5 VA Cities, Plus DC, Among Nation's Best For Foodies

WASHINGTON, DC — From where to find the best French cuisine to steak and seafood, residents of DC and Virginia can endlessly debate which town is the region's top culinary hotspot.

Washington, D.C., and five Virginia cities earned a place on the top 100 in a new "2022’s Best Foodie Cities in America" list.

The term "foodie" means different things to different people. Without going into all the things being a foodie can mean, one of the things it doesn’t mean is that you’ll go broke sampling great food, according to the personal finance company WalletHub, which made affordability one of the key measures in its comparison of 182 U.S. cities.

"These wallet-friendly cities cater to diners who prefer to cook at home, explore the local flavors or both," the site said, explaining its methodology took into account the cost of groceries, the affordability and accessibility of high-quality restaurants, and food festivals per capita.

These cities made the list:

• Washington, DC, No. 13
• Richmond, No. 23
• Virginia Beach, No. 92
• Norfolk, No. 115
• Newport News, No. 131
• Chesapeake, No. 154

Portland, Oregon, ranked highest on WalletHub's list, while Pearl City, Hawaii, finished last.

To rank cities, WalletHub considered the cost of groceries, wine and alcohol; restaurants per capita; the ratio of full-service and fast-food restaurants; the number of ice cream and frozen yogurt shops per capita; the number of craft breweries and wineries per capita; the number of coffee shops per capita; and the number of gourmet or specialty food stores per capita.

WalletHub included the nation's 150 most-populated cities, plus at least two of the most-populated cities in each state. As a result, many of New Jersey's quality culinary hotspots — from Hoboken down to Cape May — didn't qualify for the rankings.

View WalletHub's full rankings and methodology.

Patch editor Josh Bakan contributed to this story.