Anthony Bourdain says the uproar over President Trump’s effusiveness about the chocolate cake that he and Chinese President Xi Jinping ate as U.S. missiles struck Syria may have been misdirected.
“People are missing the point. I don’t think he was into the chocolate cake that much, whatever his waistline might tell us,” says CNN star Bourdain, exec producer of the documentary Wasted! The Story of Food Waste. “He was plugging his own restaurant while bragging about a missile strike: ‘Look, I just bombed Syria, and by the way, be sure to stop by Mar-a-Lago and try the chocolate cake.’ It’s that crass.”
Bourdain doesn’t mince words when it comes to Trump’s affinity for a well-done steak with a side of ketchup. “The man’s dead to me,” he sniffs in response to Trump’s meat treatment. “And I don’t think he’d be much of a dining companion. That’s what I’ve heard from people who have dined with him.”
Bourdain does admit to having taken a seat at famed French eatery Jean Georges inside Trump International Hotel & Tower, calling it a “great restaurant,” but one that is now probably too hot even for its landlord. “I don’t think he can even get a reservation.”
A version of this story first appeared in the May 15 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
