If you want to be a successful chef, understanding the basic concept of telling the time is key. It explains why Anthony Bourdain – and every other famous chef come to think of it – was rarely spotted not wearing a watch. His collection was great, Gordon Ramsay loves a watch, and if you can filter through the stress of it all, you might have noticed that watches (and clocks) played a big part in every season of The Bear.
For this month’s dose of stressful kitchen entertainment, we have Tony, the much anticipated Anthony Bourdain biopic starring Dominic Sessa (he was so great in The Holdover). The fact that a 23-year-old is playing the legend is a bit of a giveaway that it’s all about Bourdain’s youth, when, as the man himself famous once put it, he was “to be frank, a spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive and thoughtless young lout, badly in need of a good ass-kicking.”
Throughout the film, the most noticeable thing – barring Sessa’s brilliance in portraying how beautifully complicated an individual Bourdain was – is the ever-present fixture on Sessa’s wrist.
As confirmed by the film’s costume designer, Chloe Karmin (who worked closely with the prop master Pete Dancy), an original Timex Vietnam Camper was chosen for young Bourdain to wear. And while Dancy was not available to comment on why this watch was selected, I have my suspicions. Firstly, it’s a widely known fact that Bourdain favoured wearing a Timex in later life when he was filming his shows in places where one of his Rolexes might put him at risk of being the victim of a watch theft.
A24 and Timex
As a teenager starting out in the big bad world of life, you literally cannot go wrong with a Timex watch; as well as being nice and affordable (you can get a Vietnam Camper on eBay for under £100), they are very easy to read and are quartz so in Tony’s case, as a chef, he’d never have to worry about winding it, meaning it will remain accurate to the second day-in-day-out, until the battery needs changing. It really is the entry level of all entry level watches.
I recall Max Coen of Notting Hill’s Dorian telling me that after knives, a watch (his was a MoonSwatch) is one of the most used pieces of equipment for a chef. So it needs to be reliable, which is precisely what you get from any Timex model. It also needs to be comfortable to the point of being like a second skin (we all know chefs work long hours), which is why a khaki nylon strap is a better choice over a metal bracelet or leather strap. More breathable and more lowkey, too. It didn’t matter what clothes he was wearing, without fail his trusty Timex was always on.
When a young Bourdain was getting started, you can just imagine these were the criteria he was looking for in a watch, which is why this Timex is such a spot on selection in my opinion. The font, the size, the back dial and clear Arabic numerals give it all you need, with a bit of personality too. So when you leave the cinema inspired to be the next Anthony Bourdain, you now know what your first port of call is – bag yourself a cheap Timex and go from there.
