A couple of Iowa businesses should get some national exposure tonight on a Travel Channel program. Tonight’s episode of “Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations” will likely include footage of the chef and author’s visit to Iowa in November when he was in the state for an appearance at the Des Moines Civic Center. Bourdain’s film crew traveled to the Hamilton County town of Stanhope to shoot footage of the Stanhope Locker and interview the locker’s owner, Clint Smith.
“They really just wanted to see the steps of this processing facility…a small meat locker,” Smith said. Smith did not meet Bourdain, but says he enjoys watching the program. He says the film crew wanted to document how animals arrive at the locker and end up on a family’s dinner table.
“Their whole idea was to show that you have local processors and you can identify where your meat is coming from,” Smith said. While Bourdain was in Des Moines, he took a film crew to the French restaurant Bistro Montage. Bourdain sampled a number of the restaurant’s menu items, including cheese from Reichert’s Dairy in Knoxville. Tonight’s episode, titled “Heartland,” airs at 9 o’clock on the Travel Channel.