9 Of Anthony Bourdain's Favorite Foods

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

Anthony Bourdain was no stranger to astonishment, from his breakout 1999 New Yorker article "Don't Eat Before Reading This," which lifted the lid on life in many professional kitchens, and the food trends he hated with a passion, to his opinions on customers who were rude to wait staff. But when he liked something, he was just as unstinting with his praise.

Bourdain, who died in 2018, was a complicated figure, but his love for food was a large part of his personality (no one could forget his show "Parts Unknown"). In his New Yorker article, he extolled the virtues of eating oysters or the delicious pairing of "greasy Portuguese sausage" with fresh cockles after a shift in the kitchen — and that was just the beginning. As his broadcasting career took off and he travelled the globe, Bourdain shared his passion for food with all of us. Here are just a few of his favorite bites.

"I think this is the greatest sandwich ever, in the history of recorded sandwich-dom," Anthony Bourdain proclaimed on "No Reservations." That's quite the claim from a man as prone to verbosity as Bourdain, but then the Uruguayan chivito was — and still is — quite the sandwich. It appeared in 2008, in season 4 of his show "No Reservations," ironically not during the Uruguay episode itself, but a later recap called "So Long Summer." In it, we caught up with Bourdain and his brother Chris as they worked their way through the country's national dish.

The chivito contains (among other ingredients) ham, beef, bacon, cheese, a hard-cooked egg, and two kinds of peppers, all piled inside a large white bun. As the pair chowed down on this mother of all sandwiches, Chris quipped, "I can tell this is gonna be around a 25-napkin meal," while Bourdain compared eating the Chivito to "herding cats," dubbing it "the gift that keeps on giving."

Although other sandwiches captured Bourdain's imagination, including this Japanese sandwich's "inexplicable deliciousness," his own creation, the mortadella and cheese sandwich from his book "Appetites," or the pastrami on rye he craved the moment he was on foreign shores? As memorable as they all are, for Bourdain, none of them could hold a candle to the mighty chivito.

People can put just about anything on a plate and call it a meal. When Anthony Bourdain was asked by My Last Supper in 2017 which dish he would choose for his very last on Earth, he opted for bone marrow.

To be specific, "roast bone marrow with parsley and caper salad, with a few toasted slices of baguette and some good sea salt," adding he would enjoy this iconic feast at London's St. John restaurant. In episode 6 of the season 4 of "No Reservations," Bourdain described the eatery as "one of my favorite restaurants on Earth," before tucking into a plate of roasted bone marrow alongside British food critic Jay Rayner.

Bourdain could barely hide his glee as he explained how this "simple, good thing" became one of the culinary world's most influential dishes. But it wasn't the only time he enjoyed bone marrow in a dish. During a visit to Santa Barbara, the chef ate a plate of pasta with octopus and a sauce flavored with the beefy ingredient. As Bourdain gobbled down forkfuls on "No Reservations," he said it was "far and away the most magnificent pasta dish I've had in memory."

Most chefs turn up their noses at fast food chains, and although there was one Anthony Bourdain regarded as the best, it wasn't alone. In fact, the outspoken chef had a bit of a weakness for junk food, as he admitted to Conan O'Brien when on his talk show "Conan" in 2016. When asked if he ever ate fast food, Bourdain confessed to craving KFC's macaroni and cheese from time to time, even if he wasn't sure what the cheese was actually made of.

Given Bourdain's well-known disdain for fast food outlets, it's no surprise that in 2015, his trip to a Jollibee made the news. Perhaps more surprising was his visit to a Los Angeles outlet a couple of years earlier, with Roy Choi. He took Bourdain to a drive-thru and ordered a halo halo dessert. "It makes no g***amn sense at all — I love it," said Bourdain on "No Reservations," who was noted for his disdain for sweet treats.

A year later, in the season 7 opener of "Parts Unknown," Bourdain was in Manila and admitted to talking trash about fast food at every possible opportunity — until it came to Filipino chain Jolibee. He called it the "wackiest, jolliest place on Earth," before ordering a Jolly Spaghetti ("deranged yet strangely alluring") with hot dogs, and a Chickenjoy bucket. A burger turned out to be a portion of rice, which was "awesome" when paired with a brown sauce.

Anthony Bourdain is among the many who love this handy foodstuff. He declared himself "a total egg sl**" during a 2008 episode of "No Reservations," but his love of a good egg had its roots in childhood with the soft-boiled eggs with toast his mom gave him when he was sick.

Professionally Bourdain was a master of the omelet, and while there are many mistakes we can make when cooking one, the star's preferred method was to combine eggs and butter, with a dash of salt and pepper, and serve them "a little wet," as he noted on "No Reservations." As for egg white-only versions? They were a complete no-no, "That's the end of a relationship, right there."

In 2011, while appearing on "The Marilyn Denis Show," Bourdain said he associated the smell of brunch with "the smell of shame and defeat, and humiliation, and the lowest, most desperate, broke times of my life." But his scrambled eggs were a breakfast treat for the tastebuds of every weary traveller — himself included. A forkful of his dish had bacon, butter, scallions, and sour cream.

Sausages were always irresistible for Anthony Bourdain, from their creation to consumption. He was like a kid in a candy store in 2010 when a season 6 episode of "No Reservations" took him to Prague. There, he watched a family pig slaughtered and some of the meat turned into sausages by hand, using a "super old school" method Bourdain had never seen before. After taking a big bite, he said he needed a "transfusion of green vegetables."

Almost a decade later in Cologne, this time for "Parts Unknown," the chef tucked into a plate of fried blood sausage with mashed potato, apple sauce, and fried onions. Anyone who tried to pass on a plateful would, Bourdain said, be removed from his "will save from drowning list."

His love of sausages wasn't just confined to the artisanal or traditional. Bourdain loved a hot dog as much as the next person. An episode of "No Reservations" saw him in Chicago, but not at his go-to place for Italian beef, but in search of "local mutant forms" of the popular street food. He stood in line along with everyone else outside Hot Doug's, waiting to get his teeth into one of the famed red dogs. It was worth the wait. "Perfection in a dog," Bourdain enthused.

Anthony Bourdain always wore his love of Vietnam on his sleeve, telling Joe Rogan it was like "all the places I dreamed about when I was a little boy." He added, "That whole part of the world looks, to me, particularly beautiful." As for the food? The chef couldn't get enough. Although a good bowl of phở would always put a smile on his face, there was one dish in particular that he really loved: bún bò Huế.

The fourth season of "Parts Unknown" saw him tracking down "delicious, slurpy stuff in a bowl," in Huế city's Dong Ba market. As he lists the ingredients, including beef shank, fermented shrimp paste, and rice noodles, all simmering in a lemongrass and spiced bone broth, Bourdain described the steaming bowl of food as "the greatest soup in the world." After marveling at the slices of blood cake in the soup and before taking a big mouthful, Bourdain declared, "I was put on Earth to do this: Eat noodles right here."

A breakfast described as "weapons-grade plutonium" might not be everyone's bag, but for Anthony Bourdain, it was a food revelation. During his trip to Borneo for the first season of "No Reservations," he was introduced to laksa, a spicy, soupy confection that was created in Kuching and beloved by all who taste it — including Bourdain. He called it a "spicy, fabulous, hearty hell broth" with ingredients including coconut milk and Sarawak hot chili peppers, which resulted in a "scorchingly hot yet delicious assault on the senses."

Bourdain devoured a bowlful of laksa again, this time in a 2012 visit to Penang for another episode of "No Reservations." He was amused watching the cook throw handfuls of ingredients into a bowl, before soaking everything in a tasty and hot, brown broth. He found the Penang laksa tasted more herby and sour, and said it was "almost like a Southern French fish stock," while happily tucking in. It wouldn't be the last time he enjoyed this favorite dish.

In his other show, "Parts Unknown," he was back again in Kuching ready and eager for a bowl of laksa. "It's just a magical dish," he enthused, digging in. Bourdain then raised fellow patrons' eyebrows by immediately asking for another bowl. "Best breakfast ever," he asserted.

No list of Anthony Bourdain's favorite foods would be complete without including uni — also known as sea urchin. While this creamy seafood isn't for everyone (the texture can be off-putting), for Bourdain, it was always a winner. During season 4 of "No Reservations," the chef explored Crete, including the city of Chania. There, a fisherman expertly cut open a spiky sea urchin and doused it with lemon for Bourdain to try. "They're really good," he said, before trying "lots of sea urchin roe" on bread and in olive oil.

Two years and two seasons later, Bourdain tucked into more uni at Michael White's restaurant Marea on "No Reservations." To the untrained eye, it was fish roe on bread but the presenter described it far more flamboyantly as "two fat sacks of sea urchin roe plumped with goodness the briny, swollen membranes held aloft by two tiny chariots of toast." The thin sliver of pork fat on top took it to another level for Bourdain, who compared it to taking drugs.

Uni popped up again in 2017 during season 10 of "Parts Unknown," when he stuck a fork into an "incredible" pasta dish that included his seafood fave. "This is truly one of the greatest things on Earth," he said. The following year, Bourdain was in Spain, again for "Parts Unknown," where he shared a platter of uni with José Andrés. The latter said he would "kill" for the food, while Bourdain reiterated they were one of his favorite things on Earth.

Anthony Bourdain had a tragic life sometimes, but you could always make him smile with a platter of cheese. The dessert section in his book "Appetites" suggested readers offer it to their guests, rather than a sweet treat. Bourdain told Publishers Weekly in 2016 it was because "I'm not good at pastries. I can't bake," and instead preferred to "linger over some good port wine and some really stinky, runny cheese."

He devoured a plate of it in Portugal during an episode of "A Cook's Tour," even though vegans came in for one of his famous tongue lashings. So deep was his love of cheese that the internet is now littered with clips of classic Bourdain one-liners about it. He even once joked "I feel my syphilis clearing up" about blue cheese with José Andrés from "Parts Unknown."

In 2015 in Marseille, during an episode for "Parts Unknown," Bourdain could barely contain himself when the cheese cart was wheeled out, and declared it was "much more exciting" than topless bathers on the beach behind him. In the French Alps a couple of years later for "Parts Unknown," Bourdain happily wolfed down around a pound of regional specialities fondue and raclette — cheese that is melted and cut while still on the wheel.