Variety has published its review of Tony, the A24-produced drama that imagines Anthony Bourdain as a restless 19-year-old spending the summer of 1975 in Provincetown, working in a restaurant kitchen for the first time. The film is directed by Matt Johnson, who co-wrote the screenplay and previously directed Blackberry and Nirvana The Band the Show the Movie. Dominic Sessa plays the young Bourdain; Antonio Banderas also stars. (Variety)

The film draws from several early chapters of Bourdain's 2000 memoir Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, the book that turned a working line cook into a celebrity. But Tony is not a straight biographical adaptation. Variety describes it as partially fictionalized, structured as a romance and framed as the origin story of how Anthony Bourdain became Anthony Bourdain — a coming-of-age piece rather than a cradle-to-grave account. (Variety; Bon Appétit)

The project has been building since at least August 2024, when Deadline first reported A24's plans for a Bourdain biopic with Sessa attached. Banderas joined the cast by April 2025, a move he later discussed at the Torino Film Festival. Star Thrower Entertainment, an Oscar-nominated production company, and Zapruder Films produce alongside A24. (Deadline; Deadline; Variety)

A trailer arrived in May 2026, covered by Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and Deadline. The Provincetown Film Festival, held in June, featured a first look at the film — a fitting venue, given that Provincetown is where the story unfolds. (Variety; The Hollywood Reporter; Deadline)

For anyone who read Kitchen Confidential or watched No Reservations, the appeal is obvious: the moment Bourdain discovered the chaos and camaraderie of a professional kitchen. Johnson, whose Blackberry turned a corporate-tech story into a taut character drama, now takes on a figure whose mythology already looms large. The Variety review signals that critics are now engaging with the result — and that a release, wider festival play, or both may follow.