The world’s best food cities have been crowned for 2024 – and London doesn’t even make the top 50

Shocked? Appalled? Confused? Outraged? Yes, we are all those things and more upon hearing that the world’s best food cities have been crowned, and our sweet London doesn’t even make the top 50.

The TasteAtlas Awards 24/25 named the 100 best food cities in the world, and London was ranked at a frankly incorrect 90th place; below Houston, Stockholm, Prague, Moscow, Munich, Sarajevo, Mexico City, and well, most other cities in the world, it seems. Four of the top 5 are places in Italy, with Naples at number one, Milan at two, Bologna at three, and Florence at four – well done to Mumbai in India for being the only non Italian city to break the top five.

TasteAtlas, which collates its ranking from reviews and recommendations of 17,073 cities in its database, listed the top 100 cities with the highest average ratings for the regional and national dishes most commonly served in those places. The site flagged fish and chips, afternoon tea, English breakfast, coronation chicken and steak and kidney pie as London’s most popular must-try dishes. Which is maybe where they’re going wrong. Of course, we love all these things, but gosh, there’s so much more to London than a fry-up. 

The piece also flagged London’s most ‘iconic traditional restaurants’, listing St John Bread & Wine in Shoreditch, Sabor in Mayfair, Legare in Tower Bridge, Padella in Borough Market and The Palomar in Chinatown as places to visit.

We’d like to direct you – and TasteAtlas – to our list of the 20 best new restaurants in London, so you can see what this city really has to offer, as well as our ranking of the very best all-time restaurants in London. Eat that, Italy. Literally.

The best stouts and porters you can buy in London during the Guinness shortage.

The hottest new openings, the tastiest tips, the spiciest reviews: we’re serving it all on our London restaurants WhatsApp channel. Follow us now to tuck in.