It’s no secret that British cuisine is often the butt of jokes, but as many Brits will attest, there’s some delicious food to be found across the country.
You wouldn’t know it though, judging by the results of the top 50 best cities in the world for food – as we didn’t make the cut.
London, which is regularly touted as one of the best cities in the world, and is home to some incredible restaurants, didn’t feature until much further down the list at number 90.
And surprisingly, it was the only spot in the UK that managed to make it into the top 100 of the TasteAtlas Awards 2024/25.
It likely won’t come as a shock that Italy dominated the top 10, as the country is famous for its food, with an abundance of delicious pasta, pizza, meats, cheeses, wine and more.
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Naples was crowned the world’s best city for food, with Milan following closely behind in second place and Bologna in third. Florence was fourth, Rome in sixth place, and Turin in ninth.
Outside of Italy, the other three cities that made up the top 10 were Mumbai (5th), Paris (7th), and Vienna (8th).
The rankings were based on 477,278 food ratings for 15,478 different foods featured in the TasteAtlas database. There are a total of 17,073 cities in the database, and the 100 selected were said to ‘stand out with the highest average ratings for the regional and national dishes most commonly served there’.
Coming in 90th place, TasteAtlas urged readers to try quintessential British dishes like fish and chips, afternoon tea, a fry-up, coronation chicken and steak and kidney pie.
They also shared some of the ‘best gourmet’ food producers you can find in the city, including William Curley chocolate, Rococo Chocolates, Brindisa (cheese), Diageo (alcohol company), and Quintessential Brands.
And a few London restaurants were also recommended as ‘iconic traditional’ spots. St John Bread & Wine in Smithfield was their top pick, which is a one Michelin star eatery that specialises in nose-to-tail cooking.
Sabor a Spanish restaurant on Heddon Street, Italian restaurants Legare and Padella also received shoutouts, as well as The Palomar in Soho which specialises in Middle Eastern cuisine.
Other foodie highlights included Fortnum & Mason and Claridge’s for afternoon tea, The Mayflower pub, E Pellicci for ‘the most iconic English breakfast in the world’, or The Regency Cafe, and Golden Chippy for fish and chips.
While London might not have come out trumps for food, two of our landmarks were recently named as some of the best buildings in the world.
According to a ranking of the world’s 10 most important buildings and infrastructures, Battersea Power Station and The Shard come out on top in London.
The same list, created by Tomorrow Building World Congress, places the Burj Khalifa in Dubai in the number one spot, closely followed by DXB Airport, also in Dubai.
Battersea Power Station came in 7th place in the top 10, with the research looking at its history supplying London with electricity from the 1930s until it was decommissioned in the 80s.
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‘The iconic building preserves many of its original elements, and visitors can even access one of its chimneys for panoramic views of the city. This infrastructure garners nearly 700,000 Google searches and achieves a score of 2.71 in the ranking,’ the research states.
The Shard came in ninth place on the list, famed for transforming London’s skyline and being the tallest building in the UK, standing at 309 meters.
It has multiple uses, containing residential apartments, a hotel, office space, as well as various restaurants and bars. There’s also a viewing platform for tourists to look out over the city.
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Tomorrow Building World Congress said it was particularly notable as ‘in its first year, it welcomed one million tourists and garnered 900,000 mentions on Instagram.’
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