Best European Cities
for Food Lovers

For Simplicity Perfected

Rome wins the food ranking not because of complexity or innovation but because of the opposite. Roman cuisine is three or four ingredients, perfected over centuries, served with the confidence of a culture that knows it has nothing to prove. Cacio e pepe with two ingredients. Carbonara with four. A plate of supplì from a street cart for €2.

For the Full Spectrum

Barcelona gives food lovers everything simultaneously — the pintxos bar tradition from the nearby Basque Country, the seafood of the Mediterranean coast, the avant-garde culinary innovation that made Catalonia famous, and the produce of one of Europe's great food markets at La Boqueria.

For the Ritual of It

Paris is on this list not because French cuisine is necessarily better than Italian or Spanish — that argument has no answer — but because eating in Paris is a ritual that the city takes more seriously than anywhere else. The French relationship with food is philosophical.

For the Undiscovered

Portuguese cuisine is one of Europe's most underrated culinary traditions and Lisbon is its finest expression. The city's food culture combines the Atlantic seafood tradition — the extraordinary bacalhau preparations, the fresh fish grilled simply with olive oil and lemon — with the pastry tradition that produced the pastéis de nata.

For Tuscany in a City

Florence's food identity is inseparable from its region. Tuscan cuisine is the most celebrated regional Italian food tradition and Florence is where you experience it in its most concentrated form. The Mercato Centrale food hall gives an overview of the Tuscan larder.

For the Surprise

Amsterdam doesn't have the obvious food credentials of the cities above but it contains one of Europe's most interesting culinary secrets: the Dutch colonial legacy produced an Indonesian food tradition that is world class and almost entirely unknown outside the Netherlands.