California’s culinary prowess is well-known from San Diego to Mount Shasta.
But the question remains — does The Golden State feature better food than all the rest?
In a recent ranking of the best American cities for foodies, personal finance website WalletHub concluded that Portland, Oregon, is the No. 1 food destination in the U.S. based on affordability, accessibility, diversity and quality.
Florida’s Orlando and Miami follow Portland, at Nos. 2 and 3.
At No. 4, California’s dominance begins.
San Francisco, Sacramento and San Diego all appear within the list’s top 10. And to break a tie with Florida, which saw Tampa land at No. 8, Los Angeles and Oakland appear at Nos. 15 and 20, giving California five top-20 cities for foodies, more than any other state.
Santa Ana, San Jose and Anaheim received favorable rankings as well, landing at Nos. 39, 45 and 49, respectively.
“Our report included the 150 most populated U.S. cities, and a lot of those are in California,” WalletHub analyst Jill Gonzalez told Newsweek. “The state definitely has plenty of great foodie cities—San Francisco, Sacramento and San Diego, to name a few.”
Despite an omission from Insider‘s list of the 10 best food states in the U.S. this year, California has also performed spectacularly on previous lists similar to WalletHub’s.
In 2018, Thrillist ranked California the second-best food state in the U.S., behind Texas. And this year, travel website Far & Wide bestowed the country’s culinary crown on California, citing its “melting pot of cultures [that] creates a culinary map that spans the entire world,” as reason for its No. 1 ranking.
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California is the most-populated state in the U.S.
It is also the most diverse, allowing for an endlessly expansive, vibrant food scene.
With residents from numerous cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds in proximity, the variety in cuisine across California is astounding, both in terms of flavor and how food is presented and sold.
From street tacos to drunken noodles; unique barbecue traditions to the famed In-N-Out Burger, California has something to offer every self-proclaimed foodie, and has long remained in the running for the best food in the country.
Still, however, WalletHub isn’t ready to call The Golden State the golden child of cuisine in the U.S just yet.
“We can’t say for sure if California would top the other states if we did a state ranking,” Gonzalez told Newsweek. “But it would sure be a strong contender.”
