Well, like I said-If you believe the mystique of a Michelin Star.
Part of the disappointment was due to it being Michelin. I still would have been disappointed because of the price, but not as much. The other two Michelin star places I’ve been two were excellent / very good.
I do like to eat out at “pricey/hip eateries”, although I don’t get to do so as much with the kids these days. Nor do I travel as much as I used to.
I’ve been to Chicago a bunch of times. It has a pretty good and diverse restaurant scene. Particularly for steak or Chicago-style deep-dish pizza.
I am biased towards NYC because I live/work there. I think there are few cities in the world, let alone the US that compare with the sheer volume and diversity of eateries. Not just fancy expensive high-end places either. New York has a lot of “hole in the wall” local places that are just good places to eat. Every neighborhood has restaurants they are known for and there are entire neighborhood specifically known for restaurants.
Philadelphia has a lot of good restaurants too. Stephen Starr has a bunch there.
Las Vegas has a lot of high end restaurants. But I think of Vegas as more of a highly commercialized showcase of expensive celebrity chef restaurants than a “vibrant restaurant community”.
Outside the USA, Paris and Rio de Janeiro are top cities as well.
I mean, i know Devon pretty well. Do you have a recommendation for a spot that is specifically Bengali? I’m not sure I know of one. I just now looked around and see on Reddit they say Bengali is one of the cuisines missing from the Chicago scene, so I don’t know if I’m just having bad luck finding one or what. Some place that might have macher jhol or chingri malaikari.
Oddly enough, I don’t think Chicago is particularly great when it comes to steak, minus like two or three iconic old-school places. I would have expected it to be better. I could be wrong about that. And – for me – the thin crust scene is more diverse and interesting than the deep-dish scene, but if you’re from elsewhere, deep-dish definitely sticks out.
It seems Bengali dishes may be found at a number of Indian/Pakistani restaurants. A Bengali specific restaurant may be harder to find. I’m familiar with Ghareeb Nawaz (sp?), and Sabri Nihari comes highly recommended.
I’m going with a city that’s often overlooked in the culinary hierarchy—Philadelphia. Sure, the cheesesteaks, hoagies, and soft pretzels are legendary, but over the years, Philly has quietly blossomed into a world-class food destination. The city’s vibrant neighborhoods, innovative chefs, and a unique BYOB culture all come together to create a dining scene that can hold its own against any in the country.
Best restaurants are often in two categories: buzzy places hard to get reservations to that serve good to great food at wild prices, and longstanding and much loved ethnic places with more reasonable prices and easy access.
Montreal has long had great restaurants in both categories. This has also increasingly been the case in Toronto and Vancouver over the last twenty years. Because high real estate prices have encouraged Canada’s immigrants to move further afield, even medium cities in Canada within a few hours of a big place now usually have the full spectrum of national restaurants, and often many great regional (subnational) choices.
However, the ancient Hungarian restaurant in my small city closed after seventy years in business due largely to COVID. There are a couple others now I have not tried. Every other cuisine mentioned in this thread is available locally. Except “Japanese” means freshly prepared, all you can eat, best stick-to-the-salmon-sushi and enjoy the better Korean food since the owners are likely Korean… not the fatty tuna you’d find in Tokyo.
Internationally, I would say the best food is Tokyo, Beijing, Paris, Northern Italy, Mexico City and coastal cities, Vegas, Barcelona, Buenos Aires (steak, BBQ and Italian), or Chicago. I would guess Vietnam, Thailand, New York, Hong Kong and Singapore deserve more love but my experience is limited. A few cities “known for food” have left me disappointed.
If you find yourself in Parry Sound (that’s on Georgian Bay in the Northeast portion of Lake Huron for our non-local friends), the Jamaican food is not bad. For all that is holy on this world, if you wander into the Fish and Chips place on Bowes Road do NOT allow yourself to give the Indian food a try. Just don’t.
There are plenty of ethnic restaurants in Mexico that serve global cuisine - Japanese and everything else. Outside of the capital and resort towns, they are often managed by ex-pats from that country who needed to work and who vary wildly in their cooking skills and ability to procure the needed ingredients. The results can be… very… rustic.
We ate at a neighbourhood vegan ramen place around the corner from our AirBnb in Mexico City last month. It was excellent, and I’m not vegan.
Sure. Mexico City, as the capital (read what I wrote), is quite sophisticated now. Just as Parry Sound is not Brampton.
I haven’t travelled nearly as much as many of you, but I’m going to give at least an honorable mention to Austin Texas. Sadly, a LOT of the diversity and out-and-out funky little places were lost to Covid, but it’s got a wide diversity of food, and while not perfect, it’s got such a wide range of options across all economic levels that it is worth a mention.
I mention this because of a line in the OP:
I think the thread spends a touch too much time on some of the higher end places, but I love places that do really well with the middle of the road foods that are near and dear, not just the places that would show up in a Michelin guide.
Heck, when I was watching Tony Bourdain’s No Reservation, the places I really wanted to go were all the street-food, or local’s only places, which to his credit, normally got a LOT more screen time than the “best of the best”.
Loved local places tend to have better food than fancy places “to be seen”. Not always, of course.
I was agreeing with you.
These must be the least-interesting, least-diverse dishes in the region. Get away from downtown and venture into the ethnic neighborhoods.
I’d argue that Houston is one of the best.
It’s got all the diversity of any other city, and in most cases even more. It’s got a very accomplished fine dining scene as well.
But… what sets it apart is that all that is starting to ferment into its own thing there. Stuff like Vietnamese Crawfish, or Indian-Texan fusion cuisine, or stuff like boudin kolaches is well underway in making a very unique and very distinctly Houstonian cuisine.
Few cities can really claim that these days, but Houston is one of the very few.
I’ve never really seen a vegan ramen place, though haven’t looked hard. Did they use miso (dashi), or something else?
I’ll nominate Melbourne Australia, just for the sheer diversity of food options available from top end restaurants to hidden lane offerings.
I don’t go into the city area much any more, but if you can think of a cuisine you’ll likely find it there.
In the US, from limited exposure, I’d nominate Vegas. Get out of the casinos and look around, there’s some good tucker around.
That was my thought as well. Someone might enjoy them for a meal, but hardly sufficient to constitute a worldclass “restaurant community.”