practical recommendations (bars, hotels, books, films like Tampopo).
• There is a side discussion about ultra-expensive Kramer knives, whether they are “real tools” or status objects, and Bourdain’s relationship to them.
• Fans express ongoing grief and note how often his old content still runs on TV without explicit acknowledgment that he is gone.