By admin 
On the very first day of 2026, Sean Timberlake, The Sacramento Bee’s food reporter looked back on 2025 and called it the year that Sacramento’s food scene “went supernova.”
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In 2025, publications around the country wrote enthusiastic round-ups of the city’s best places to eat, several local restaurants received Michelin accolades, and the personal finance website WalletHub named Sacramento the 9th-best city for “foodies” in the nation.
Once more WalletHub has published its list of “Best Foodie Cities in America,” and in 2026, Sacramento has retained its spot in the top 10.
WalletHub’s methodology
WalletHub assessed 182 cities in its list, and used 28 metrics. Their metrics were organized into two categories. The “Affordability” category included the cost of groceries, the accessibility and affordability of high-quality restaurants, restaurant meal cost, and more.
Their “Diversity, Accessibility & Quality” category consisted of such metrics as the number of restaurants per capita, presence of Michelin-starred restaurants, farmers market and community-supported agriculture programs per capita, as well as the number of specialty food stores in the area.
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“In determining our sample, we considered only the “city proper” in each case and excluded surrounding cities in the metro area,” wrote WalletHub financial writer Adam McCann.
Where did Sacramento rank in 2026?
As in 2025, WalletHub ranked Sacramento as the 9th best foodie city in the United States.
In the overall Affordability ranking, Sacramento came in at 73rd, but in terms of Diversity, Accessibility, and Quality, it ranked 13th out of the 182 cities assessed.
Here’s where Sacramento measured up to the other cities in the top 10:
- 1. Miami, FL
- 2. Portland, OR
- 3. San Francisco, CA
- 4. Seattle, WA
- 5. Austin, TX
- 6. Orlando, FL
- 7. Tampa, FL
- 8. Las Vegas, NV
- 9. Sacramento, CA
- 10. Denver, CO
Sacramento took the top spot when it came to one particular metric. The city is number one when it comes to the “Affordability & Accessibility of Highly Rated Restaurants,” said WalletHub. “This metric measures the prevalence of affordable restaurants with ratings of at least 4.5 stars,” noted their report.
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