Anthony Bourdain: Charts Unknown
More than you ever thought you wanted to know about the natal chart of the man who rebranded what it meant to be a celebrity chef.
TW: the following contains descriptions of suicide.
June 2024 marked 5 years since chef Anthony Bourdain’s body was found in Le Chambard Hotel in northern France. It also marked what would have been his 68th birthday.
Maybe that’s why I can’t watch a single episode of The Bear without thinking about him.
Or maybe it’s simpler than that.
Anthony Bourdain was a powerhouse who transcended his profession in every sense of the word. He was more than a chef, more than a celebrity. He inspired and directed our cultural values in more ways than one.
In fact, that was exactly his purpose.
It was written in the stars.
The Midheaven as Bourdain’s Purpose
While a lesser-known and “minor” placement, the midheaven or “medium coeli” (Latin for “middle of the sky”) represents our higher aspirations and life’s purpose. This placement can serve as the key to unlock our most aligned vocational pursuits.
Bourdain’s midheaven sits in Taurus, at 0 degrees - right on the cusp of Aries. His success as a chef fits so perfectly into the Taurean values of fine food, luxury experiences, and taking the time to enjoy life. Sitting so close to Aries, it’s no surprise that Bourdain found the loudest, most irreverent way possible to express this purpose.
Bourdain’s purpose was to redefine how we as a culture take in experiences; he taught us that food is more than sustenance - it is the very fabric of culture itself.
Leo Ascendant = Born for the Spotlight
With a Leo rising, Bourdain's entire chart is ruled by the sun. No one can ignore the sun. And similarly, no one could ignore Anthony Bourdain.
He was never meant to *only* be a chef - even an executive chef of a Park Avenue staple.
Leo is abundance; it’s everything. Leo isn’t satisfied with one circle of influence, and neither was Bourdain. Between his culinary career, his written works, and his television franchises, Bourdain amassed an audience that spanned cultures.
It’s no wonder he was called “the original rockstar” of the culinary world.
It’s exactly what you’d expect from a Leo Ascendant.
Mercury & Venus in Gemini
Bourdain’s writing career was actually the backbone of his public persona - and he wrote even before he was noticed for it.
With Mercury and Venus in Gemini, Bourdain found both pleasure and purpose in intellectualizing and communicating his inner world.
“Maybe that's enlightenment enough: to know that there is no final resting place of the mind; no moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom...is realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go.” - The most Gemini Mercury thing Anthony Bourdain has ever said
Anthony Bourdain believed so strongly in the inherent catharsis of writing, that he submitted his works religiously and unsolicitedly for over a decade before the New Yorker published “Don’t Eat Before Reading This,” which, of course, was the essay that started it all.
Taking the experiences from his vocational passion, turning them into art, and then leveraging that art to establish a public platform is the most perfect culmination of a Leo-ruled, Taurus Midheaven, Gemini influenced natal chart.
Saturn Influence
Bourdain’s natal Saturn is in Scorpio, situated in his fourth house of home, tradition, family. Saturn is always a heavy placement, but with the fixed, dark sign of Scorpio ruling it for Bourdain, it’s no wonder that his sense of home was so shaken from everything we’ve come to expect.
Some of the most pivotal events of Bourdain’s life happened during his Saturn Returns - a multiyear transit in which most of us feel the cores of who we are shaken up in some respect.
The first time around, in the mid 1980s, he began pursuing his literary work by submitting to various publishers. He eventually enrolled in a writing course towards the end of his Saturn return. This would, of course, lay the foundation for Bourdain’s initial catapult into the public eye, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly.
The second time around, Saturn transited through Scorpio again when Bourdain was around 59. This period of time began with Bourdain joining a digital publication as investor and editor-at-large, expanding the Parts Unknown presence, Les Halles (the restaurant where Bourdain served as executive chef for a number of years) closing due to bankruptcy, and winning an Emmy.
His second Saturn return ended with his devastating death in 2018.
But someone with this much energy, light, and passion doesn’t fade away quietly. No, he left behind a legacy of magnitude. He pioneered not only new methodologies for cooking, traveling, and dining, but also for how we relate to each other as human beings.
And it’s true what they say on the internet, after all.
Girls don’t miss their ex; we all miss Anthony Bourdain.