Culinary ranking: Budapest first in the number of pubs overtaking London

For travelers, food can make or break a city; the more culinary options there are in a city, the more enticing a destination it will be among tourists and expats. Toward this end, a team of analysts at international real estate brokerage Tranio have conducted a survey on food outlet penetration across major European cities, taking into account the housing prices and quality-of-life rankings.

Among their findings were that while Vienna has the most food outlets per capita, London has far and away the most food outlets in absolute terms. Vienna has not only most food outlets per capita but also one of the most affordable housing prices

Through a detailed analysis of real estate investment prospects in several major European metropolises, we narrowed our survey down to 11 cities in different parts of Europe:

Paris, Rome, Barcelona, Prague, Budapest, Berlin, Munich, London, Vienna,  Moscow and St. Petersburg. 

They then counted the number of cafés, restaurants, bars, pubs, fast-food outlets, and food courts by referring to data obtained from OpenStreetMap (OSM) API as of October 2020.

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They focused on food outlet penetration in assessing the attractiveness of these European cities. They also considered the number of food outlets per square meter, the market share percentages of various types of market penetration, and ranked each parameter. Furthermore, they considered their findings in comparison with average home purchase prices and cost per square metre of rental space. In so doing, we referenced reports released by Deloitte and Mercer. 

Top 5 food & beverage cities in Europe: Vienna, Prague, Munich, Berlin, Budapest

Vienna has the largest number of food outlets per capita, with 518 cafés, bars, and restaurants per 100,000 people. That said, its real estate proved to be one of the most affordable city in the sampling, with an average purchase price per square metre of housing at €4,900.

Prague ranked second with 504 food outlets per 100,000 people, followed by Munich (438). Berlin is in fourth place with almost the same figure (435),

while Budapest with 342 cafés, restaurants and bars per 100 thousand inhabitants rounds out the top five. Budapest is one of the most affordable cities to buy an apartment, second only to Saint Petersburg. 

Russia’s two most densely populated cities, St. Petersburg and Moscow, fell to the bottom of the ranking, coming in 10th and 11th place, respectively. See below for the full list of cities they considered:

Cities by number of food outlets per 100,000 people

London came in first in terms of the absolute number of food outlets. As seen in the table above, Paris has the second biggest number of restaurants after London, and comes first by the largest number of food outlets per capita among cities with over 5 million inhabitants. Berlin ranks third in terms of the total number of food outlets, followed by Moscow.

The study found that the casual eater does not necessarily have to go to expensive Paris or London, although they have the largest selection of cafés and restaurants. Nevertheless, Vienna, Prague, Munich, Berlin and

Budapest were the leading destinations in terms of per capita availability of dining establishments.

Being relatively small tourist centres, they are better endowed with adequate infrastructure. In addition, all of them, with the exception of Munich, are among the most affordable European cities in terms of price per square metre.

In London, where it is common to convene with friends over a pint, pubs account for 17% of the total food and beverage market. In Barcelona, where wine tends to be the drink of choice, pubs account for only 2%, while bars account for 18%. Rome ranks second in the sampling for bar penetration with one in ten outlets here being a bar.

The deepest market penetration of pubs is in Budapest — 18%.

Source: Press Release