The best meal I’ve ever eaten cost about $2.40. Grilled pork over rice, eaten standing up because the plastic stool had clearly been designed for someone half my size, on a corner in Hanoi where the woman cooking had one pan, no menu and a queue of motorbikes double parked outside. No wine list. No tasting notes. Just smoke, fish sauce and about four minutes of my life I still think about.
I’ve also had a tasting menu that cost more than my flight and left me hungry, so I’m not romanticising cheap food for the sake of it. Both count. That’s the point of this list, really. These are 10 places where the eating is the reason to go, not a nice thing you do between museums.
I’ve been to most of them. The ones I haven’t, I’ve planned trips around for other people often enough to know what actually happens when you land. Here’s the shortlist.
“If you’re twenty-two, physically fit, hungry to learn and be better, I urge you to travel – as far and as widely as possible. Sleep on floors if you have to. Find out how other people live and eat and cook. Learn from them – wherever you go.”
― Anthony Bourdain
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Travel Foodie's Bucket List: Quick Facts
How I picked these 10
There’s no shortage of lists that just rank cities by how many starred restaurants they have. That tells you almost nothing about a trip. A city can have twelve of them and still leave you eating rubbish for the other nineteen meals.
So the test I used was simpler. Could you eat brilliantly three times a day, for a week, without booking anything? Could you do it on a normal budget? And is the food specific to that place, or is it just good international cooking that happens to be in a nice building?
All 10 pass. A few famous food cities didn’t, and I’ll come to those near the end.
1. Tokyo, Japan: the city that ruins convenience stores for you
Tokyo is the only place I’ve been where the worst food available is still quite good. I mean that literally. The egg sandwich from a 24 hour convenience store, bought at one in the morning because your body clock has given up, is better than most sandwiches sold anywhere in Britain. It costs about £1.60 / €1.85 / $2.10.
The city works in layers. Down in the department store basements you’ve got the depachika food halls, which are free to wander and absolutely lethal to a budget. Street level gives you standing soba bars where lunch takes nine minutes. Then there are the tiny counters, six seats, one chef, one thing done properly for thirty years.
- Tsukiji Outer Market in the morning for grilled scallops, tamagoyaki and tuna you’ll compare everything else to
- A standing soba bar at lunch, around £4 to £6 / €4.60 to €7 / $5 to $8
- An izakaya in the evening, ordering in rounds rather than courses
- Ramen from a vending machine ticket shop, which is far less intimidating than it looks
The thing people get wrong is trying to plan Tokyo eating. Don’t. Pick a neighbourhood, walk it, go in somewhere with a queue of office workers.
Good to know: Serious Tokyo restaurants often serve the same kitchen’s cooking at lunch for a third of the dinner price. A lunch set at a place you could never afford in the evening runs about £18 to £30 / €21 to €35 / $23 to $39. It is the single best value in fine dining anywhere.
Where to Stay in Japan
2. Bologna, Italy: where you stop ordering spaghetti bolognese
Bologna is the one I send people to when they say they want a food trip but don’t want a long flight. It’s small, it’s flat, the whole historic centre is walkable under porticoes so the rain doesn’t matter, and the food is aggressively local.
The old market streets of the Quadrilatero, just off the main square, are lined with salumerie and pasta shops where you can watch sfoglia being rolled by hand through the window. Go mid morning. Buy mortadella. Regret nothing.
- Tagliatelle al ragu, which is the real version of what your local Italian calls bolognese
- Tortellini in brodo, tiny and served in broth, and the one dish locals get properly emotional about
- Crescentine and gnocco fritto with cured meats, basically fried dough and pork, and yes it’s as good as it sounds
- An aperitivo around early evening, where a €6 drink often comes with enough snacks to postpone dinner
A plate of pasta in a proper osteria sits around £9 to £13 / €10 to €15 / $12 to $17. You can eat extremely well here for not very much, which is not something you can say about most of Italy’s headline cities any more.
Fact: Spaghetti bolognese isn’t a Bolognese dish. The city’s own ragu goes with tagliatelle, because flat egg pasta holds a meat sauce and round spaghetti doesn’t. Order it with spaghetti and you’ll get a look.
Where to Stay in Bologna
3. Oaxaca, Mexico: smoke, chocolate and seven kinds of mole
Oaxaca is the most distinctive food city on this list. Not the best necessarily, but the one that tastes least like anywhere else. The moles alone would justify the flight: complex sauces built from chillies, seeds, spices and sometimes chocolate, cooked down over hours.
Head into Mercado 20 de Noviembre and you’ll find the grilled meat hall, a corridor of charcoal grills where you buy your meat by weight from one stall, tortillas from another, salsa and spring onions from a third, then sit at a communal bench and assemble it yourself. The smoke is overwhelming. You’ll smell of it for two days. Worth it.
- Tlayudas, huge crisp tortillas loaded with beans, cheese and meat, around £3.50 to £5 / €4 to €6 / $4.50 to $6.50
- Mole negro over turkey, the benchmark dish of the region
- Tejate, a cold maize and cacao drink sold from enormous painted bowls in the markets
- Mezcal tasted properly in a small mezcaleria rather than shot in a bar
4. San Sebastian, Spain: eat standing up, move on, repeat
San Sebastian has the highest concentration of celebrated restaurants in Europe and I’d tell you to ignore almost all of them on a first visit. The real event is the pintxos crawl through the Parte Vieja, the old town, where the bar counters are stacked with small plates and the correct strategy is to have one thing and a small drink, then leave.
That last bit matters. People settle into the first bar, order six things, and wonder why the night felt flat. The magic is in the moving. 5 bars, 5 specialities, 2 hours.
- A gilda, the olive, anchovy and pepper skewer that started the whole thing
- Grilled txuleta, aged beef on the bone, if you’re going to have one big meal
- Txakoli, the slightly fizzy local white, poured from a height for no reason anyone can properly justify
- Whatever is hot and made to order behind the bar, which is almost always better than the cold plates on the counter
Budget roughly £3 to £4.50 / €3.50 to €5 / $4 to $6 per pintxo and drink. A good crawl runs about £25 to £35 / €29 to €40 / $32 to $45 a head, which is less than a mediocre dinner in most of Europe.
Money saver: Stay in Bilbao and day trip in. The bus takes just over an hour, runs constantly and costs a few euros, and Bilbao beds are noticeably cheaper. I’ve done it both ways and the train of thought that says you must sleep in San Sebastian is mostly marketing.
Where to Stay in San Sebastian
Gear we actually travel with
Passport holders, packing cubes, travel wallets. Stuff that earns its place in the bag.
Browse the shop5. Bangkok, Thailand: the loudest, best value eating on the planet
Bangkok at night, in Chinatown, on Yaowarat Road, with woks going on the pavement and the heat coming off them in waves. Nothing else quite matches it for atmosphere. You eat standing, or at a fold out table someone has just wiped down, and the bill for two people with drinks is maybe £10.
The city rewards a bit of ambition. Boat noodles come in tiny bowls because you’re supposed to order five or six and stack them up. Khao man gai, poached chicken on rice, sounds plain and is one of the great comfort dishes. And the fruit, cut and bagged on every corner, is worth eating daily.
- Yaowarat after dark for grilled seafood, noodles and oyster omelette
- A morning market for jok, a rice porridge with an egg cracked into it
- Mango sticky rice, ideally from a stall that only sells mango sticky rice
- Boat noodles in one of the noodle alleys, about 20 to 30 baht a bowl
If you want to shortcut the learning curve, an evening street food walk is one of the few guided food tours on GetYourGuide I’d actually recommend doing on night one, because you spend the rest of the week ordering with confidence.
Watch out: “Not spicy” is a negotiation, not an instruction. If you’re sensitive, say “mai phet” and then still expect heat. Order a plain rice dish alongside anything you’re unsure about, because rice fixes it and water very much does not.
Where to Stay in Bangkok
Recommended Tours & Tickets
6. Penang, Malaysia: hawker food as a national sport
George Town is my dark horse pick. It’s compact, the architecture is beautiful, and the food is a collision of Malay, Chinese, Indian and Peranakan cooking that exists nowhere else in quite the same form. Stall holders often cook one dish and have done for decades.
You eat at hawker centres and coffee shops. You find a table, then order from different stalls around the edges, and someone brings each dish to you. Drinks come from the house. It’s the most efficient eating system humans have devised.
- Char kway teow, flat noodles fried hard and fast over a ferocious flame
- Assam laksa, sour tamarind fish broth, divisive and completely brilliant
- Nasi kandar, rice with an anarchic pile of curries ladled over it
- Cendol, shaved ice with coconut milk and palm sugar, at roughly 80p
A plate here costs around £1.40 to £2.20 / €1.60 to €2.50 / $1.80 to $2.90. You can eat five meals a day and barely notice it on the card statement.
What a food day actually costs
← Swipe to scroll on mobile
| Destination | Street food day | Mid range day | One big meal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tokyo | £15 / €17 / $19 | £35 / €40 / $45 | £90 / €104 / $117 |
| Bologna | £18 / €21 / $23 | £40 / €46 / $52 | £70 / €81 / $91 |
| Oaxaca | £10 / €12 / $13 | £25 / €29 / $32 | £55 / €63 / $71 |
| San Sebastian | £28 / €32 / $36 | £50 / €58 / $65 | £120 / €138 / $156 |
| Bangkok | £7 / €8 / $9 | £22 / €25 / $29 | £60 / €69 / $78 |
| Penang | £7 / €8 / $9 | £20 / €23 / $26 | £45 / €52 / $58 |
| Istanbul | £10 / €12 / $13 | £28 / €32 / $36 | £65 / €75 / $84 |
| Hanoi | £6 / €7 / $8 | £18 / €21 / $23 | £45 / €52 / $58 |
| Marrakech | £10 / €12 / $13 | £26 / €30 / $34 | £55 / €63 / $71 |
| Lima | £12 / €14 / $16 | £30 / €35 / $39 | £85 / €98 / $110 |
Those are per person, food and a couple of drinks, no accommodation. Prices are a guide and vary by season, neighbourhood and how disciplined you are around dessert.
7. Istanbul, Turkey: breakfast is the main event
Most cities have a signature dinner. Istanbul’s signature meal is breakfast, and it goes on for hours. A proper kahvalti arrives as fifteen small plates: cheeses, olives, tomatoes, honey with clotted cream, eggs cooked with sausage in a copper pan, endless bread and tea that keeps being refilled without anyone asking.
After that, the city divides neatly. The European side has the Spice Bazaar and the fish sandwich boats by the Galata Bridge. Cross to Kadikoy on the Asian side and you get the market streets where locals actually shop, plus better prices and fewer queues.
- Balik ekmek, grilled fish in bread by the water, about £2.50 to £4 / €3 to €4.60 / $3.30 to $5.20
- Midye dolma, stuffed mussels, bought one at a time and counted by the shells you leave
- Pide and lahmacun from a proper wood oven, folded and eaten walking
- Baklava from a dedicated shop rather than a tourist stall, sold by weight
Where to Stay in Istanbul
8. Hanoi, Vietnam: one dish, one street, thirty years
Hanoi does specialism better than anywhere. A place sells pho. That’s it. Another sells bun cha, grilled pork in a bowl of sweet fish sauce broth with noodles and herbs on the side, and has sold nothing else since before you were born. The narrow Old Quarter streets were historically organised by trade and the food still follows that logic.
The stools are tiny. The lighting is a single fluorescent tube. Someone will be washing bowls in a bucket by your feet. And it will be one of the best things you eat all year for under two quid.
- Pho bo in the morning, which is when locals eat it, not at 8pm
- Bun cha at lunch, the smoke from the grills hitting you a street away
- Ca phe trung, the egg coffee, which sounds wrong and tastes like warm tiramisu
- Banh mi from a cart, roughly £1 to £1.50 / €1.15 to €1.75 / $1.30 to $2
Where to Stay in Hanoi
9. Marrakech, Morocco: the square, the smoke, the haggle
Jemaa el-Fna at sunset turns from a square into an outdoor restaurant. Stalls get wheeled in, numbered, lit, and the touts start working the crowd. It’s theatre and it’s a bit chaotic and it’s also not where the best food is, which is the thing nobody tells you.
Eat one meal there for the experience. Then spend the rest of the trip in the smaller places: a tangia cooked slowly in a clay urn at the neighbourhood hammam furnace, a mechoui stall carving lamb from a pit, a rooftop where someone’s mother is doing the cooking.
- Tangia, the slow cooked lamb or beef dish that’s specific to Marrakech
- Msemen and beghrir for breakfast, with honey and mint tea
- Harira soup, especially in the evening when it’s sold by the bowl for pennies
- Fresh orange juice from the square stalls, about 40p a glass
10. Lima, Peru: the best seafood city you haven't booked yet
Lima is the long flight on this list and the one people are most surprised by. The cooking pulls from Indigenous Peruvian, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish and West African traditions, and the result is food you can’t really get a proper version of anywhere else.
Ceviche is the headline and it comes with a rule: it’s a lunchtime dish. Fish is bought that morning, and a cevicheria serving at 9pm is telling you something about the fish. The cheap, brilliant neighbourhood places tend to shut by mid afternoon.
- Ceviche with leche de tigre, ideally at a proper cevicheria, £7 to £12 / €8 to €14 / $9 to $16
- Anticuchos, skewered beef heart grilled on street corners in the evening
- Lomo saltado, the stir fried beef dish that shows the Chinese influence clearly
- A pisco sour in Barranco, which is the neighbourhood I’d base myself in
Order this, skip that
A quick cheat sheet. Not gospel, just what I’d tell a mate over a pint before they flew.
← Swipe to scroll on mobile
| Destination | Order this | Give this a miss |
|---|---|---|
| Tokyo | Lunch set at a serious restaurant | Conveyor belt sushi near major stations |
| Bologna | Tagliatelle al ragu in a back street osteria | Anything with a photo menu on the main square |
| Oaxaca | Mole negro and a market grill lunch | Mezcal flights aimed squarely at visitors |
| San Sebastian | Hot pintxos made to order | Cold counter plates that have sat since midday |
| Bangkok | Yaowarat street stalls after dark | Hotel pad thai at four times the price |
| Penang | Single dish hawker specialists | Air conditioned food courts in malls |
| Istanbul | A long breakfast, then Kadikoy market | Restaurants with a bloke outside waving a menu |
| Hanoi | Pho in the morning, bun cha at lunch | Western style cafes in the Old Quarter |
| Marrakech | Tangia and a neighbourhood mechoui stall | Square stalls for every single meal |
| Lima | Ceviche at a lunchtime cevicheria | Late night ceviche anywhere |
When to go if food is the priority
Seasons matter more than people expect. Not because of weather, but because of what’s actually being landed, picked or pressed while you’re there.
← Swipe to scroll on mobile
| Destination | Best season | Why it’s worth timing |
|---|---|---|
| Tokyo | Autumn | Best seafood season and comfortable walking weather |
| Bologna | Autumn | Truffles, new olive oil and heavier ragu weather |
| Oaxaca | Late autumn | Festival season, when the markets are at their loudest |
| San Sebastian | Late spring or early autumn | Bars are busy without the peak summer crush |
| Bangkok | Cool dry season | Eating outdoors stops being an endurance event |
| Penang | The drier stretch between monsoons | Outdoor hawker centres run at full strength |
| Istanbul | Spring or autumn | Fish season on the Bosphorus and long walkable days |
| Hanoi | Autumn | Dry, mild and the ideal temperature for hot noodle soup |
| Marrakech | Spring or autumn | Summer heat makes the square unbearable until very late |
| Lima | Southern summer | The coastal grey lifts and ceviche weather arrives |
The ones that nearly made it
Cutting the list was harder than writing it. A few near misses and why they didn’t make the ten:
- Copenhagen. Superb at the very top end, expensive in the middle, and the gap between a £200 tasting menu and a £14 sandwich is a bit brutal.
- Lyon. Strong case, and the bouchons are wonderful. Bologna edged it on walkability and price.
- New Orleans. Great food city, though the drinking culture tends to take over the trip.
- Chengdu. Probably belongs here on merit. It’s the hardest of the lot to navigate without a bit of Mandarin or a guide.
- Naples. Pizza aside, less variety than the others across a full week.
If you’ve eaten somewhere that should have made it, I’m always taking recommendations. That’s roughly how half my trips get planned.
The practical bits nobody mentions
A few things that make food trips run better, learned the tedious way.
Get data sorted before you land. Translation apps, map pins, reading a menu photo, checking if a place is open: all of it needs a connection, and hunting for wifi while hungry in an unfamiliar city is miserable. I use an Airalo travel eSIM now and set it up at the departure gate in about two minutes.
Save pins as you research, not as you walk. Dropping fifteen markers on a map before you go means you’re never more than a few streets from somewhere you already decided was good. This is the single best travel habit I’ve picked up.
And carry small cash. Street food does not take cards in most of these cities, and the stall with the best noodles is never the one with a payment terminal.
Tinker’s Tip: Learn four words in the local language: delicious, thank you, this one, and the word for the thing you most want to eat. That’s it. Four words gets you better service, better portions and occasionally a free extra plate.
Right, go and book something
Pick one. Not three, not a grand tour, just one. Book a flight, book the first night’s dinner, and leave the other six days open.
The meals you’ll still be describing to people in five years are almost never the ones you planned. They’re the place you ducked into because it rained, or the stall you went back to three times because the woman running it started recognising you. That only happens if you leave room for it.
If you’re still deciding where to point yourself, our travel inspiration hub has more lists like this one, and the itinerary generator will rough out the days once you’ve settled on a city.
FAQs
Which of these is best for a first food focused trip?
Bologna, if you’re in Europe. It’s a short flight, everything is within a twenty minute walk, prices are reasonable and it’s almost impossible to eat badly. Penang is the equivalent if you’re heading to Asia anyway. Both give you the confidence to attempt somewhere trickier next time.
Is street food safe to eat in these places?
Generally yes, and often safer than a quiet restaurant. High turnover means fresh ingredients and food that hasn’t been sitting around. Pick stalls with a queue, watch the food being cooked in front of you, and be more cautious with pre cut fruit, ice in rural areas and anything lukewarm. I’ve been far more ill from hotel buffets than from street carts.
Can vegetarians and vegans do these destinations?
Oaxaca, Istanbul, Bologna and Penang are all manageable, and India aside, Istanbul’s meze culture is probably the easiest of the lot. Hanoi and Bangkok take a bit more care, since fish sauce and shrimp paste turn up in things that look plant based. Learn the phrase for “no fish sauce” and you’ll be fine. San Sebastian is the hardest, though it has improved a lot.
How many days do I need in each?
Three to four days is the sweet spot for most of them. Long enough to eat twelve or so proper meals, short enough that you’re still curious rather than fed up. Tokyo and Bangkok justify a week because they’re big enough to feel like several cities. Bologna and San Sebastian work brilliantly as a long weekend.
Are food tours worth the money?
On day one, yes. On day four, no. A good guide teaches you how a city’s eating works: when to eat what, how ordering happens, what the words on the sign mean. That knowledge pays off across every remaining meal. Booking one halfway through your trip just means paying someone to show you places you’ve already found. Our handpicked tours and experiences page has the ones we’d book ourselves.
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