‘Tony’ review: Dominic Sessa impresses as young chef Anthony Bourdain in Matt Johnson’s bittersweet coming-of-age drama

Dir: Matt Johnson. US. 2026. 106mins

Can a screwup and perpetual liar ever make something of himself? Tony dramatises a pivotal summer in the adolescent life of celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain, who was then seeking direction before finding a sense of purpose washing dishes in an unremarkable restaurant’s kitchen. Dominic Sessa impresses as the petulant, restless aspiring writer in a biopic that, for the most part, avoids the genre’s most tedious conventions. Instead, director and co-writer Matt Johnson offers an unromantic, warts-and-all portrait, inviting viewers to wonder how close Bourdain got to potentially throwing his life away before becoming a celebrated chef and author.

An unromantic, warts-and-all portrait

A24 releases Tony on August 7 in the US before opening the picture the following week in the UK. Fans of the late Bourdain, who wrote Kitchen Confidential and starred in the nonfiction programs No Reservations and Parts Unknown, will be curious to see this snapshot into the man’s college years. Acclaimed series such as The Bear have also proven that viewers love seeing what happens behind the scenes at high-stress restaurants. Sessa, who was a breakout star thanks to 2023’s The Holdovers, is joined by Antonio Banderas and CODA’s Emilia Jones, which should help elevate this modest theatrical performer.

In the summer of 1975, New Jersey teen Tony (Sessa) has deceived everyone he knows — including pretty coed Nancy (Jones) — into believing he’s received a prestigious prize from his university that will allow him time to write a novel. Forced to keep up the deception, he travels to Cape Cod, where Nancy will be vacationing, and pretends to be working on the book as an excuse to woo her – when, in fact, he’s toiling away as a dishwasher for a local restaurant. Soon, though, Tony develops an interest in cooking and is taken under the wing of the proprietor, known only as Chef (Banderas), who instructs him in the artistry necessary to concoct a great meal.

Before directing and co-starring in the delightfully irreverent 2025 comedy Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie, Johnson demonstrated an ability to rethink biopic tenets with BlackBerry, a smart, sharp satire about the complicated individuals who masterminded the briefly popular smartphone. With Tony, the Canadian filmmaker resists portraying the young Bourdain as some genius-in-training, instead depicting him as just one more snot-nosed teen with a volatile temper and a cocky attitude.

Sessa captures the man’s sex appeal and brazen confidence as Bourdain bluffs his way into the dishwasher job — he assures Chef he’s worked in plenty of kitchens — and flirts with Nancy, who has a boyfriend but is charmed by this intense, witty guy. But Tony doesn’t shy away from the character’s unattractive traits, showing how selfish and immature he can be. Pointedly, the film contains two different scenes in which Bourdain forcefully grabs the arm of a woman to get her attention; just one hint that he has a lot of growing up to do before he enters adulthood.

Likewise, Tony is frank about the kitchen’s boys-locker-room mentality, with Leo Woodall especially good as an obnoxious, womanising coworker who encourages Bourdain to snort cocaine to keep his energy up. They and the rest of the male kitchen staff — all of whom are ignored by the hardworking Chef — engage in off-colour sex talk and the occasional homophobic epithet, suggesting the uncouth environments that Bourdain came of age in as he became an expert chef. That coarseness, which Johnson neither endorses nor condemns, is presented matter-of-factly, although Tony subtly surmises that such ribald banter was the sort of thing Bourdain would need to transcend in order to find his voice as an enlightened writer and commentator.

For much of its run time, the picture revels in its immediacy, exuding a laidback, summer-hangout vibe as Bourdain gets to know Nancy, their easy rapport eventually morphing into something more serious. But Sessa plays the character with such snarling flair and a touch of danger, constantly lying to Nancy to make her like him, that one wonders whether this young man will ever be comfortable in his own skin. That question leads to a delicate love scene that goes in surprising directions while revealing the first flickerings of sensitivity inside the childish Bourdain.

With Banderas particularly touching as Bourdain’s unlikely father figure, Tony immerses us in this sleepy Massachusetts community and the character’s gradual artistic awakening. It’s unfortunate that, near the film’s end, Johnson starts allowing cliches to infect the story, and a few feel-good bromides are introduced that run counter to Tony’s tough-love approach to its irascible antihero. Even so, Johnson and Sessa honour the difficult teenager who, as Bourdain described himself in Kitchen Confidential, was a “spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive and thoughtless young lout.”