Anthony Bourdain Said Most US Airport Food Is Awful — Except This One Chain Location

Anthony Bourdain was as vocal (and eloquent) about the foods he celebrated as the foods he rejected. The chef-slash-writer famously called Johnny Rockets "soul-destroying" and named American food at large as the "most outrageous" in the entire world. With respect to U.S. airport food, his tone was somewhat forgiving — but only when it came to one chain and one location in particular. "Shake Shack at Kennedy airport is the best," Bourdain shared in a 2013 interview with Esquire, "although airport food options in the States are usually really bad." 

It's an understandable choice for the lifelong New Yorker. Shake Shack is an NYC institution, and where better to enjoy it than in hometown style at JFK? As of May 2025, JFK airport was home to three Shake Shack branches, located in Terminal 4 at gates B22 and B37, and in Terminal 8 near gate 10. In total, the airport is home to more than 80 food and beverage stands – quite necessary for feeding the just under 27 million travelers who flew in or out of JFK in 2022 alone. As for Bourdain, the "Parts Unknown" host told the outlet that he was away from home "about 250 days a year, for nearly the past decade." He may have served as executive chef of a Manhattan restaurant, but he was singing the praises of airport food located in Queens, just a borough away. 

The global burger chain started out as a humble food cart in Madison Square Park peddling (gasp) Chicago-style hot dogs. Over the years, Shake Shack was birthed, grew, and morphed into an NYC food pillar centered around Pat LaFrieda's 100% Angus beef burgers and a side of crinkle-cut fries. When it came to fast-food burgers as a whole, Anthony Bourdain was more of a West Coast In-N-Out Burger guy. But, chowing down at the Shake Shack in NYC's Kennedy airport fit his larger modus operandi of "doing what the locals do" while on the road. As he explained to Esquire, "If there's food available I'll load up on whatever the local specialty is. In Tokyo I'll get ramen, in Singapore I'll get something from the airport's hawker center." The chef even maintained a regional state of mind during flights: "On the plane, I like to read fiction set in the location I'm going to [...] I'll bring Graham Greene's 'The Quiet American' if I'm going to Vietnam. It's good to feel romantic about a destination before you arrive."

As far as his specific Shake Shack order, Bourdain cued foodies into that, as well. He told The Daily Beast in 2016, when he's hitting up The Shack, "I'm having a double cheeseburger naked, please. No lettuce. No tomato. No nothing. Just cheese and two burgers on a potato bun. I'll have two of those and I'm happy."