Drinking buddy mourns tragedy

AN OLD drinking buddy of Anthony Bourdain’s remembers the good times — and probably not much else.

Tracy Westmoreland (above) met the celebrated chef in 1996, long before the days of best-selling memoirs and hit TV shows.

Westmoreland (above with Bourdain) had opened the infamously raucous Siberia Bar at 50th St. and Broadway, just a hop from Sullivan’s, where Bourdain was a chef. They formed a friendship that lasted more than 20 years, until Bourdain, 61, took his own life in France on Friday.

On nights when Bourdain worked late, Westmoreland would keep the bar open for him and his staff. In turn, Westmoreland says, Bourdain kept him fed.

“When he couldn’t make it, they’d bring food down to me,” says Westmoreland. “They’d send food, silverware, waiters, everything.”

Westmoreland returned the favor by keeping cold bottles of Heineken behind the bar for the hard-living chef.

He also encouraged Bourdain to make the jump from mystery author to food writer.

Westmoreland is listed in the acknowledgments of “Kitchen Confidential,” Bourdain’s groundbreaking 2000 book.

“I told him to stop writing crime novels,” Westmoreland said. “I told him you’re not a f-----g gangster, you’re a chef. Tony was a better writer than he was a chef.”

According to Westmoreland, one of his greatest regrets in life was not going into business with Bourdain 20 years ago when the two of them and their wives took a trip to the Caribbean.

“We were going to open a bar in St. Martin. I just didn’t want to live there full time,” he says. “That was a big mistake.”

The last time Westmoreland hung out with Bourdain was at the 2015 funeral of New York Times reporter and author David Carr. Westmoreland had once contributed to a Times piece about Bourdain.

“He said ‘I just came to thank you for lying to The New York Times,’” Westmoreland recalled. “‘You said I’m still the same guy I was when I met you and I know I’ve become a f-----g a--hole.’”