Taste of a Capital

Check out the bar chart below to find out how your top food fares.

Both Italy and France have the highest number of restaurants dedicated to their native cuisines, making up a total of 71.1% and 49.8% respectively. This national dominance is also reflected in their popularity across the other cities, with almost 1 in 5 (17.3%) restaurants across Europe serving Italian cuisine. Meanwhile, 1 in 10 (10.60%) restaurants are French. 

At the other end of the scale, Amsterdam has the smallest proportion of restaurants dedicated to its native food, making up only 15.5% of the city’s total. 

In terms of variety, Berlin comes out on top with 54 different cuisines to choose from, while London follows in a close 2nd with 50 different cuisines to feast on.

There are cities where their local cuisines don’t travel far beyond their borders; Portuguese restaurants are few and far between outside of Portugal where they make up 57.2% of Lisbon’s restaurants and averaging just 0.39% density across the other 19 cities.                                

Surprisingly, British cuisine is another that fails to travel across the continent, and despite the 2,889 British restaurants in London, only 1.8% of all restaurants in these 20 cities will serve traditional British grub.

Across Europe, six primary cuisines dominated menus, with Italian food proving to be the continent’s favourite with over 11,000 restaurants across 20 cities. French and Mediterranean cuisine came in 2nd and 3rd with 7,605 and 4,774 restaurants respectively. 

While Spanish and Greek fill up the 4th and 6th spots, it has become clear that Europe has an appetite for far-eastern cuisine, with Japanese restaurants coming in as Europe’s 5th most popular cuisine. Interestingly, this trend was spearheaded by Moscow, which has over 1,000 Japanese restaurants – meaning 1 in 5 of the city’s eating establishments is dedicated to this cuisine.