Award winning celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain recently talked about his fascination for Beirut. In an interview with Bon Appétit Magazine, he was asked “Where should I travel now?” and this is what he had to say:
“Beirut. The food’s delicious, the people are awesome. It’s a party town. And everything wrong with the world is there. Hopefully, you will come back smarter about the world. You’ll understand a little more about how uninformed people are when they talk about that part of the world. You’ll come back as I did: changed and cautiously hopeful and confused in the best possible way. Travel at its best defies expectations. Yes, it’s divided. There are Shia neighborhoods, Christian areas—but they all go to the same restaurants. You can go from bikinis by the pool to Hezbollah in an 8-minute cab ride. They all coexist in a weird way. That’s part of the thing that makes Beirut so interesting.
