The Best Breakfast In The Universe Is Located In NYC, According To Anthony Bourdain

Anthony Bourdain didn't pull his punches when he had negative opinions about food. That's why we know which ones he hated with a passion. Conversely, he gladly talked up what he really liked in his trademark drily enthusiastic style. So while the late celebrity chef refused to eat brunch food, he did have a favorite hometown spot for what he called the best breakfast in the universe: New York City icon Barney Greengrass, the Sturgeon King.

The landmark delicatessen and restaurant has been selling traditional Jewish deli fare for more than a century, first opening its doors in Harlem in 1908. Bourdain filmed a breakfast segment there for his first TV show, "A Cook's Tour," getting two of his favorite dishes. Both starred smoked fish, a Greengrass specialty that led a New York state senator to dub it The King of Sturgeon in 1938. The nickname is still embraced as part of the logo.

Naturally, Bourdain chose the sturgeon, describing it in the episode as "flaky, but firm with a delicate, almost buttery flavor" and calling it "the king of smoked fish" (via YouTube). He ordered it in a platter that came with tomatoes, onions, pickles, and olives, but ate it simply with cream cheese on a toasted plain bagel. He also got scrambled eggs with Nova lox — smoked, cured salmon — and caramelized onions, sharing that the savory eggs and onions balanced the salty, dense, and oily fish. Bourdain ended by getting chopped liver from the deli to take home, saying the "fluffy, ethereal" pâté was the "best anywhere."

Anthony Bourdain praised Barney Greengrass at other times, too, including saying in The Guardian in 2005 that whenever he was away from New York for a while, the first thing he'd miss was its breakfast. After he died in 2018, the restaurant remembered him by setting up his regular Nova scrambled eggs and bagels order at an empty table, later realizing it was the same one where he'd filmed for "A Cook's Tour."

Among the food patrons can enjoy in the restaurant and buy at the deli are other fish items, including smoked whitefish and sable, caviar, and herring. There are also meats like pastrami, corned beef, tongue, and the chopped chicken liver Bourdain loved, as well as salads made with tuna, eggs, and salmon. Cream cheese spreads are available along with bagels and their oniony cousin, bialys, and specialties like latkes, blintzes, and knishes.

The eatery has continued to earn recognition even after all the time it's been around. It was given an "American Classics" award from the prestigious James Beard Foundation in 2006, and as recently as 2024, the New York Times named it the 66th best restaurant in all of New York City. It remains a family-owned business, run today by Gary Greengrass, the grandson of its namesake founder. What's Gary's favorite thing to eat there? He told the West Side Rag it's whitefish, nova lox, vegetable cream cheese, tomato, and onion on a toasted bialy.