San Francisco is most "food-forward" city
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San Francisco is the country's most "food-forward" city, according to one ranking by food consultancy group Datassential.
- Datassential ranked 158 U.S. cities based on the breadth and variety of their restaurants, and residents' interest in and awareness of a wide array of foods.
- California cities dominated the top of the list — including slight curveballs like San Diego and Monterey.
Yes, but: This doesn't necessarily mean San Francisco has the best food — just that it has the greatest diversity of cuisines, lots of "emerging" foods, and plenty of residents who seek out gustatory novelty.
Methodology: Datassential tracks 1.4 million places that serve food in the U.S. — 680,000 of which are restaurants — and maintains a large database of menus.
- It ranks a city's food scene based on the diversity of cuisines served in local restaurants.
Zoom in: Another big factor was "how often earlier-stage [food] trends showed up at local restaurants, highlighting that a particular city was responsible for giving life to new food trends," Datassential said in its report.
The other side: Other rankings have reached different conclusions.
- U.S. News and World Report's rankings, for example, looked for ethnic diversity, "distinctive cultural fare" and "hometown dishes you won't find anywhere else in the world."
- It gave the top honor to New Orleans while San Francisco came in fifth place.
What's next: Trending items and ingredients you can expect to see in food-forward cities?
- Datassential says they're lavender, bao, nectarine, pistou (a garlic-and-basil condiment), and the "mixed dessert" plate, which is sort of a charcuterie board of sweets.