Foodie Travel: Which is the most popular cuisine in the world?

Foodie Travel: Most Popular Cuisines Around The World 

Food plays a massive part in life and is heavily ingrained in worldwide culture and customs. We are spoilt for choice when it comes to food, with over 140 different existing cuisines types worldwide. 

But which cuisines are most popular globally and specifically in each city? Are specific styles of food more popular than the city’s national cuisine offering, or is the local food the cuisine that most tourists and locals hurry to?

A new study conducted by global luggage network Radical Storage has explored thousands of Trip Advisor restaurant reviews across the top 50 most visited cities to determine how local cuisines rank across the world.  

Radical Storage scraped the total amount of cuisines per city, the average cost and the popularity score based on the number of reviews given to each restaurant analysed; this allowed Radical to conclude the following key factors:

• Most popular cuisine 
• Most popular meal type 
• Most common restaurant type 
• The most/least diverse cities for food 
• Cities with the most expensive restaurants 

Key Statistics

• Italian food is the most popular cuisine across the world’s top 50 most visited cities

• Pizza is the meal that dominates, beating out seafood in second and steakhouses in third

• London is named the most diverse city for food in the world with 123 different cuisines to choose from

• Venice has the most expensive restaurant prices on average

• Chinese restaurants are the most common, averaging over 10% of city restaurants globally

Italian crowned the most popular cuisine around the world

Famously known for introducing the world to pizza, beautiful pasta dishes, tiramisu, and panna cotta (among many others), it’s no wonder Italian food takes the top spot across the globe. 

Although it is only the most common restaurant found in 4 of the world’s 50 most visited cities, Italian cuisine is the one most of us flock to when travelling abroad. In fact, and perhaps unsurprisingly, pizza is the meal most of us seek out specifically.

Most common restaurants found worldwide

Although Italian cuisine may be the most popular, are Italian restaurants the most common?

As part of our data analysis, we wanted to discover the restaurants that feature most across the world’s top cities. To do so, using our data we were able to calculate the percentage of restaurants in each city by cuisine and food type.

Our study revealed that Chinese restaurants are in fact the most common, whilst Italian and Asian restaurants are second and third most common respectively. 

London named the most diverse city for food

Londoner’s are the most spoiled for choice when it comes to cuisine diversity, with an impressive 123 different types of cuisine and food. Indian food is by far the most popular in London than any other, but its multicultural heritage has had a massive impact in its culinary food scene, serving a wider array than any other city in the world.

Among the other most diverse food cities in the top 5 include Paris, Tokyo, Berlin and New York.

The least diverse city for food

As part of our analysis, we also discovered which of the world’s top 50 cities offer the least choice when it comes to cuisines. Medina in Saudi Arabia came out as having the lowest number of cuisines overall, offering locals and tourists a range of 29 types of food.

Alongside Ha Long and Jaipur, Venice also features amongst the least diverse for food.

Venice is the most expensive for food

We also looked at which cities had the most expensive restaurants on average by looking at the price of each restaurant and averaging it across the number of restaurants in each city. 

Venice was named most expensive, with its 1,348 restaurants having higher prices on average than any other city globally. In fact, it’s a whopping 87% more than Guangzhou, which comes out as the least expensive to dine out.

Asia dominates for least expensive restaurants 

When it comes to saving money, here’s a list of the top cities around the world where you’ll be able to save money when compared to the bigger spenders above.

You can read the full study here https://radicalstorage.com/travel/most-popular-cuisines-around-the-world/