A mind boggling list of the world's top cuisines for 2025-26

At the end of the year endless guides are published, allegedly to help travellers make good decisions.

The best hotels of 2025, the hottest destinations in 2026 and endless varieties on that theme.

Many employ dubious methodology, or are heavily influenced by advertising revenue.

A group called TasteAtlas has just published its list of the 100 top countries for food. And it is an absolute waste of time.

If you think food in the US is better than in Thailand, or that Libya offers better cuisine than Australia then you might be impressed by the TasteAtlas 100 Best Cuisines in the World for 2025-26.

It looks like a list put together by a very young child throwing darts at a global map.

You need a twisted, or biased, palate to think Portugal has superior cuisine to France across the board, or that you'll eat higher quality dishes in Poland than in Thailand, or better in the US than Vietnam.

Incredibly, this hotch potch also says you'll eat better in the UK than in Australia. And Eritrea has better food than Singapore. 

Russian food, apparently, is better than that in Malaysia and while I am no fan of Israel, I'd rate its food ahead of Scotland. 

So many listings are just wrong with zero weight apparently given to the quality of produce available in each country.

A search of the internet tells me " TasteAtlas is an experiential online guide for traditional food that collates authentic recipes, food critic reviews, and research articles about popular ingredients and dishes".

Based in Croatia and describing itself as "a world atlas of traditional dishes, local ingredients, and authentic restaurants". This global authority cobbles together a range of regional styles under one country. 

So instead of having Szechuan, Cantonese and Hunan cuisine you just have "Chinese".

But Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro and Slovenia - all part of Yugoslavia until relatively recently - are all rated separately.

Similarly, India, with range of very different regional cuisines, has had them all lumped together.

And Indian cuisine is rated ahead of renowned south-east Asian culinary giants such as Vietnam, Thailand, and Malaysia.

TasteAtlas says its list is informed by "590,228 valid ratings for 18,912 foods in our database, these cuisines have earned the highest average scores".

Mind boggling. But take a look for yourself.  

Online surveys ask far too much

They are absolutely relentless. Question after question. 

A colleague pointed this out on social media a couple of days ago:

"So sick of being asked to do a survey - for every bloody thing/flight/restaurant/health care etc etc. I would like to be rewarded for my precious time."

A few minutes after I had read it, this landed in my email inbox:

"We recently delivered this parcel to you. X X X X. We’d appreciate a few minutes of your time to provide feedback on your experience. This helps us improve our delivery service to you so next time it will be even better."

They did not deliver a parcel to me. They delivered a card, which told me I had to pick up the parcel at my local post office. They can't even get the question right.

And another one from a hotel that values my custom so much that it cannot even get my name right:

"Thank you for staying with us at the X X X X. To give us a better understanding of your experience during your recent stay with us, we would appreciate if you could take a moment to complete our online survey, at your convenience. The length of the survey will not be more than 5 minutes."

Then they want me to click onto a link, which I had no intention of doing.

I get them from Telstra, I get them from credit card companies. They land all the time.

They want me to do their work for them without payment. At a time when people are busier than ever.  

If a hotel wants to know what I think they could do it the old way. The GM could greet guests at check-out and ask their opinion.

Amex could actually pay attention when I tell them that their card is less and less useful.

If you want me to waste my time for your benefit, offer to send a couple of bucks to charity in exchange. Or give me a discount next time I use your services.

Or would that be asking too much?