Caterwings, a relatively new start-up founded in 2015, is an online platform and marketplace

that connects customers and caterers. For this study, the company analysed international restaurant rankings as well as thousands of cities based on the number of restaurants per capita to determine the final top 100 list.

Having determined the factors they wanted to focus on, they then awarded each city a score from 1 to 10 (10 being the best) based on data ranging from the percentage of restaurants with vegetarian options to the ratings from 20,000 food journalists and critics.

Hong Kong’s overall score is 6.88, compared with Singapore’s 7.58, Bangkok’s 7.10 and Taipei’s 6.76. San Sebastian, at the top of the chart, has an overall score of 8.09.

Top foodie destinations

(Click on the top left icon of the map for the full legend)

It’s clear that the experts love San Sebastian, with the city ranked top by critics for the quality of the culinary scene as well as quality of food service; it also placed first for fine dining, ahead of Tokyo and Paris.

Other key – and surprising – findings include New York City actually ranking the most affordable for locals, while Hanoi is the most affordable for visitors. Meanwhile, Zanzibar leads the pack for vegetarian and vegan options.

“With restricted diets part of the foodie zeitgeist, it was particularly interesting to see which cities had the most to offer vegetarians and vegans,” Queiroz says. “Zanzibar took first place, followed by Venice and Edinburgh, which may come as a surprise to some.”

How did some of the world’s favourite foodie cities fare? We took a closer look at Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok, Shanghai, Tokyo London, New York and Paris. Here’s how they did in the key categories:

Quality of service:

(rated by 20,000 food journalists and restaurant critics)

London: 9.2
Tokyo: 8.8
Singapore: 8.2
New York: 8.2
Bangkok: 7.5
Paris: 7.5
Hong Kong: 6.7
Shanghai: 6.4

Culinary scene:

(rated by 20,000 food journalists and restaurant critics)

Tokyo: 9.5
New York: 9.1
Singapore: 8.9
London: 8.9
Paris: 8.7
Bangkok: 8.5
Hong Kong: 8
Shanghai: 8

Vegetarian options:

(calculated by percentage of vegetarian and vegan options in the city based on TripAdvisor and local travel guides)

New York: 9.11
London: 8.08
Paris: 6.12
Bangkok: 5.08
Singapore: 5.05
Hong Kong: 4.29
Shanghai: 2.23
Tokyo: 2.01

Rating of high-end restaurants:

(based on the number of Michelin 3-star restaurants, the number of restaurants in the World’s 50 and 100 Best lists, number of restaurants in TripAdvisor’s “fine dining” category, and the total number of restaurants)

Tokyo: 9.82
Paris: 9.78
New York: 9.08
Singapore: 8.42
London: 8.08
Hong Kong: 7.99
Bangkok: 7.10
Shanghai: 5.89