What’s a culinary capital? The diversity, the quality, the quantity, the pricing? And what cities are actually culinary capitals?
That’s what Clarify Capital tried to find out through their latest project. They looked at Yelp’s data, and asked over 1000 Americans about their dining preferences.
Vegas restaurants rated the highest in the US
The study considered at a couple of key elements when deciding which cities are the most influential when it comes to the food scene. They measured:
- the cuisine diversity (here we ranked 28th)
- ratio of mom-and-pop restaurants vs chains (here we ranked 26th)
- restaurant popularity (here we ranked 2nd!)
- restaurant cost (here we ranked 100th – yikes!)
- restaurant quality (here’s where we ranked first!)
We got the first spot here because Vegas restaurants are ranked at an average of 4,26% out of 5%, beating San Diego (4,223%) and Portland (4,22%).
When it comes to restaurant popularity, we also came in a respectable 2nd spot. To decide this, the study looked at the average numbers of reviews, where we got 1,289, landing right behind LA.
Key takeaways from the study
Here are other key findings over the food scene in America’s top 100 cities:
- San Francisco is the culinary capital of the United States, followed by Oakland, California, and Seattle, Washington.
- Seattle has the most cuisine diversity in the US.
- San Francisco has the highest ratio of mom-and-pop to chain restaurants.
- 46% of Americans prefer local mom-and-pop restaurants.
- On average, Americans spend nearly 26% more per person at local mom-and-pop restaurants than chain restaurants and also tip nearly 4% more.
- Gen Z was most likely to go for chain restaurants (48%).
- On average, Americans dine out twice a week.
For extra info and to learn more about the methodology, check out this link.