Oakland has come out on top in Condé Nast Traveler’s latest Readers’ Choice Awards ranking of the best US food cities, but San Francisco comes in at number five.
Condé Nast Traveler has just released the 2025 winners of its annual Readers’ Choice Awards for travel destinations, hotels, airlines, and more. And in the ranking of destination food cities in the US, Oakland has come in at number one this year.
This may be in no small part to the great diversity of cuisines available in the city, and the sheer number of restaurants — by our estimate, with around 1,500 restaurants, there is one restaurant for every 293 residents in Oakland. And the past year has also seen plenty of buzz around elevated soul food spot Burdell — which was named Food & Wine’s Restaurant of the Year in 2024 — and the newly Michelin-starred Sun Moon Studio, which the Chronicle named its favorite restaurant of last year. The city has another Michelin star over at 15-year-old Commis on Piedmont Avenue. (But, ahem, SF has 26 Michelin-starred restaurants, three of them with three stars apiece.)
The magazine also called out the “out-of-the-box pizzas” at Pizzaiolo, and the editors write, “Fruitvale, named after the fruit orchards that dominated this part of town in the mid-19th century, is packed with taco trucks that serve some of the best birria in the country.”
Oakland, no doubt, punches above its weight for a city of 440,000 people. And Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee put out a proud statement about the Condé Nast Traveler list, saying, “Oakland has always known what the rest of the country is now discovering — our food is world-class. From North Oakland to East Oakland, West Oakland to the hills, our food scene reflects the diversity, creativity, and resilience that makes our city special.”
Lee added, “This recognition celebrates the small business owners and entrepreneurs in every neighborhood who bring our communities together around great food. I’m proud of everyone who makes Oakland’s food scene extraordinary.”
Condé Nast Traveler says that this year’s Readers’ Choice Awards are based on more than more than 757,000 votes cast in dozens of categories.
Now, San Franciscans may beg to differ about being ranked fifth on this list, but we nevertheless come out well above New York, Seattle, and Boston — and Los Angeles didn’t even make the top 15.
The SF blurb doesn’t really scratch the surface of the city’s cuisine, or mention any of our 26 Michelin-starred spots. But, the editors write, the city has “one of the highest ratios of mom-and-pop spots to chain restaurants,” and “San Francisco is fueled by Pacific seafood, California farmland, and nearby Napa and Sonoma wine regions.”
The full list with blurbs is paywalled, but we have the ranking below, which puts New Orleans, Milwaukee, and Chicago in the #2, 3, and 4 slots between Oakland and SF.
OaklandNew OrleansMilwaukeeChicagoSan FranciscoLexington, KentuckyColumbus, OhioSanta FeNew York CitySan DiegoSeattleBostonHonoluluLas VegasCharleston
Top image: The bar at Burdell, courtesy of the restaurant.