Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown | Jamaica | S04 E08 | All Documentary

Anthony Bourdain explores Jamaica's divided history, Port Antonio's billionaire-driven tourism revival, crab hunting, and Ian Fleming's Goldeneye estate. Blends food and social critique.

Key Takeaways

Jamaica's tourism economy reflects deep historical inequality rooted in slavery and colonial economics.
Wealthy investors' redevelopment of Port Antonio raises questions about preserving local character versus commercializing it.
Food in Jamaica carries layered history, with dishes like saltfish and breadfruit born from enslaved people's rations.
Access to beaches and natural resources remains contested between locals and developers.

What the video covers

Bourdain opens with reflections on a year of travel and chooses Jamaica for a low-impact trip, driving on the left side of the road.
He frames Jamaica as a divided society shaped by slavery, with a wealthy minority and a poorer majority, reflected in its cuisine such as breadfruit and saltfish.
Bourdain samples jerk chicken and visits Port Antonio, once a jet-set destination after Errol Flynn's arrival, later faded after tourism shifted to Montego Bay.
Billionaire Michael Lee-Chin hosts Bourdain at the Trident hotel and castle, where Bourdain hunts crabs in local holes and joins a dinner with Lee-Chin, his partner, and Flynn's grandson.
Lee-Chin discusses romanticized development, the threat of overdevelopment, and why Port Antonio's remoteness has limited tourism.
The episode visits Ian Fleming's Goldeneye, where he wrote his James Bond novels, and notes its expansion into a luxury hotel.
Bourdain explores the Grotto, a Jamaican cave-like resort feature, and reflects on luxury and exclusivity.
Chris Blackwell, founder of Island Records and promoter of Bob Marley, discusses reggae's global spread and the tension between tourism and local life.
Bourdain eats aki and saltfish, a classic dish, and discusses the toxicity risks of unripe aki.
The episode closes with debates over beach access, development pressure on locals, and the question of who benefits from tourism.

Chapters

What is the main theme of this Anthony Bourdain episode about Jamaica?

The episode examines Jamaica's divided society, shaped by slavery and colonialism, and how tourism and wealthy development affect local communities. Bourdain contrasts the island's tourist image with the realities faced by its majority population.

Why does Bourdain say Port Antonio was forgotten?

After the banana industry declined and tourism moved to Montego Bay with the construction of its airport, Port Antonio lost its visitors. Its remote location and limited access have kept it largely out of the mainstream tourist circuit.

What is significant about Goldeneye in this episode?

Goldeneye was Ian Fleming's home in Jamaica, where he wrote his James Bond novels each year. Bourdain visits the property, which has since been expanded into a luxury hotel while retaining the original cottage.

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

Speaker A

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] i took a walk through this beautiful world felt the cool rain on my shoulders [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] i drink [Music] nearly a year on the road all those miles all those airports

Speaker A

infinite variety of awful plumbing it was time for something low impact so off to jamaica [Music] this is the first time i've ever driven a car on a on the wrong side of the road i mean knowingly how hard could it be

Speaker A

oh i get the pass on the right too thankfully we have a roll bar but this time a different angle you probably know of jamaica as a vacation paradise but it's worth mentioning this is a divided country and has been in one form

Speaker A

or another since the days of slavery there's a small minority who control most everything and then there's the poorer generally darker skinned majority less connected left out jamaican cuisine a lot of it still reflects this conflicted history breadfruit

Speaker A

saltfish this was slave food cheap long-lasting filling introduced basically as feed [Music] day one first order of business get my you know some jerk chicken [Music] can you blame me no i think oh that's good [Music] yeah yeah i know this routine believe me

Speaker A

it's brown it's murky and it burns mommy it burns [Music] and there are still all these years later two jamaicas there's the jamaica that most jamaicans live in cook in struggle to survive in the real jamaica then there's the jamaica which you're

Speaker A

probably more familiar with [Music] but tourists have been coming to jamaica for a long time when this part of the island particularly port antonio threatened to become an international jet set destination local legend has it that errol flynn was

Speaker A

shipwrecked here on his yacht in 1947 and promptly fell in love with the place before flynn it has been an empire of bananas a huge industry that later became united fruit bananas went out tourists came in the banana business eventually went

Speaker A

elsewhere and when tourism shifted to the other side of the island with the construction of an airport at montego bay well that was pretty much it the northeast coast was largely forgotten it has the feel still of a forgotten

Speaker A

paradise there are those who believe that the area can come back that it must come back that the future is in hotels and resorts and restaurants for wealthy visitors as it once was [Music] take this place for instance the trident

Speaker A

hotel expensive luxurious best of all i'm the only guest oh did i mention it comes with a castle what kind of person would own a building like that who why then this man arrived and kind of answered that question

Speaker A

all of this belongs to michael lee chin local boy turned billionaire one of the richest men in the world and my host he's invited me for dinner yeah that sounds like a plan but first we need crabs for that dinner i'm told

Speaker A

caught in the traditional style a drink is an order cheers man respect grab in grab it [Music] a lot of crab holes this time of year port antonio is literally crawling with crabs i'm told it'll be really easy just scoop

Speaker A

up the little bastards and then it's back to the pool yeah i'm looking a lunge at them it's hot i think it's that rum you know it's really thick in the bush you know it's sweltering freaking hot and dark

Speaker A

you find something yeah yeah yeah awesome man but it doesn't seem to bother the hotel chefs who willingly risk dismemberment the sake of procuring a tasty dinner we want him alive we have questions to ask him where are your friends oh yeah one crab

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down 49 left to go we're gonna get some more tonight so i'm frankly anxious to get this over with so when the opportunity rises to stick my paw down into a hole where there's probably a pissed off crab

Speaker A

looking to clamp down on my pinky with his pincers i could care less nothing nope nobody home oh hans ah are those fire ants wonderful please attack my nut sack anything to get this over with quicker he's running

Speaker A

hey man okay i don't want to kill the little guy that's it nice one next what seems like several sweltering hours later it's mission accomplished and it's back to home base and time to get ready for dinner at the castle

Speaker A

followed by a party i'm told [Music] do you recognize this i put this guy in a bag i'm joined by billionaire michael his partner john baker music producer and hotelier john's wife nordia errol flynn's grandson luke flynn and

Speaker A

his wife scott you grew up in this in this yes in this area what was port antonio like in in the 50s port antonio was uh it was vibrant banana lots of wealthy tourists so port antonio was a happening place

Speaker A

[Music] them you're a man with a diverse financial interest banks communications as a veteran of 30 years in the hospitality business why why would you do such a hard and probably unprofitable thing i mean usually unprofitable you're being

Speaker A

very kind it's a really business generally well i thought you're smart that you're brilliant but your behavior shows that you're dumb no no i know the answer you're you're are you a romantic great things can will happen when you

Speaker A

uh you you romanticize you dream you aspire you see a vision and you set out to achieve that vision trident is here to catalyze people to come to quarantine and discover wow wow and wow again [Music] where does it cross over where all of

Speaker A

the things you love about about this area where all of the villas are spanking new and people are building 400 room hotels is there a threshold where things start to not be the things that you loved about the

Speaker A

place in the first place and how do you guard against that you know tony poor thank you is a long way from getting there it has not progressed out of the 50s [Music] it's had very little tourism in recent

Speaker A

years why isn't there lots of everybody loves reggae everybody loves bob marley everybody loves spicy delicious jamaican food what's the problem because you don't get off a plane and go 100 yards to an all-inclusive there's no real lift here you have to

Speaker A

get here it's that simple but it's as simple as a lift and it's as simple as we're shrouded by the blue mountains and it's an effort to get here so it filters out certain forms of travelers so we have to make it a little bit

Speaker A

easier to get we get beat out by a lot of lame islands and even in jamaica lamer areas for me i say if someone says oh i've been to jamaica and they haven't been to port antonio i'm like

Speaker A

well really you didn't get a real feeling of jamaica you can't go many places in the world and find natural beauty people who are genuinely warm where there's a strong culture of food strong culture in terms of music and at

Speaker A

the same time be able to be a part of a community and you can be a visitor without being a part of the tourist industry [Music] [Music] do [Music] [Music] hello during world war ii british naval intelligence officer ian fleming

Speaker A

came to jamaica on a secret mission to investigate possible u-boat activity like the legendary character he would later create he was a spy the mission came to nothing but fleming fell immediately in love with the island and vowed to return

Speaker A

which he did buying this place goldeneye at the time considered very spartan a cottage a single room really a few smaller rooms in the back but an incredible view he spent much of the rest of his life here writing a book

Speaker A

each year at this desk you know those books today fleming's cottage has been enlarged and made more luxurious as a hotel but the original house still stands along with some improvements [Applause] [Music] grotto a what did every young american

Speaker A

boy want every red-blooded american male born in 1956 i can tell you they wanted a grotto it sounded pretty good to be at 12. as i got older i started to think about these things like exactly who is in that grotto before me

Speaker A

becomes more of a concern as you grow up it's like did did ron jeremy just leave the grotto am i the first one in the grotto had someone changed the water in the grotto these were these were concerns later in life but

Speaker A

this was it i wanted a grotto i still kind of do thank you so much this is totally better than the playboy mansion you know that the playboy mansion totally smells like old man ear stink [Music] the current owner of goldeneye is

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another unusual man chris blackwell legendary music producer turned hotelier over the years blackwell has expanded the property into a resort its gates reaching right up to the fishing beach at neighboring or cabeza blackwell has big plans for the area

Speaker A

[Music] the next day i leave golden eyes luxurious embrace headed into town for something well i just had to have a long time favorite what do we have here oh oxtail myanmar and curry coat oh sweet i don't care whether it's the bronx or

Speaker A

kingston or wherever i can get it oxtail curry goat callaloo and of course rice and pigeon peas got to have that man i love the food in this country man it's the best it's such a mix it's a lot of people totally miss out i mean

Speaker A

curry goats comes from the east indies what they used to call it that's true chef chris's cook shop has become something of a local institution a thriving business in a town that's seen better days how long have you been up in here i've

Speaker A

been opening this little shop for 13 years 13 years the town changed in that time or stayed the same well right right now you know we're in um our economy is not doing so good right now so why not it's one of the most beautiful

Speaker A

areas in the world yeah for real we have a beautiful waterfront beautiful weather yeah beautiful food yeah what more critic i asked for what do you think went wrong i mean why why would people stop coming i guess the guys in the top seat messed

Speaker A

it up so they're trying to correct it now you know it's expanding fast yeah it lands it down i mean they're gonna be building all the way yeah all the way down there all the way around yeah so so that's thousands of doors yeah

Speaker A

probably to be honest i'm waiting for that moment i don't want to think [Music] we really need that you know because this town was dying fast and real fast so chris blackwell came back and now he's booming the town so

Speaker A

that's a good step in the right direction oh thank you oh yeah see now now i'm happy that it's just beautiful nice place to grow up it is but what's it like being a kid my child is there that i used to spend it

Speaker A

on the beach that's pretty good yeah who gets to do that well i guess one of me and my friends but i mean do you ever do you ever take it for granted like you ever said you ever get yeah we do we do

Speaker A

we do we do see the thing about it when we really need it that's the time we can't have it you know because a lot of our waterfronts have been gone you know we have very little right now

Speaker A

you know it's okay we have james bond beach like 10 minutes walk from here also so at least we're one of the luckier ones [Music] so it's inevitable of course that next door to goldeneye there would be a james bond

Speaker A

beach all of the bond movies were conceptualized and written here [Music] when blackwell heard i wanted to visit the local fisherman he hooked me up with his good friend carl to accompany me [Music] i'm here to hit dr ho's a local rum bar

Speaker A

where one can indulge in a typical hard-working fisherman's breakfast rum so we drinking rum here we drinking beer we drinking rum and beer well i know it's hardcore but you're recommending just like some beer and some rum together

Speaker A

all right yeah steel butter no right we're going to do one part of rum one yep right and four parts of beer no water no ice try that it's a steel bottom meaning it's it's none it's good yeah and you could take it to your

Speaker A

dimension so who fish is here you fish yeah what are you fishing for it's multiple fishing right which will be your snapper your pirate your grunt exactly right so is business better these days or worse these days okay worse right overfishing there's a

Speaker A

problem oracabesa is a fishing village for now at least all throughout the caribbean fish stocks are in decline and making a living from the sea is getting harder and harder so right here it's actually become a fishing sanctuary

Speaker A

where we're trying to know revive the fish stock around the island so if this becomes a protected sanctuary what are you going to do yeah so you have to go further out to sea but if it's efficient that means

Speaker A

more gas more gas more economic conditions less fish so it's a strain right is there a future for the traditional fishing industry in in jamaica or do you think like every place else in the caribbean is it going to end up an entirely

Speaker A

tourist economy this one belong to the tourists this is this place here because i can tell you something i live just off the road love the spot which is on the coast just like chris blackwell and they're going to tell me that i

Speaker A

cannot fish in here but what is happening here's rich people want to live what they see as a simple life in their minds they want to live the life of a jamaican fisherman so they want to live the life of

Speaker A

somebody who doesn't have a lot of money but the people who actually do that now are given up their living and essentially entering the tourist sector there's a certain amount of weird irony at work here who gets to live in

Speaker A

paradise nobody because guess what you've got a point and i'd like to there's a lot of things going on here right i read a piece of paper a couple months ago that's going on down here right the native here don't

Speaker A

have no beach in a few months time this architect's model sits in one of golden eyes offices showing what oraca bessa's coastline will look like if all goes according to plan they're gonna have an idea to come inside

Speaker A

i'm no expert on local politics but whatever is going on here has clearly stirred up some strong emotions [Music] don't [Music] is which is better to be your own man uphold family tradition in a dangerous ever-shrinking ever more difficult business trying to

Speaker A

catch fish in the sea or carry a golf bag for a wealthy tourist i couldn't tell you i was in the service industry cooking people's food for most of my working life so it's not like i have anything against it but

Speaker A

i don't know [Music] if us find the spirit in man and travel to the unknown because we are here in the present that it just started this is coming we out of the unknown of the nothingness and we are gonna go on into the

Speaker A

information area into the celestials we are what is called astral through traffic they mentioned the dimension if one man died almonded every one man live i'm unbelievable tolerance one dark one four one co one puss one moon one sun

Speaker A

it has a multi-purpose united sustained energy and life they are black blue green pink yellow river sea mountain bird dog food man man everything is from the non-such everything is related the car the car the money everything is connected to the universe

Speaker A

so we are the human person does not realize how vulnerable we are within the changes of time or it will not disappear my brethren is [Music] who gets to live in paradise it's jamaica let's accept as a as a

Speaker A

basic premise that this is about as close to paradise as it gets right this place i'm staying was built by a guy who lived here two months out of the year that place down there probably the same in two months a year

Speaker A

sad to say i i think it's unlikely that 50 years from now anyone but the extraordinarily fortunate the extraordinarily connected and the extraordinarily rich will be able to even look at a vista like this that is my personal theory

Speaker A

look here i am fully aware of the irony of this situation it's like the whole preservation thing who who preserve for who save the reef for who save the beach for whom not you probably [Music] later that evening blackwell invited me

Speaker A

to his private bar just down the cliff from fleming's old villa there are very few pieces of land anywhere on earth like this especially with this kind of legendary status legend yes it's fleming it's really bonds birthplace [Music]

Speaker A

chris blackwell is the founder of island records he's credited with discovering bob marley and spreading the gospel of reggae into the mainstream all across the world to the extent that one person can sort of be responsible for the soundtrack of your life you are

Speaker A

responsible for much of the soundtrack of my life he signed um roxy music and brian briannino both yes yes did you have any idea deciding bob marley the extent to which his image alone would blow up to to you know che guevara level

Speaker A

but bob somehow managed to touch people in every corner of the world in different different cultures different societies um no i never could have imagined i didn't think anybody could have imagined it's so unbelievable having sold island records

Speaker A

for some rumored to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars blackwell spends his time well doing whatever he wants you have a number of hotel properties um rum business what's the master plan well you're just having fun well always

Speaker A

is to have found this part of the master plan you only live around here one time so i'm very excited about here what i'm doing here i'm trying to to break a little resort town it's something that filters into the

Speaker A

town filters into the parish filters into the country lately the project at hand is the oracabesa fish sanctuary set up to protect the local fish habitat and breeding grounds a noble cause but one that has put blackwell squarely at odds with some of

Speaker A

his neighbors it seems to me that most people who come to jamaica pretty much stay within the compound uh you know sandals or whatever and don't really get out there much it's a business model and that business model

Speaker A

works well for people the market that i'm going for are the ones on the high level in terms of a high cost level is it an inevitability that basically all of the caribbean that it's essentially going to end up as a service

Speaker A

economy yes i think yes i think i i think mainly so and then it's based on tourism it's based on people visiting it's tough balance the engine that's going to preserve or save is often dependent on who's coming to

Speaker A

look and what they're willing to pay to come and look can there be a balance do you think i mean can a place this beautiful be unspoiled could be a couple foreign places like this in jamaica as long as there are people who

Speaker A

can go and spend some money in communities go to a little restaurant go to a little bar go to you know shop that that's essential for jamaica to really thrive [Music] if life were a bond film who would you

Speaker A

be in a bottom zone well there's only one hero in the bomb will you be the hero i'd have to be yeah i'd have to figure that out i don't know whether i'd be the villain i'd be like number 17.

Speaker A

he has an happy ending yes and his end is quite short yeah [Music] [Music] so what we're all looking for isn't it the perfect beach [Music] remote uncluttered by douchery cold local beer the perfect end to a long and well bumpy

Speaker A

road [Music] winifred's beach is that beach mostly locals a few clued in visitors white sand clear warm water and of course local food this is aki jamaica favorite dish typically jamaica we use it as a breakfast cynthia and dennis run this place and

Speaker A

come highly recommend it i'm told this is the spot for the classic gotta have it or you ain't really been to jamaica aki and saltfish salt cod rehydrated and cooked with aki a local fruit that happens to be toxic if you don't handle

Speaker A

it right now they say best hockey on salt fish anywhere and yeah also some bananas [Music] that is delicious cynthia's friends joy and margaery also have little restaurants or food stalls on the beach and they tell me that here too it's in

Speaker A

danger of redevelopment that all this might disappear into the ever-churning wheel of well [Music] winifred beach is a public beach it has been one of the best beef in jamaica the beach was left to give the poor people of jamaica

Speaker A

so the government takes it over supposedly to make it a public space but they want to sell it to a what a hotel group yeah they want to make like a resort there are a lot of islands in the

Speaker A

caribbean where you're not allowed to own a beach meaning all beaches are public even if it's a really exclusive hotel at least theoretically anybody can go right here it's different here if you can buy a house and the beach

Speaker A

you can if you you you're a hotel you can make it a private beach meaning they don't let the locals on or vendors or anything they can keep people out right so how many public access beaches are there in this area

Speaker A

just one we have other beaches around you know we have like blue lagoon which is a private dragon bay private and our sunshine is private so this is the only public one you know yeah what happens if i mean

Speaker A

that would be sort of ridiculous if jamaicans can't go to the beach in jamaica exactly there are two sides to every story of course and the government for its part claims locals will still have access to their beach

Speaker A

we don't trust them so we do not believe what they said they want it get us off and like cars six seven here they don't do anything on it and close it off what [Music] what kind of monstrous human being or

Speaker A

organization would displace yes the people from their own beach freedom thank you very much we would like we are in prison yeah yeah because when the time is hot we would have nowhere to come and swim so we the people we are in court with

Speaker A

the government because we do not want them to take away the one and only beach that we have in jamaica portland what do you think your chances are you think your chances are are good yes are you gonna win

Speaker A

yes i've been fighting over seven years seven years seven years and i said i'm gonna fight until i reach the top if when i reach the top and i lose i feel much better but i'm not giving up

Speaker A

let's face it there are only so many beaches in this world even fewer unspoiled beaches and even fewer beaches like this i mean that's one of the things that's nice about this area is it's not a big resort

Speaker A

area like some of the other parts and the food is amazing right yeah we do delicious nice food you can't get this at the hotel yeah that is what not like this that's so fresh really really really tasty i mean i

Speaker A

don't have to come back here like tomorrow whenever people come here and it has problem they go to the sea and they look over there in the ocean and when they're finished they never have a problem it's all right in the

Speaker A

water and down here and i hope that the world can see what is going on at winnifred beach right so that they can come out and enjoy the beauty of the beach the nature of the beach the people and

Speaker A

the love at the beach [Music] next day and i know where i'm going [Music] because you never know because it may not be here that much longer not like this anyway sun sand rum and ting and some more food

Speaker A

[Music] oh yeah hi wow what a spread [Music] i'm not going hungry today beautiful thank you i'm so excited [Music] that is actually quite delicious [Music] then i'm missing out on starches when you get yam plantain bread fruit rice

Speaker A

peas corn carrots dumpling festival like the man said eat dessert first life is uncertain that's good i knew i was coming back here i knew it was a smart move to come back here these ladies can cook point being the

Speaker A

way the world turns the inevitable grind of history seems to indicate that places like this and people like this get plowed under pushed aside paved over who owns paradise after all who in the end gets to own paradise

Speaker A

use paradise or even visit it that's a question that's probably worth paying attention to before there's none left at all [Music] how do you do this and be a good person i don't think you can like if you wanted to do this regularly

Speaker A

for the rest of your life i would like to spend three months out of the year in a hammock looking out at the caribbean in a secluded beach like this you'd have to do bad things to do this right

Speaker A

[Music] james bond doesn't get this james bond's a hustler he gets this for a couple of days before he moves on to the next location the guy who lives here is the bond villain not james bond ian fleming was much closer to like

Speaker A

blofeld or hugo drax you know those guys had lots of leisure time sitting around in hammocks figuring out how to take over the world a lot of down time in world domination [Music] bond was a working class that's what i've been missing

Speaker A

[Music] all right go wide summon the robot piranhas where's my cocktail [Music] so [Music] you

Topics:Anthony BourdainParts UnknownJamaicaPort AntonioJamaican cuisinetourismGoldeneyeIan FlemingMichael Lee-Chinreggae

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