CNN confirmed the 61-year-old's death, saying in a statement he was found unresponsive on Friday morning by friend and fellow chef Eric Ripert.

The US network said Bourdain was in Strasbourg filming an upcoming segment in his series Parts Unknown.

The CNN statement said: "His love of great adventure, new friends, fine food and drink and the remarkable stories of the world made him a unique storyteller. His talents never ceased to amaze us and we will miss him very much."

Chef Gordon Ramsay tweeted he was stunned and saddened. Ramsay wrote that Bourdain "brought the world into our homes and inspired so many people to explore cultures".

Bizarre Foods host Andrew Zimmern wrote that a piece of his heart "is truly broken". Zimmern said "the sad cruel irony" is that in the last year, Bourdain had never been happier.

Actor and former Man v Food host Adam Richman tweeted "Why?" Richman said his heart was with Bourdain.

The American chef, author and television personality was born in New York City and was raised in Leonia, New Jersey. He had written that his love of food began as a youth while on a family vacation in France, when he ate his first oyster.

Bourdain's profile began to soar in 1999, when the New Yorker magazine published his article "Don't Eat Before Reading This", which he developed into the 2000 book, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly.

"I love the sheer weirdness of the kitchen life: the dreamers, the crackpots, the refugees, and the sociopaths with whom I continue to work; the ever-present smells of roasting bones, searing fish, and simmering liquids; the noise and clatter, the hiss and spray, the flames, the smoke, and the steam," he wrote in the New Yorker article.

The article and books caught on not just because of the vivid writing, though: they were also full of tips for the unwary diner.

Never order fish in a New York restaurant on Monday, Bourdin warned: it may well be the leftovers of Friday's delivery for the busy weekend.

Tuesday, however, he suggested as a good day for dining out: the chef was likely to be back from his day off and kicking off the week with creative dishes.

As for those ordering well-done meat, he wrote, they were likely to get the most miserable-looking cuts that the chef would be ashamed to serve to other customers.

He went on to host television programs, first on the Food Network and the Travel Channel, before joining CNN in 2013.

He achieved widespread fame thanks to his CNN series Parts Unknown and was filming an upcoming segment for the show when he was found.

Bourdain told the New Yorker in 2017 that his idea for Parts Unknown, which was in its 11th season, was travelling, eating and doing whatever he wanted.

"I travel around the world, eat a lot of s***, and basically do whatever the f*** I want."

Parts Unknown show seemed like an odd choice for CNN when it started in 2013 - part travelogue, part history lesson, part love letter to exotic foods. Each trip was an adventure. There had been nothing quite like it on the network, and it became an immediate hit.

He mixed a coarseness and whimsical sense of adventurousness, true to the spirit of the rock 'n' roll music he loved.

"We are constantly asking ourselves, first and foremost: what is the most (messed) up thing we can do next week?" he said in a 2014 interview.

Bourdain's celebrity was such that when Obama went to Hanoi, Vietnam in May 2016, he met him at a casual restaurant for a $US6 meal of noodles and grilled pork.

Bourdain said he struggled with celebrity and noted there was a downside to the international exposure his show gave dive bars and hole-in-the-wall eateries.

"If I name the place ... I've changed it," Bourdain said in a 2017 interview on Fresh Air. "The next time I go back, there's tourists. There's people who've seen it on the show. And then I might hear from the same person from that neighbourhood say, 'you ruined my favourite bar,' you know? All the regular customers have run away and it's filled with, you know, tourists in ugly T-shirts and flip-flops."

Bourdain's last Instagram post came after his arrival in France, and four days before his death.

"Light lunch. (hash) Alsace," he wrote beside a photograph of a plate of choucroute, the region's traditional pickled cabbage, with bacon, pork and sausages.

Chefs, fans and US president Donald Trump were among those stunned and saddened by the news. "I want to extend to his family my heartfelt condolences," Trump said.

Bourdain was twice divorced and has a daughter from his second marriage.

Australian Associated Press