Type of business | Private |
---|---|
Founded | 2012 |
Headquarters | |
Key people | Nathan Thornburgh [1] [2] (co-founder) Matt Goulding [1] [2] (co-founder) Doug Hughmanick [1] [2] (co-founder) Anthony Bourdain [1] [2] (sole investor) |
URL | www |
Current status | Active |
Roads & Kingdoms is an independent online publication that explores culture and politics through food and travel. Founded in 2012 by veteran journalists Nathan Thornburgh and Matt Goulding, along with graphic designer Douglas Hughmanick, Roads & Kingdoms is based in Brooklyn, New York, and Barcelona, Spain. [1] [2] In 2017, Roads & Kingdoms won the James Beard Foundation Award for Publication of the Year. [3] In 2019, Roads & Kingdoms won the National Magazine Award for Website, Service and Lifestyle. [4]
Author and television host Anthony Bourdain was a partner and investor in the company from 2015 until his suicide in June 2018. His partnership with Roads & Kingdoms and CNN on the digital series Explore Parts Unknown won an Emmy in 2018. [5]
Initially created as a Tumblr in late 2011, Roads & Kingdoms transitioned to a self-funded website in 2012. [6] The company is named after The Book of Roads & Kingdoms, a geographical text by Abu Abdullah Al-Bakri, an 11th-century Andalusian geographer. [7] Roads & Kingdoms publishes articles by writers from around the world, with a focus on featuring local voices. Their content includes long-form dispatches, food-focused articles, and experiential travel guides. [2]
In 2015, Roads & Kingdoms co-founder Matt Goulding collaborated with Bourdain's imprint at HarperCollins on Rice Noodle Fish: Deep Travels Through Japan’s Food Culture, which would go on to become the first of three similar books produced by Roads & Kingdoms, including Grape Olive Pig (2016) [8] and Pasta Pane Vino (2018). [9] That year, Bourdain also became a partner, investor, and editor-at-large for Roads & Kingdoms’ website. [10]
In early 2017, the site launched The Trip, a podcast focused on travel stories and hosted by Thornburgh, with cameos from Bourdain. [11] After Bourdain's suicide in 2018, The Trip shifted its main focus to weekly guest interviews. [12]
Also in 2017, Roads & Kingdoms partnered with CNN to create the website and webseries for Bourdain's travel food show Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown , titled "Explore Parts Unknown", for which they won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Short Form Nonfiction or Reality Series in 2018. [13] The site features travel notes, exclusive videos, and behind-the-scenes content from each destination Bourdain visited for Parts Unknown. [14]
The title of the magazine refers to a main work of the andalusian geographer and historian AbūʿUbaid al-Bakrī (1094–1014, Arabic : أبو عبيد عبد الله بن عبد العزيز البكري). His work is characterized by a very objective description of Europe, Northern Africa, and the Arabian Peninsula. In Kitāb al-Masālik wa-l-Mamālik (1068; book of Roads and Kingdoms) al-Bakri writes about the people and their habits, as well about geography, climate and the capitals of the territories connected to the Mediterranean Sea. [15]
Thai cuisine is the national cuisine of Thailand.
Vietnamese cuisine encompasses the foods and beverages originated from Vietnam. Meals feature a combination of five fundamental tastes : sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and spicy. The distinctive nature of each dish reflects one or more elements, which are also based around a five-pronged philosophy. Vietnamese recipes use ingredients like lemongrass, ginger, mint, Vietnamese mint, long coriander, Saigon cinnamon, bird's eye chili, lime, and Thai basil leaves. Traditional Vietnamese cooking has often been characterised as using fresh ingredients, not using much dairy or oil, having interesting textures, and making use of herbs and vegetables. The cuisine is also low in sugar and is almost always naturally gluten-free, as many of the dishes are rice-based instead of wheat-based, made with rice noodles, papers and flour.
Anthony Michael Bourdain was an American celebrity chef, author, and travel documentarian. He starred in programs focusing on the exploration of international culture, cuisine, and the human condition.
Singaporean cuisine is derived from several ethnic groups in Singapore and has developed through centuries of political, economic, and social changes in the cosmopolitan city-state.
Assyrian cuisine is the cuisine of the indigenous ethnic Assyrian people, Eastern Aramaic-speaking Syriac Christians of Iraq, northeastern Syria, northwestern Iran and southeastern Turkey. Assyrian cuisine is primarily identical to Iraqi/Mesopotamian cuisine, as well as being very similar to other Middle Eastern and Caucasian cuisines, as well as Greek cuisine, Levantine cuisine, Turkish cuisine, Iranian cuisine, Palestinian cuisine, and Armenian cuisine, with most dishes being similar to the cuisines of the area in which those Assyrians live/originate from. It is rich in grains such as barley, meat, tomato, herbs, spices, cheese, and potato as well as herbs, fermented dairy products, and pickles.
Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations is an American travel and food show that originally aired on the Travel Channel in the United States and on Discovery Travel & Living internationally. In it, host Anthony Bourdain visits various countries and cities, as well as places within the U.S., where he explores local culture and cuisine. The format and content of the show is similar to Bourdain's 2001–2002 Food Network series, A Cook's Tour. The show premiered in 2005 and concluded its nine-season run with the series finale episode (Brooklyn) on November 5, 2012.
Eric Ripert is a French chef, author, and television personality specializing in modern French cuisine and noted for his work with seafood.
Andrew Scott Zimmern is an American chef, restaurateur, television and radio personality, director, producer, businessman, food critic, and author. Zimmern is the co-creator, host, and consulting producer of the Travel Channel television series Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern,Bizarre Foods America, Bizarre Foods: Delicious Destinations, Andrew Zimmern's Bizarre World, Dining with Death, The Zimmern List, and Andrew Zimmern's Driven by Food, as well as the Food Network series The Big Food Truck Tip. For his work on Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern, he was presented the James Beard Foundation Award four times: in 2010, 2012, 2013, and 2017. Zimmern hosts a cooking webseries on YouTube, Andrew Zimmern Cooks. Another show, What's Eating America, premiered on MSNBC in 2020.
David Chang is an American celebrity chef, restauranteur, author, podcaster, and television personality. He is the founder of the Momofuku restaurant group. In 2009, Momofuku Ko was awarded two Michelin stars, which the restaurant had retained each year until its closure in 2023. In 2011, he co-founded the influential food magazine Lucky Peach, which lasted for 25 quarterly volumes into 2017.
Sundae is a type of blood sausage in Korean cuisine. It is a popular street food in both North and South Korea, generally made by steaming cow or pig's intestines stuffed with various ingredients.
Zero Point Zero Production, Inc. is a television, film, print, and digital content company founded in 2003 by Executive Producers Chris Collins and Lydia Tenaglia. Since its inception, the company has produced hundreds of hours of documentary content in over 100 countries around the world, including the critically acclaimed, Emmy and Peabody Award-winning series Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, the Emmy Award-winning The Mind of a Chef, and Emmy nominated The Hunt with John Walsh. As of 2019, ZPZ has received 27 Emmy Awards with 80 Nominations, A Peabody Award, 2 PGA Awards, 5 ACE Eddie Awards, and 5 James Beard Awards. The company also publishes Food Republic.
The Mind of a Chef is a non-fiction television series on PBS narrated and executive produced by Anthony Bourdain, and combines travel, cooking, history, and science. Each season follows a different chef, or pair of chefs, and examines their beliefs and philosophies on cooking and the culinary arts.
Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown is an American travel and food show on CNN which premiered on April 14, 2013. In the show, Anthony Bourdain travels the world uncovering lesser-known places and exploring their cultures and cuisine. The show won twelve Primetime Emmy Awards out of 31 nominations, as well as a 2013 Peabody Award. The digital series Explore Parts Unknown, an editorial partnership with Roads & Kingdoms, won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Short Form Nonfiction or Reality Series. Parts Unknown aired the last collection of episodes on CNN in the autumn of 2018. The series finale, titled "Lower East Side"—bringing Bourdain's culinary travelogue full circle back to Bourdain's hometown of New York—aired November 11, 2018.
Andy Ricker is an American chef, restaurateur and cookery writer, known for his skill and expertise in northern Thai cuisine.
John Currence is an American chef based in Oxford, Mississippi. As of 2019 he owns four restaurants in the city of Oxford: City Grocery, Big Bad Breakfast, Bourè, and Snackbar in addition to a catering business, The Main Event. Currence also owns numerous Big Bad Breakfast locations in Alabama, Florida, Tennessee and South Carolina. He won a James Beard Award in 2009 for the category of Best Chef, South, at City Grocery. He later also participated in the third season of the Bravo television competition Top Chef Masters.
Nathan Thornburgh is an American journalist, former TIME Magazine foreign correspondent editor, and CEO of Roads & Kingdoms, which he co-founded with food writer Matt Goulding and at which Anthony Bourdain was a partner from 2015 until his death. Thornburgh also hosts the Roads & Kingdoms-produced podcast The Trip.
Matt Goulding is an American food journalist, book author, and producer based in Barcelona, Spain. He was food editor at Men's Health magazine, where he wrote the column Eat This, Not That, which became a book series. In 2012, he co-founded Roads & Kingdoms with longtime foreign correspondent Nathan Thornburgh. They were joined in 2015 by television host and author Anthony Bourdain, who remained a partner and editor-at-large at Roads & Kingdoms until Bourdain's death in 2018.
The James Beard Foundation Awards are annual awards presented by the James Beard Foundation to recognize culinary professionals in the United States. The awards recognize chefs, restaurateurs, authors and journalists each year, and are generally scheduled around James Beard's May birthday.
Omnivore is an American documentary series created by René Redzepi and Matt Goulding, that premiered on Apple TV+ beginning July 19, 2024. The eight part series features ethnographies of various ingredients, including chile peppers, pigs, salt, coffee, corn, and rice. The series was partially inspired by Planet Earth and Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown.