The graphene oxide (GO) nanocoating surface was fabricated by GO nanoparticles self-assembly on plain copper surface under nucleate pool boiling. Saturated and subcooled pool boiling experiments on GO nanocoating surface with distilled water at atmospheric pressure were conducted. Saturated pool boiling performance indicated enhancements of 78% in critical heat flux (CHF) and 41% in maximum heat transfer coefficient (HTC) when compared with the plain copper surface. It was found that the enhancement was mainly attributed to the improved wettability and high thermal conductivity of GO nanocoating, as well as the increased surface roughness. Subcooled pool boiling results showed that the liquid subcooling had significant effect on heat transfer performance of GO nanocoating surface. The CHF increased linearly with the increased subcooling degree, and the maximum HTC increased almost linearly with the increased subcooling degree. The CHF reached 274 W/cm2 at subcooling degree of 19 K, which translated an enhancement of 128% when compared with the plain copper surface. This high CHF can address the heat dissipation bottleneck in ultra high-power density electronic devices. To better understand the subcooling effect on nucleate boiling, visualization studies on bubble growth characteristics at subcooled pool boiling were investigated with a high-speed digital camera. It was shown that bubbles were smaller and grew more slowly with the increase of liquid subcooling, and microbubble jets were observed at moderate heat flux regime. •Graphene oxide (GO) surface was fabricated by GO nanoparticles self-assembly.•GO surface improve critical heat flux (CHF) by 78% under saturated boiling.•The enhancement is caused by improved wettability, roughness and thermal conductivity of GO surface.•GO surface improve critical heat flux (CHF) by 128% under 19 K subcooling.•Enhanced boiling heat transfer is analyzed by bubble images on subcooled GO surface.