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While some people make the hilarious declaration that they sometimes ‘forget to eat’ (like what?), the rest of us are constantly thinking about food – and it can play a huge role in where we choose to travel.
There are cities all over the world famous for certain dishes and restaurants, but when it comes down to a nation’s cuisine, which do you reckon is the most popular?
Italian? We thought so too, but in a shocking turn of events, the land of pizza napoletana, cacio e pepe, puttanesca, risotto, tiramisu, canneloni (the list obviously goes on), was pipped to the post this year.
Home to the world’s best cuisine in 2024 is another Mediterranean nation: Greece. TasteAtlas had a look at 477,287 ratings of 15,478 foods in its database and used that to compile a list of the world’s 100 best cuisines, and Greece beat out everywhere else.
You might be surprised by this news, but Greek food has earned its place, in our opinion. Some of its national dishes include moussaka (layers of potato, aubergine and tomato-slathered mince), stifado (scrumptious beef stew), souvlaki (skewered meat, vegetables sometimes with halloumi tossed in) and dolma (stuffed vine leaves – divine), as well as gyros, tzatziki and greek salad. Yum.
In third place was Mexican, but we’re hardly as surprised by that, as tacos were recently named the world’s most popular street food. Drooling? Same – the full top 30 is below.
These are the world’s 30 best cuisines
- Greek
- Italian
- Mexican
- Spanish
- Portuguese
- Turkish
- Indonesian
- French
- Japanese
- Chinese
- Polish
- Indian
- American
- Peruvian
- Serbian
- Brazilian
- Croatian
- Colombian
- Vietnamese
- Hungarian
- Algerian
- Korean
- German
- Romanian
- Argentinian
- Lebanese
- Czech
- Thai
- Georgian
- Tunisian
Keen to see the full ranking? You can do so on the TasteAtlas website.
Knife and fork at the ready
If you’re hungry for more food content, you’ve come to the right place. We recently published a roundup of the world’s very best places to eat steak, and this unexpected spot claimed the crown. We also annually rank the best cities in the world for food. Tuck in.
Did you see that these restaurants have just been crowned the world’s best for 2025?
Plus: Why are Rome’s restaurants making a ‘carbonara pact’?
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