If you ask us, New York City is the foodie capital of the world. And sure, you could say we’re biased, but NYC’s many beautiful restaurants, Michelin-Starred restaurants, and new restaurants are just some examples that prove it.
Though recently WalletHub compared more than 180 of the largest U.S. cities across 28 key metrics, from the cost of groceries to the affordability and accessibility of high-quality restaurants, to uncover the best foodie cities in America and, well, we’d like to have a talk with them because there must be a mistake…
Out of 182 cities NYC didn’t rank first–actually, it didn’t even rank in the top ten. NYC ranked a measly #16 with a total score of 60.83. Moreover, the city ranked #178 in affordability and #11 in diversity, accessibility, and quality. And while we do agree with the affordability thing, we don’t agree with…anything else.
The study called out a few specific categories, such as Restaurants per Capita, Ratio of Full-Service Restaurants to Fast-Food Establishments, Ice Cream & Frozen Yogurt Shops per Capita, and Craft Breweries & Wineries per Capita. The only category that NYC stood out in was Coffee Shops per Capita in which we have…some of the fewest? We’ll just be over here sipping our iced latte that we grabbed from one of NYC’s THOUSANDS of coffee shops shaking our head.
As for the best foodie city in America, that title went to our friends over in Miami. In fact, three Florida cities made the top five: Miami (#1), Orlando (#3), and Tampa (#5). So yeah, we’re confused to say the least. The full ranking can be seen on WalletHub’s website.
In the end we’re pretty sure NYC only ranked as low as it did because of how expensive eating your way through the city can get…and if that’s not the reason NYC ranked so low then, well, it’s the story we’re gonna go with anyway. Find out for yourself why we totally don’t agree with this study by eating your way through one of NYC’s many food festivals.