I am an efficient but unspectacular cook. I have a sense of how long to sear a New York strip steak before putting it in the oven, and on a recent, unseasonably cool August evening, I capably executed a pot roast dinner that furnished leftovers for days. Undoubtedly, my skills are improving, but even if they improve markedly, I will never, ever, not even in jest, answer to the call of “Chef.”

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The use of “Chef” as a proper noun, and in absence of a person’s given name, is one of the more pretentious affectations of our age, but it points to greater pretensions in modern American dining. From so-so restaurants boasting of “house-made” this-or-that to comically large plates housing tiny servings, the act of dining out so often involves subjecting oneself to a plague of preciousness.

I do not entirely blame the celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain (1956-2018) for this state of affairs, but he certainly contributed to it. Bourdain, a Culinary Institute of America-trained chef who practiced his trade at various top restaurants, gave the game away: On his assorted television shows, including A Cook’s Tour (2002-2003) and Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations (2005-2012), he endeavored to behave with maximum bad-boy coarseness as a way, counterintuitively, to demonstrate that his sensibilities (and taste buds) were superior to the viewers. That this proved popular is a mystery.

Yet the Bourdain cult remains surprisingly durable on the basis of the new biopic Tony, the makers of which so revere........

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