Happy Saturday!
So quick and to the point: who like to travel and eat? If you’re like us, when we plan a vacation, we do our research and find the best and tastiest local dishes and restaurants and make sure we pay them a visit when we’re in their city.
We’ve found that sometimes the food outshines the local touristy destinations!
We reached out to several of our food blogger friends and got their educated experiences and recommendations for the top ten foodie cities in the United States.
Shall we check them out? (Today is numbers ten through 6, be sure to check back next week for the rest of the yummy list!)
Number 10: Charleston, SC
“The first and smallest of the cities I visited, Charleston roots almost as hard for the future as it does for its oh-so-rich past. Expect to find some of the latest food fashions sprinkled among the abundant low-country treasures – which benefit from ingredients a stone’s throw away – but not, for the most part, polished service. Think farm-to-table is new? Charleston, home to ace chef Sean Brock of the beloved Husk and cookbook maven Nathalie Dupree, has been a subscriber seemingly forever. It may lack culinary representation from around the world, but what’s wrong with serving the best shrimp and grits on the planet?”
Number 9: Washington, DC
“No town delivers better Indian food, access to a more sumptuous countryside inn, finer Spanish tapas or a more thrilling avant-garde experience than the nation’s capital. Call me biased to put the city I know best, and longest, on a list of the country’s top food draws.”
Number 8: New York, NY
“Sushi Nakazawa proves a Japanese gem, Le Bernardin remains my favorite four-star, and when I munched on a $3 hot dog at Gray’s Papaya, amid exhaust and a mass of people, all seemed right with the world. And the country bows to the Big Apple for giving it bagels, Craig Claiborne, Mario Batali, fresh takes on food halls and gold-standard hospitality courtesy of Danny Meyer. But sometimes more is just — more.”
Number 7: Chicago, IL
“If some global flavors are only nominally represented, prime steaks and top-notch tacos are, like frigid winters, a given here. Bonus: This might be the only city in the country with an exciting new restaurant, Fat Rice, dedicated to the food of Macau. Its signature dish layers jasmine rice, Chinese sausage, Portuguese chicken thighs, pickles, prawns and more.”
Number 6: Philadelphia, PA
“Armchair diners know Philadelphia for its cheesesteaks, Reading Terminal Market, good Italian reputation and BYOB restaurants: plentiful tradition, in other words. “Philly is very aware of its image as a blue-collar town,” says Don Russell, known to readers of the Philadelphia Daily News as Joe Sixpack. “No drink evokes that better than beer.” Small wonder he counts 50 or so breweries in the area. Scratch that workingman surface, however, and you’ll encounter riches including ambitious vegetarian restaurants, contemporary Jewish standard-bearers and neighborhoods not previously known for their eats – funky Fishtown and East Passyunk – growing more delicious by the season.”
So what do you think? Have you been to any of these foodie cities? If so, we’d love to hear about it and read your comments on what the best food you had was!
Happy Saturday, and Happy Eating and Traveling!
The HBF Family