A burger and fries by the beach in San Diego, California. (Photo Credit: sophia_ross/iStock Editorial/Getty Images Plus)
Orlando, Florida is the best city in America for foodies in 2023, based on new research from personal-finance website WalletHub.
WalletHub recently compared more than 180 U.S. cities across as many as 28 key indicators of foodie-friendliness, including factors such as the cost of groceries, accessibility of high-quality restaurants and food festivals per capita.
The indicators were separated into two categories, affordability (30 points) and diversity, accessibility and quality (70 points).
Orlando earned a total score of 69.38, ranking just 108th for affordability but third nationwide in terms of diversity, accessibility and quality. After all, the theme park capital of the world is tied for the most restaurants, coffee shops, gourmet specialty-food stores and ice cream and frozen yogurt shops per capita.
Trailing Orlando are two West Coast cities in Portland (68.19) and Sacramento (67.62), both of which rank inside the top 10 in terms of diversity, accessibility and quality. Portland is tied for the most craft breweries and wineries per capita. Both cities also rank middle-of-the-pack for affordability.
Four Seasons Resort Orlando at Walt Disney World Resort (Courtesy Four Seasons)
Two premier foodie cities, Miami (66.92) and San Francisco (66.03) round out the top five, ranking first and second in terms of diversity, accessibility and quality of their foodie offerings. Nonetheless, both rank among the worst cities for affordability, coming in at 172nd and 176th, respectively.
Rounding out the top 10 best U.S. cities for foodies are Tampa (64.84), San Diego (63.9), Las Vegas (63.66), Austin (63.27) and Seattle (62.17). The Texas capital ranks fifth for the lowest average cost of groceries.
Los Angeles ranks 13th, just ahead of Chicago (14th), while Washington, D.C. checks in at 17th, three spots ahead of New York City (20th).
On the other end of the spectrum, the five worst U.S. cities for foodies in 2023, according to WalletHub's research, are Pearl City, Hawaii; Shreveport, Louisiana; Nampa, Idaho; West Valley City, Utah and Montgomery, Alabama, with total scores ranging from 25.24 to 33.05.
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