The UK is home to plenty of top-tier food cities, each packed with tasty dishes. Beyond the nation’s cliché classic plates – aye, fish and chips, roast dinners, that sort of stuff – are countless gastronomic innovators. Just look at how many British restos picked up stars in this year’s Michelin Guide.
But Michelin’s inspectors aren’t the only ones keeping track of Britain’s best restaurants. This week Time Out published our list of the world’s best food cities, coming up with the list by quizzing thousands of city-dwellers around the world on factors ranging from the general quality of their culinary scene to its diversity, innovation and pure tastiness. We also surveyed them on affordability – and gave special weight to that factor. After all, what’s the point in having nice food if you can’t afford to eat it?
All that info was then combined with the expertise of our network of food experts to come up with a ranking. Overall, New Orleans was named the best city for food in the whole world. But that’s not all we were looking at – the thousands of Brits that took part in the survey have helped reveal the best cities for food (and drink, and coffee) in the UK right now too.
Placing top was, drum roll please, Liverpool! A whopping 84 percent of respondents rated Liverpool’s quality of restaurants, with a still-very-impressive 68 percent saying the food scene is affordable. Liverpool came the closest to Time Out’s overall global top 20 food cities, placing 26th in the worldwide list.
As explained in our guide to the best restaurants in Liverpool, recently updated by local expert Alice Porter, the city is ‘is the most exciting city for food in the UK right now’, with newcomer Nord making it onto our list. Top of the pile for Time Out in ’Pool is Middle Eastern-inspired small plates restaurant Maray.
Next up in the food city ranking was Brighton, with 88 percent of those surveyed feeling positive about the city’s restaurants in general. The south coast city was also commended for its variety, with 70 percent saying Brighton’s foodie scene is diverse, and style (61 percent described the scene as ‘trendy’). Affordable Mexican joint Halisco is the top choice for our local expert Liv Kelly in Time Out’s list of the best restaurants in Brighton.
London is such a massive, sprawling metropolis that the capital nearly always does well in UK food city rankings. London came third in our list this year, with a huge 93 percent rating for its restaurant scene in general, though the capital suffered with poor scores for how affordable and welcoming the respondents saw it.
Fourth was Cardiff, with respondents praising the Welsh capital’s food scene for being ‘family friendly’ and ‘delicious’. Cardiff restaurants received one of the country’s highest scores for being welcoming, with 58 percent praising that element of the city (London, by comparison, scored just 15 percent).
At number five is Bristol, named the least expensive UK city for food. British cities generally struggled in the affordability section of the city, but 67 percent of Bristolians said they could afford going out to a restaurant. Repping Bristol, our local expert Shonette Laffy says the western city has everything a foodie could want, ‘from top-notch chef’s table experiences to the best bacon sandwich you’ve ever tasted’.
Placing sixth and seventh were Edinburgh and Glasgow, with Scotland’s two biggest cities pulling in notable overall ‘food quality’ scores (86 percent and 87 percent, respectively). Auld Reekie was deemed the more expensive but also more gastronomically diverse of the two.
Belfast came eighth overall. It lost out only to London, Brighton and Glasgow in terms of its quality restaurants, and was voted the cheapest place in the UK to get a coffee, with a massive 75 percent saying Belfast’s coffees are affordable. It slipped down the rankings largely due to locals decrying the affordability of bars in Belfast – only 51 percent said drinking out was reasonably priced.
Coming in at number nine? Leeds. The West Yorkshire city suffered slightly due to locals criticising its culinary vibrance: only 29 percent would describe the food scene as ‘exciting’ (compared to 70 percent in London). Leeds scored well for affordability, for both eating out at restaurants and grabbing a coffee.
Tenth in the list is Manchester, which notably excelled in categories concerning its gastronomic diversity and restaurants’ friendliness. Our local writer Kelly Bishop says the Rainy City’s food scene is ‘downright spectacular’, with ‘everything you want: canteen-style curry caffs, Michelin stars and a kaleidoscope of slick casual dining spots clamouring for your attention’.
In 11th was Birmingham, which scored well for its food’s variety and was better than average for affordability. Even at 11, Brum compared favourably to cities worldwide – it came 82nd in the global list, out of 100, and ahead of the likes of Lyon, Bologna, Rome and Istanbul.
The UK’s 11 best food cities in 2025, according to Time Out
You can find all 11 of the best UK cities for food below.
Find Time Out’s full global list of the world’s best cities for food in 2025 here.
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