America's Best Restaurant Cities: Esquire Magazine

[volguus zildrohar]

I don't normally chime in on lists because the criteria can be so subjective but I call bullshit here too. The Starr/Garces complex alone is enough to warrant mention. There is a healthy ethnic dining scene here as well, no less robust than many other cities noted here. I think this was simply another case of somebody forgetting there's a city down the turnpike from New York - either that or the writer is a Yankee fan.

[TexasBoi]

Originally Posted by Serenade

Ditto with the Philly comments. Portland should also be mentioned. Take Houston and Vegas out (unless it's based on the number of chains in each city) and replace them with Philly and Portland.

Don't know much about Houston, right?

[urbanactivist]

I wish a list like this would take economy more into account. Is there a list of best cities for dining on the cheap?? Also besides just restaurants we really need to look at street vendors food stands, etc.

[Kingofthehill]

Originally Posted by urbanactivistTX

I wish a list like this would take economy more into account. Is there a list of best cities for dining on the cheap?? Also besides just restaurants we really need to look at street vendors food stands, etc.

LA, obviously. Street food, food trucks. ethnic food, "fusion," dives, holes-in-the-walls, et al - LA has them in spades. Give this article a read.

As I would learn during my trip, the incredibly varied cuisine of Los Angeles is a frugal traveler’s dream, as long as you don’t mind buying from stands and trucks.

http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/travel/14losangeles.html?pagewanted=all

[Chase Unperson]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Well I certainly have, but that seems irrelevent to the list.

I've also heard of a cuisine associated with Maryland's Eastern Shore, but that doesn't mean I think Salisbury, MD is a culinary capital.


Many food critics are quite critical of the NO food scene, and consider it tourist-driven and derivative.

And I still find it hard to believe that a relatively poor city with little diversity would deliver greater dining breath and quality than a city 4-5 times the size.

OK..

well then what cusine(s) is Philadelphia famous for innovating. For instance Chicago is associated with New American, San Francisco and LA are famous for fusion cuisines and Californian. I have never heard once about a Philadelphian innovation.

And please list the critics that dismiss the food of New Orleans with documentation and explanation to what they mean by tourist drive and derivative. Either that or admit you are talking out your ass.

New Orleans is small but culturally it looms as large as Chicago or Los Angeles. If Buffalo, Pittsburgh or Cincinnati were destroyed by a hurricane people would be briefly bummed but no one would really give a shit outside of people from there. If New Orleans was lost, it would be tragic to the whole country.

Having lived for years in N.O. L.A S.F and Chicago I can say with 100% certainity that the randomly selected place in New Orleans is better than that in LA and SF and equal to that of Chicago. Now in terms of the upper echelon then SF and Chicago probably edge out New Orleans and LA but I am not a food/restaurant expert, though I was a line cook at One Market (a one time huge deal phenom restaurant in SF).

[AusHou]

Originally Posted by Serenade

Ditto with the Philly comments. Portland should also be mentioned. Take Houston and Vegas out (unless it's based on the number of chains in each city) and replace them with Philly and Portland.

You don't know what you're talking about. Houston is well known for locally owned ethnic and continental cuisine (literally thousands of such establishments, Asian immigrants have a huge number of their own restaurants, for example. It's an outstanding restaurant city well recognized by business travelers. Your comment is about as uninformed as the author's use of stereotypes. Where did you get such ludicrous "information"? Fox News?

As for Vegas, I can't say since I don't have personal experience there.

[hammersklavier]

Originally Posted by Chase Unperson

OK..
well then what cusine(s) is Philadelphia famous for innovating. For instance Chicago is associated with New American, San Francisco and LA are famous for fusion cuisines and Californian. I have never heard once about a Philadelphian innovation.

Philadelphia's a city whose culinary heritage is steeped in tradition, particularly the Pennsylvania Dutch and Italian-American traditions, but the new wave of Philadelphia restaurants (led, apparently, by the two most famous chefs you have never heard of) is led by some very interesting Latin American-Asian fusion restaurants. Shovel this on top of the deep culinary heritage Philadelphia already boasts and you get what is obviously the most underrated cuisine city in America.

[Serenade]

You don't know what you're talking about. Houston is well known for locally owned ethnic and continental cuisine (literally thousands of such establishments, Asian immigrants have a huge number of their own restaurants, for example. It's an outstanding restaurant city well recognized by business travelers. Your comment is about as uninformed as the author's use of stereotypes. Where did you get such ludicrous "information"? Fox News?

You can replace Houston with almost any city in the world and the comments would still ring true. Also if I were getting my news from Fox, the best restaurant city in America would be based on the number of Olive Gardens and Chilis per capita.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Serenade

You can replace Houston with almost any city in the world and the comments would still ring true. Also if I were getting my news from Fox, the best restaurant city in America would be based on the number of Olive Gardens and Chilis per capita.

I really have to disagree with you.

I'm certainly no Houston booster, but I can tell you it has a good local dining scene. It has a good mix of upscale destination options and ethnic options. Lots of wealth and ethnic diversity.

[RobertWalpole]

Originally Posted by Crawford

....
I'm certainly no Houston booster, but I can tell you it has a good local dining scene. It has a good mix of upscale destination options and ethnic options. Lots of wealth and ethnic diversity.

I was thinking the same thing. A city with as many wealthy people as Houston presumably would have a lot of good restaurants.

Interestingly, but for New Orleans, the cities discussed seem, for the most part, to be the biggest and richest (e.g., NY, DC, Boston, Philly, Miami, Chicago, LA, SF, Seattle). One would expect to find great restaurants there.

I'd be curious to see a ranking of mid-sized cities like Indy, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Phoenix, etc.

I think Indy is a nice little city, but based on my five trips there, the ethic food choice are limited and the ethnic food sucks.

[SD_Phil]

Originally Posted by BrianSac

I never miss Mexican food when in Europe.

Europe's lack of mexican food drives me insane. It's even impossible to buy the ingredients to do it yourself.

[Lipani]

I miss Mexican food anywhere outside of Mexico (and a few neighborhoods in Southern California).

[Cirrus]

^
I can get hand-cooked beef tongue tacos 10 minutes from my door. I suspect most cities with a large immigrant population are the same. You just have to know where to look. The fact that most of the "Mexican restaurants" in town are really Tex-Mex doesn't mean the real thing isn't available off the beaten path a little.

[seaskyfan]

Originally Posted by SD_Phil

Europe's lack of mexican food drives me insane. It's even impossible to buy the ingredients to do it yourself.

The "Mexican" place I went to in Amsterdam was run by folks who I'm pretty sure were from Argentina. The meat was good (as you'd expect from a place run by folks from Argentina) but entrees came with baked potato instead of rice and beans and the tortillas were just unfortunate.

Clearly Europe needs more folks from Mexico.

[Omaharocks]

I don't have any major issues with this list, and I've lived in a number of cities on the list and a few off of it. Nearly all large (and most mid-sized) American cities these days have a breadth of diverse and excellent dining options, so it would be very difficult to create a list that folks are going to agree with.

I will offer my opinions though. In New Orleans, food is just special. I can't for the life of me think of a legit reason that N.O. would be excluded from any top-10 list. Those familiar with N.O. are correct - the average food there trumps the average food anywhere else I've ever been, including NY. No, it doesn't have the diversity of cuisine of NY, but the food everywhere is just so, so damn good.

I recently lived for a time in Washington D.C. and Boston. While you can certainly get great food in both, I can't really see how either necessarily deserve a top spot. Boston's food scene, in particular, tends to rely too heavily on tradition and has very little in the way of innovation. Washington has had more of a food renaissance recently, but it's still a fair bit behind places like Chicago, Houston, L.A. etc.

The remaining cities on this list you can make a pretty convincing case for...

[pwp]

As an observation, I've always thought Philly has very few chain restaurants downtown than many other cities I've been to. Yes, they are there, but not in large numbers, unlike some other places, e.g. Vegas, LA.

[dchan]

Originally Posted by seaskyfan

Clearly Europe needs more folks from Mexico.

And they would have more folks from Mexico, that is, if they could only dig an underground tunnel under the Atlantic to transport some of them.

[ChrisLA]

Originally Posted by pwp

As an observation, I've always thought Philly has very few chain restaurants downtown than many other cities I've been to. Yes, they are there, but not in large numbers, unlike some other places, e.g. Vegas, LA.

I guess you never been to downtown LA, because there are very few chains. I was just in Philly back in October, not saying it was full of chains, but they seem to have their share more so than I've ever seen in downtown LA. This is what I recall during my visit in the area near our hotel. Starbucks, Hard Rock Cafe, Maggiano's, Applebee's, I was at each one except Applebee's. Mainly because they were opened late compared to the other restaurants.

[urbanactivist]

Originally Posted by Serenade

You can replace Houston with almost any city in the world and the comments would still ring true. Also if I were getting my news from Fox, the best restaurant city in America would be based on the number of Olive Gardens and Chilis per capita.

I'm not going to try to respond to your post, but I will respectfully disagree with your assertion here, and just assumed that it's made without a true knowledge of the city.

I'd invite you to take a second and learn more about Houston's dining landscape...

http://www.b4-u-eat.com/
This is my go-to guide for Houston restaurants. It has everything from the super posh to the cheap street gnosh.

[1ajs]

LA is a hudge hudge masive city though