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Above Average: Atlanta, Cleveland, St Louis, Minneapolis, Dallas, Austin, Denver, Honolulu, Las Vegas, New Orleans
Average: Nashville, Columbus, Orlando, Tampa, Houston, Phoenix, San Diego
Below Average: Detroit, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Jacksonville, Kansas City, San Antonio
Houston in the same tier as Nashville and Columbus and below cities like Tampa, Orlando, and Austin?
Food offerings are usually commensurate with metro size, except in cases like New Orleans which is a massive cultural/tourist draw but most cities do not perform above their metro level when it comes to this. I think it's unfair to add Jacksonville to this list because of that. It tends to perform well within it's metro peers or maybe better given the freshness of seafood. My guess is that it was included in this list because of city pop which shouldn't be used as a comparison metric for pretty much anything.
Ok well since we can just makeup stuff, originality is part of quality and none of these cities have anything original. Its just food from other cultures.
Food offerings are usually commensurate with metro size, except in cases like New Orleans which is a massive cultural/tourist draw but most cities do not perform above their metro level when it comes to this. I think it's unfair to add Jacksonville to this list because of that. It tends to perform well within it's metro peers or maybe better given the freshness of seafood. My guess is that it was included in this list because of city pop which shouldn't be used as a comparison metric for pretty much anything.
Though food offerings aren't always about size in correlation to quality as a city like Asheville NC would hold its own with top-tier cities and exceed the many mid-tier here, despite being many times smaller. Other examples (though larger) are Providence RI or Portland OR.
Above Average: Atlanta, Cleveland, St Louis, Minneapolis, Dallas, Austin, Denver, Honolulu, Las Vegas, New Orleans
Average: Nashville, Columbus, Orlando, Tampa, Houston, Phoenix, San Diego
Below Average: Detroit, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Jacksonville, Kansas City, San Antonio
Ok well since we can just makeup stuff, originality is part of quality and none of these cities have anything original. Its just food from other cultures.
It’s not making annything up. NOLA is behind in diversity. I lived in Louisiana, I would know. You’re right about originality and being first in this regard and this is why I ranked ir where I did. But it loses points to others for lack of diversity.
Though food offerings aren't always about size in correlation to quality as a city like Asheville NC would hold its own with top-tier cities and exceed the many mid-tier here, despite being many times smaller. Other examples (though larger) are Providence RI or Portland OR.
Both Providence and Portland are larger metros than Jax though. Asheville may punch above it’s weight, though I’d argue it doesn’t have a better restaurant scene than a 1.5 million metro just based on volume alone. I certainly wouldn’t argue per capita.
Above Average: DC, Vegas, KC, Nashville, NOLA, Miami, Orlando, St Louis, Phoenix, SF
Atlanta, Austin, Cleveland, Orlando, Tampa, San Antonio, Denver
Below Average Indianápolis, Columbus, Jacksonville
Before anyone asks, reason I didn’t put SF at the top is because their ethnic food seems to have taken a hit recently. I’m sure COL has something to do with this.
Yeah but SF's fine dining and diversity surely is enough to put in exceptional. I would replace Dallas with SF on your list. NOLA I can understand why it's above average because while it is extremely unique and the best at it, it doesn't have the variety as much as larger cities do. Still that uniqueness nearly alone puts it in Exceptional to me.
Exceptional: : NYC, LA, Chicago, SF, Houston, Philly, New Orleans
Above Average: DC (is greatly improving and I think will upgrade to Exceptional in a few years), Las Vegas, Seattle, Kansas City, Dallas, Miami, Phoenix, Boston, Atlanta, St Louis
Average: Austin (another one that I could see rising in a few years), Orlando, Tampa, Cleveland, Denver, San Diego
Below Average: Columbus, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, San Antonio
The ones in bold and underlined would be higher if there was a category higher than exceptional.
There are 5 metrics I know of to rank food cities:
1) ethnic diverse offerings
2) fine dining
3) regional cuisine
4) innovation
5) affordable eats
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