The final episodes of Bourdain's award-winning food and travel show premiere on Sunday.
Months after his death, Anthony Bourdain is still taking fans around the world on new culinary adventures.
The final episodes of Bourdain's award-winning food and travel series, Parts Unknown, kick off on Sunday, as the late chef visits Kenya with fellow TV host, W. Kamau Bell.
“In one sense, I felt like a lottery winner because I got to do something that everybody who watches Bourdain wants to do, which is travel with him and do the thing he does,” Bell recently told The Daily Beast of his experience filming with Bourdain, just a few months before his death. “And there was part of me that felt like I was on some sort of externship in TV production.”
The United Shades of America host shared a clip of him and Bourdain shopping together during their African excursion on Twitter on Tuesday, writing, "While it will be a very emotional episode w/ his passing, I don't want to forget that we had a really good time & we laughed a lot."
Bourdain was found dead on June 8 by friend and chef, Eric Ripert, in a room at Le Chambard Hotel in Kaysersberg, France. Last weekend, the late TV personality won two posthumous Emmys for Parts Unknown: Outstanding Writing for a Nonfiction Program and Outstanding Informational Series or Special, marking these as his first wins since 2016 when the CNN series won in the Informational Series category.
In total, Parts Unknown took home five Emmys -- including Outstanding Picture Editing for a Nonfiction Program, Outstanding Sound Editing for a Nonfiction Program (Single or Multi-Camera) and Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Nonfiction Program (Single or Multi-Camera) -- which were handed out during the 2018 Creative Arts Emmy Awards last Sunday. Meanwhile, Anthony Bourdain: Explore Parts Unknown also won for Outstanding Short Form Nonfiction or Reality Series.
Other preview clips from the first episode of Parts Unknown's 12th season feature Bell trying his "first eye" as the pair feast on slow-cooked goat's head. "I knew I'd end up doing something like that with you," he jokes to Bourdain.
"Sometimes in life you know you are living in rarefied air. I knew that was the case when I was filming with @Bourdain. & I know it even more now," Bell tweeted on Wednesday, sharing the new clip of the pair sitting down for another meal. He doubles down on the experience in yet another preview, saying, "Everybody who had dreams of traveling with Tony, it's exactly as cool as you think it is."
Bell told The Daily Beast he suggested Kenya as a destination, wanting to visit Africa for the first time, but was somewhat surprised when Bourdain accepted. “I couldn’t imagine there would be a country I had heard of that he hadn’t been to,” he added. “He had been all over Africa, but this was the first time I stepped foot in Africa.”
And while Bell admitted that the trip had a profound experience on both his life and his own CNN show -- he called his United Shades producer upon returning and said, “We have to change everything. I’ve been to the mountaintop!” noting that Bourdain “changed our show from the inside even before he died." -- he thinks it was just as impactful for the late star.
“I cannot f***ing believe that I get to do this,” Bourdain says in a clip from the upcoming episode, as he and Bell sit down for a drink after a day-long safari. “Or see this, ever. Or that I ever would, because 44 years ago, dunking fries, I knew, with absolute certainty, that I would never, ever see Rome, much less this.”
See more on the final season of Parts Unknown in the video below. Season 12 premieres Sunday at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CNN.
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