chicago #1 food city, come on lol
- availability
- quality
- diversity
Others agree:
https://www.bonappetit.com/story/chicago-restaurant-city-of-... (a little bias here’s another one: https://travel.usnews.com/rankings/best-foodie-destinations-...)
You can do a quick search for more recent opinions.
NYC has more top end, famous restaurants. Chicago has more close to top end restaurants that you can easily get a reservation for. Measured by dimensions like # of Michelin stars, Chicago is only behind NYC and SF. It’s ahead LA for example.
Having Japanese and a handful of decent Chinese places != diverse.
I’ve lived in NYC for 10 years. I’ve looked.
Here’s the breakdown of where to go to get authentic, good non-tourist food:
An hour+ to get to different parts of Queens for decent Korean, Chinese, Mexican options.
Three hours to get to Northern VA for Vietnamese food (or 2 for Philly).
1-2 hours to get to New Jersey to get decent Indian food.
Yes, NYC has great sushi that costs 500 per person. Again, that doesn’t make it the #1 food city in America.
That's where I live now, and while I love the ready access to great banh mi, I do have to go to NYC to get a good babka. No place is perfect, I guess
Whenever someone goes on about Manhattan food that isn’t a food truck, i eye-roll. The good stuff is indeed in Queens or even Jersey.