What is the best food city in the United States?
Some of these cities invented a cuisine; others simply cook everyone else's better than anyone. Both camps have loud defenders.
1New York CityThe deepest restaurant bench in the country, from dollar slices to three-star tasting menus.
2ChicagoDeep dish and Italian beef at one end, a dense fine-dining scene at the other.
3New OrleansCreole and Cajun cooking found nowhere else in America, built on gumbo, po'boys and beignets.
4Los AngelesThe country's broadest immigrant food map, from Koreatown to the taco trucks of Boyle Heights.
5San FranciscoSourdough, Dungeness crab and the Bay Area kitchens that invented California cuisine.
6HoustonTexas barbecue alongside the largest Vietnamese and Nigerian food scenes in the country.
7AustinBrisket, breakfast tacos and a food-truck culture other cities copied.
8CharlestonLowcountry cooking — shrimp and grits, she-crab soup — in a city of small, serious kitchens.
9PhiladelphiaCheesesteaks, roast pork, and the Reading Terminal Market at the centre of it all.
10PortlandOregon's cart pods, coffee roasters and a farm-to-table habit that predates the phrase.
11MiamiCuban, Haitian and Colombian cooking, plus the country's best croquetas and cortaditos.
12NashvilleHot chicken, meat-and-threes, and a Southern scene that grew up fast.
13SeattlePike Place seafood, Pacific oysters and the city that made espresso an American habit.
14BostonClam chowder, lobster rolls and the oldest restaurant traditions in the country.
15Santa FeNew Mexican cooking built on red and green chile, unlike anything else in the Southwest.
16ProvidenceA small city with an outsized Italian-American scene on Federal Hill and a culinary school feeding it.
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Comments
Creole and Cajun cooking exist in one American city and nowhere else, which is what breadth has to rank against in a field of sixteen: https://youpick.best/articles/chicago-ranked-many-ways https://youpick.best/articles/los-angeles-ranked-many-ways
