According to a major study commissioned by British catering service Caterwings, San Sebastian, in the Basque Country, Spain, is the number 1 world city in matters of tourist food offers.
In order to draw up its list of the 100 best cities for food, the Caterwings study used various criteria to analyse the food scene, in thousands of cities worldwide. Among these criteria, they looked at the number of restaurants per 10,000 citizens, the percentage of fast food outlets to restaurants, the affordability level, plus vegetarian and vegan options. Caterwings also took into account ratings from 20,000 food journalists and restaurant critics, in order to evaluate the quality of the local food scene in each city.
Based on this various criteria, San Sebastian (Donostia, in the Basque language, thus often spelled Donostia – San Sebastian) came top of the list as the world’s best gastronomic destination. San Sebastian stands above the competition with its Michelin starred restaurants but also thanks to its affordable offer for the gourmet traveller, a factor that’s crucial to putting destinations on the map as great cities for food.
Tokyo, the city with the most Michelin stars, comes second in the top 100, scoring particularly low on vegetarian and vegan options, while New York comes third. Spain has another entry with Barcelona in fourth, and Madrid in seventh, thus being the only world country with 3 cities in top 10. Singapore came just ahead of Paris in fifth and sixth, while London squeezed into the top 10 at ninth.
See the full list of top 100 best cities for food at www.caterwings.co.uk.