Best US Towns for Foodies

I'm curious to know if anyone has visited or lived in a US town -- not a major city like Chicago -- but a town or community (e.g., Madison, Wisconsin or Yountville, CA) that is a good place for a foodie to live. This could be due to a great farmers market and/or strong local restaurant scene--and note that a solid mix of restaurants is adequate; it doesn't have to be a culinary "mecca." All ideas are welcome. Thanks.

Portland.

Either one.

Boulder, CO seems to have a lot of good restaurants committed to the localvore thing as do bigger cities like Atlanta and San Francisco. Denver, on the other hand, is a bit of a culinary disaster.

My current job takes me through a fair number of small towns in the deep south and I'm always surprised to find at least one great little restaurant serving inventive fare made with a focus on local products in some of these real out of the way places like Cartersville or Dallas, GA.

Torrey, UT.

Bloomington, IN. For a small campus town, having a Tibetan, Turkish, Moroccan, Ethiopian, Thai, etc. cafe on the same block is exceptional. Repeat that over many block, w. different nationalities. Add a few wonderful specialty stores that have more variety than found in town 5 times the size. Per capita, one of the best places I've been.

Thanks for the replies thus far, and please keep the ideas coming. This is PRECISELY what I was looking for --some suggestions for places that some of you may have experienced first-hand but that the rest of us may not know about! thanks!

New Orleans, hands down. We go there just to eat. Unique, local as hell, and completely satisfying at all levels, from street to haute.

trpt2345 wrote:...New Orleans, hands down...

Agreed

YourPalWill wrote:...Denver, on the other hand, is a bit of a culinary disaster.

Agreed

You know the cities that typically make this 'list' year after year are NY, NO, Chicago, LA, SanFran, Houston, KC... But the one city that I never see is Detroit ..? My father once told me he was there in the 80s and ate some pretty good Soul Food as well as Ethiopian. I wonder if that's still true today...

~GS

Greasy Spoon wrote:You know the cities that typically make this 'list' year after year are NY, NO, Chicago, LA, SanFran, Houston, KC... But the one city that I never see is Detroit ..? My father once told me he was there in the 80s and ate some pretty good Soul Food as well as Ethiopian. I wonder if that's still true today...

~GS

I think that Detroit and New Orleans qualify as BIG cities.

Detroit has some really great restaurants, especially when you consider that Windsor, ON is a bridge crossing away.

There are a number of good soul food places throughout the area.

There is a Greektown pretty similar to what is in Chicago.

There are a minimum of thirty middle eastern along Ford Rd. in Dearborn and Warren Ave. in Detroit.

And of course, there is a number of Detroit "specialties" - Coney Islands, Vernors, Sanders Ice Cream.


In lieu of New Orleans, I would recommend the Lafayette, Breaux Bridge, and Abbeville area, with honorable mention going to Baton Rouge. You could eat in that area for a week and not make a dent in all the great places.

Hi,

People from Ann Arbor are always raving about their food offerings. Certainly, Zingerman's has the largest presence with a reputation going beyond its borders.

Univerisity of Michigan has their American Culinary History at the William L. Clements Library. Jan Longone, their retiring curator, was an early inspiration to Rick Bayless who spent considerable time researching her rare book collections when she was a dealer. Jan also founded Culinary Historians of Ann Arbor, which has an interesting quarterly publication.

There is a dining district, I believe it is known as "The Strip." My few visits to Ann Arbor the food was included with the program, so I never ventured around too much. Maybe someone who knows more about AA can comment.

Regards,

Visited Charlottesville, Virginia a few years ago. This town had a great mix of restaurants and a thriving winery scene along with the incredible historical attractions (UVA, Monticello, Monroe's house, Madison's House) and beautiful scenery.

Cathy2 wrote:Hi,

People from Ann Arbor are always raving about their food offerings. Certainly, Zingerman's has the largest presence with a reputation going beyond its borders.

Univerisity of Michigan has their American Culinary History at the William L. Clements Library. Jan Longone, their retiring curator, was an early inspiration to Rick Bayless who spent considerable time researching her rare book collections when she was a dealer. Jan also founded Culinary Historians of Ann Arbor, which has an interesting quarterly publication.

There is a dining district, I believe it is known as "The Strip." My few visits to Ann Arbor the food was included with the program, so I never ventured around too much. Maybe someone who knows more about AA can comment.

Regards,

Ann Arbor has some good eating throughout the downtown area.

One "strip" is Main Street from Kingsley to William, which is pretty much all shops & restaurants. I never really found any of them to be particularly mind-blowing, but they are mostly "nicer" places, good for impressing a date or having dinner with visiting parents (when they're footing the bill ). Mostly standard steak places, standard Italian, standard seafood, etc. My parents took me to The Earle, a nice (though standard) fine-dining sort of place, for graduation dinner.

This part of Main Street is also home to Le Dog's second location, Connor O'Neill's Irish pub (the St. Paddy's Day tradition was to ditch class & spend the day here), Blind Pig, The Heidelberg, and Fleetwood Diner.

The Kerrytown area is probably more up the average LTHer's alley. Kerrytown Market has some upscale food (fancy oils, vinegars, spices, etc.) and kitchen accessory shops, little baked good stores, a farmers market, wine shop, candy shop, smoked & cured meats, etc. Eve restaurant (as in chef/owner Eve Aronoff, who appeared in Top Chef Masters) is located here.

The area surrounding Kerrytown Market has a bunch of cool stuff too...Braun Court is a little street of houses converted to shops & restaurants. There used to be a really good Indian restaurant there, but I think it might have since closed. There's still a decent Thai place, a gay bar that has good Mexican food, and a little indie bookshop. Yamato Japanese restaurant, next to Eve, actually reminds me a lot of Ginza, and is popular with kids from the nearby high school for its "student lunch" specials. There's also a pretty big food co-op, lots of little independent stores, and of course, Zingerman's.

State Street (and the streets immediately surrounding it) is a cool, very "college-y" area...Ashley's has a massive beer list (60 beers on tap, heavy on local, micro & imports) and really good pub grub. Nickels Arcade has a bunch of cool little specialty shops. The original Cottage Inn is just off State Street...it's not the most amazing pizza, but I do enjoy the thick sesame-coated "Sicilian" crust once in a while. Madras Masala has some awesome north- and south-Indian food, as well as a few Manchurian items, which you don't see often. Scorekeeper's bar, which is basically a big Barleycorn-style college hangout, was our usual go-to for boozing, especially on Thursday nights (back then, that was $1-long island/$2 Leinie pitcher night). The original Borders bookstore is in this area, as well as a couple of old-school theaters (which mostly show indie/arthouse-type films, and host concerts & whatnot).

The other nice thing about State Street is that it borders the center of campus, so the Michigan Union, the UM Museum of Art, the Diag (the quad that makes up the center of the center of campus, so to speak...great for chilling out on the grass & people-watching while eating your Zingerman's haul ), the Law Quad (another good place for relaxing on the grass & picnicking...much more peaceful & hidden away than the Diag though), etc. are all right there. Plus Krazy Jim's Blimpy Burger isn't far from the Union...very convenient.

All-in-all, Ann Arbor's not too shabby a town for eating, drinking & keeping busy.

Berkeley, CA, of course.