Revealed: The World’s Best Cities for Family Foodies

When taking a vacation, it’s important to ensure that everyone’s gastronomic tastes and preferences are accounted for. Catering to everyone’s choices can be difficult, particularly if you have fussy kids whom you want to indulge in the best culinary delights of the destination.

While there are plenty of kid-friendly restaurant chains in the US, you also want to be able to find child-friendly restaurants when venturing further afield. Most top vacation destinations across the world offer child-friendly restaurants, but how many actually deliver diverse food options, and different cuisines for them, too? Many restaurants abroad may cater more to local tastes, and may not offer as many options as you might hope when you arrive.

Inflation is seriously affecting the hospitality sector, with restaurants and cafes across the globe constantly adapting their menus to mitigate the increasing costs of produce and cutting staff hours. Meanwhile, new spending rules are affecting tourists in countries like Spain. How does this impact families who can’t afford to splash out on expensive meals every night?

If you are planning your next family vacation this summer, it’s worthwhile to read this report on the best family foodie hotspots, to make sure you get to sample the diverse range of restaurants and cuisines in the city.

In this report, we dive deep into the top vacation destinations to see which cities offer the best range of family-friendly restaurant options.

The Cities with the Most Diverse Family Food Options

For families who want to dive into every cuisine’s different cultural tastes and traditions, these are the best family foodie cities you must visit to expand your family’s taste palates. 

Phuket, Thailand

Total Family Friendly Restaurants per km²: 98.17

Sitting at the top of our list, is the stunning Phuket, a city in the southeast of the stunning Phuket island, Thailand.

Phuket is Thailand’s largest island, and arguably the most famous, known for its blue waters, sandy beaches and spicy Thai cuisine.

The Thai island scores highly for its diverse range of restaurants in the city (98.17). Phuket has 1,233 family-friendly restaurants for children to enjoy. Despite it being the smallest city on our list, it has a lot more to offer than some of the larger destinations in the world.

Lisbon, Portugal

Total Family Friendly Restaurants per km²: 21.73

In second place is Lisbon, the coastal capital city of Portugal. The vibrant city is known for its pastel-colored buildings and glorious climate all year round. Lisbon offers 2,174 restaurants, scoring highly for its range of different cuisines (21.73).

Paris, France

Total Family Friendly Restaurants per km²: 18.30

In third place on our list for its diverse range of cuisines on offer, is the beautiful city of Paris, France. Known for being an exotic foodie’s paradise, the busy city also has 1,929 family-friendly restaurants for children to enjoy. 

The Cities with the Least Diverse Family Food Options

Mecca, Saudi Arabia

Total Family Friendly Restaurants per km²: 0.00

The popular city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia scores the lowest on our list for its diverse food options. Mecca has the lowest number of family-friendly restaurants (3), with 2 American restaurants, and 1 Italian restaurant.

Medina, Saudi Arabia

Number of Family Friendly Restaurants per km²: 0.01

Medina comes third at the bottom of our list for its range of food cuisines and family-friendly restaurants (7). Despite its much smaller size (587.9 km²), it has a more diverse range of restaurants than Mecca.

Guangzhou, China

Total Family Friendly Restaurants per km²: 0.01

The huge port city of Guangzhou comes third from the bottom of our list for its range of food cuisines and family-friendly restaurants (89). Guangzhou offers many more different cuisine restaurants, but considering its size (7,434 km²), there’s little choice for families with children.

The Cities with the Best Value Restaurants for Families

When you’re on vacation, getting the best value for money is important. In order to budget your trip better, you may opt to eat at cheaper restaurants. These are the cheapest cities for foodie families, with the most restaurants to enjoy cheap eats or food within a medium price range.

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Value Family Friendly Restaurants Score: 98.33%

Amsterdam, the capital of The Netherlands, tops our list for the best value family-friendly restaurants. The city, famed for its artistic heritage, scores 98.33% and offers many different cheap eats and mid-range priced food establishments.

Florence, Italy

Value Family Friendly Restaurants Score: 97.80%

Closely followed by Amsterdam, is the scenic city of Florence, the capital of Italy’s Tuscany region. Florence is not generally known as being ‘easy on the pocket’ for tourists, but there are many affordable places to enjoy a bite to eat. The city scores highly (97.80%) for its cheap eats and mid-range establishments. 

Dublin, Ireland

Value Family Friendly Restaurants Score: 97.64%

The bustling city of Dublin, Ireland, falls in third place for its range of budget-friendly restaurants. With a high score for its cheap eats and mid-range restaurants (97.64%), tourists will surely enjoy a warm welcome to this friendly city.

The Cities with the Most Fine Dining Restaurants for Families

Many destinations offer high-quality food and service for families who enjoy fine dining experiences at dinner.

These destinations come out as the top 10:

Phuket, Thailand

Fine Dining Family-Friendly Restaurants Score: 12.26%

The tropical island of Phuket, home to the city of Phuket, scores highest on our list for its family-friendly fine dining restaurants (12.26%). Despite its small size (12.56km²), there are a total of 154 high-quality service establishments for families to indulge in.

Barcelona, Spain

Fine Dining Family-Friendly Restaurants Score: 2.24%

The picturesque city of Barcelona, Spain, comes second on our list for its family-friendly dining restaurants (2.24%). Barcelona has the most fine-dining restaurants on our list, but it is a much larger city than Phuket, causing the city to fall second. For the discerning foodie, there is nowhere better to bag some Michelin stars than Barcelona.

Paris, France

Fine Dining Family-Friendly Restaurants Score: 1.97%

The romantic city of Paris, France, falls into third place for its family-friendly fine dining restaurants and scored highly for its cheap eats and mid-range restaurants (1.97%). Paris has long been regarded as the culinary capital of Europe, and some may argue, the world.

Methodology 

We started by collating the 50 most visited cities in the world from The World Atlas. We then used TripAdvisor to navigate to each city’s restaurant pages and were able to use the filters to find the total number of child-friendly restaurants. We then used the filters to narrow the search and find the total number of restaurants for each cuisine and the price ranges. 

We then were able to rank each city by its number of cheap eats, mid-range, and fine dining restaurants. We did the same for its number of different cuisine restaurants. The information is accurate as of 26/07/2022.

We found the total area (km²) of each city using Wikipedia. This data is accurate as of 05/08/2022.