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Lonely Planet's Ultimate Eats
The world's top 500 food experiences - ranked! We asked the planet's top chefs, food writers and our food-obsessed authors to name their favorite, most authentic gastronomic encounters. The result is a journey to Mozambique for piri-piri chicken, Japan for bullet train bento boxes, San Sebastian pintxos bars, and a further 497 of the most exciting eateries anywhere on Earth. Ultimate Eats is the follow-up to our bestselling Ultimate Travel and is a must-own bucket list for foodies and those who love to travel. You'll discover the planet's most thrilling and famous culinary experiences, the culture behind each one, what makes them so special, and why the experience is so much more than what's in the plate, bowl or glass in front of you. How many have you tried and what's your number one? With contributions from Andrew Zimmern, Gail Simmons, José Andrés, Curtis Stone, Eric Ripert, Florence Fabricant, Ben Shewry, Dan Hunter, Monica Galetti, and many more. Entries About Lonely Lonely Planet is a leading travel media company and the world's number one travel guidebook brand, providing both inspiring and trustworthy information for every kind of traveler since 1973. Over the past four decades, we've printed over 145 million guidebooks and grown a dedicated, passionate global community of travelers. Lonely Planet content can be found online, on mobile, video, and in 14 languages, 12 international magazines, armchair and lifestyle books, ebooks and more.
320 pages, Hardcover
Published August 21, 2018
118 people are currently reading
229 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
December 17, 2018
You may disagree with the rankings, but you will certainly enjoy this vicarious international eating experience! This gorgeous slightly-oversized volume is full of fantastic photographs of food and dreamy destinations. Whether it is Sweden for köttbullar, or meatballs (#30) or Portugal for its supersize sandwich, franceshina (#331), foodies and travelers will find something to add to their bucket list. The very handy index is broken down by country, then by food, making it easy to assemble an eating itinerary. And for the adventurous, Ultimate Eats includes foraging for food (which includes caterpillars) in Australia with indigenous people (#91)!
Get Lonely Planet's Ultimate Eats from the Denver Public Library
- Dodie
Get Lonely Planet's Ultimate Eats from the Denver Public Library
- Dodie
January 4, 2022
Quite a delightful guidebook made for traveling foodies, particularly those who spend time fixing itineraries based on what they plan to eat (points to self).
It presents a decent list of 500 local and traditional delicacies across the globe, peppered with must try experiences, restaurants, and insights from well-known chefs and food personalities. Most descriptions are short and sweet, sometimes leaving you wanting to know more about the dish/experience, but the narrative is casual enough that it works for this kind of book.
Some items on the list felt a bit lost to me by bringing out the obvious, however. For example I would’ve preferred to be suggested a good yum cha place in Taiwan instead of… bubble tea. There are also some cop out suggestions, like “find a stall with the most number of people” or “find the servers who look most tired as they would’ve been working since crack of dawn”.
Not quite sure the organisation of chapters was well thought of, though. It doesn’t really have any categories other than “1-99” and “200-299”, so it jumps from one country to the other and back. Not a big deal, but personally would’ve liked a route that was a bit more connecting.
That said, I quite enjoyed reading this. Fuels your appetite and wanderlust. Personally, this fuelled my competitive / tick the checklist side (I’ve eaten/tried 303 out of 500 on the list).
It presents a decent list of 500 local and traditional delicacies across the globe, peppered with must try experiences, restaurants, and insights from well-known chefs and food personalities. Most descriptions are short and sweet, sometimes leaving you wanting to know more about the dish/experience, but the narrative is casual enough that it works for this kind of book.
Some items on the list felt a bit lost to me by bringing out the obvious, however. For example I would’ve preferred to be suggested a good yum cha place in Taiwan instead of… bubble tea. There are also some cop out suggestions, like “find a stall with the most number of people” or “find the servers who look most tired as they would’ve been working since crack of dawn”.
Not quite sure the organisation of chapters was well thought of, though. It doesn’t really have any categories other than “1-99” and “200-299”, so it jumps from one country to the other and back. Not a big deal, but personally would’ve liked a route that was a bit more connecting.
That said, I quite enjoyed reading this. Fuels your appetite and wanderlust. Personally, this fuelled my competitive / tick the checklist side (I’ve eaten/tried 303 out of 500 on the list).
November 20, 2021
I’m a total foodie, so something like the almost encyclopedic Ultimate Eatlist is the just kind of book I love to read now and then. Featuring 500 food experiences worldwide, this compilation left me salivating for some good food and a desire to leave everything and travel. It also made me appreciate the diversity in food that exists on our planet. The shared experiences in the book range from eating on the streets of Bangkok and New Delhi to tasting exotic dishes in South America or relishing American comfort food in the Mid-West. There is no order to things, thank God for the index at the end, so finding places for a specific country can be tedious. Other than that, Eatlist is a great book to have if you love to read about food from different parts of the world.
January 25, 2019
This is a beautifully photographed book with interesting food descriptions and suggestions given by famous chefs, food writers as well as the addresses around the world for restaurants where you can journey to enjoy their recommendations. The downside for me is the way the book is organized. Rather than going country by country or region by region, it's more a browsing collection making it difficult to look for entries for the places you may want to visit in the future or have visited in the past.
January 23, 2019
I love this! As a food-lover, I got this book for my birthday and have to say that the list of places I want to travel to has expanded. It's fantastic just to flip through when you've got some spare time.
As a side note, my boyfriend has the 'Ultimate Travel' version and both together make for a very impressive (and varied) bucket list.
As a side note, my boyfriend has the 'Ultimate Travel' version and both together make for a very impressive (and varied) bucket list.
March 30, 2022
I liked the concepts and the content, but the organization of the book was terribly disappointing. I would love to be able to look up a location in the index and find what Ultimate Eats are available in that area, if I were to visit. The index lists the places by "country", which is not very useful if you live in the USA. How about an index by city, at least?
June 27, 2019
I'm thrilled that this book includes many foods that I've been able to enjoy, and I hope that I someday get to try even more! (But I'll pass on some of them- I can't get behind eating insects and guinea pigs, for starters...)
September 24, 2018
Amazing photography of food around the world. Would be a great resource for travelers who want to know where to go to try regional fare.
October 1, 2018
This book with its plentiful pictures and descriptions of food from all over the world made me hungry and filled me with wanderlust.
December 20, 2018
500 entries is awfully long. All the different Southeast Asian noodle bowls started to blur together and now I can't remember any one thing.
March 5, 2025
The book has left me salivating for delicacies from around the globe. A great compilation of popular and unusual eats some of which have gone in my culinary wish list.
June 18, 2024
Very fun book to read and flip through 🥰
November 24, 2021
I have had this on my list for gift ideas for friends for ages but not got round to buying it. It went onto Amazon prime reading so I downloaded a copy which I read on my iPad to see the photos as they should be. The book lists 500 things to eat in the places around the world. The trouble is it’s really not groundbreaking. It’s a list anyone could supply. Croque Monsieur in Paris anyone? Bien sûr! Full English in England? Really? Bubble Tea in Taipei?? Ummm…. Unless you’ve been living in a shack in a wood somewhere this list will surprise nobody. It doesn’t even recommend the ultimate place to eat the best Croque Monsieur in Paris, or the most fabulous greasy spoon in London to get the ubiquitous full English. Lonely Planet have written a damp squib here - a lazy list at best - with just a couple of paragraphs deigned per item. I won’t be spoiling my friends with this one.
August 26, 2019
A bucket list of food
If only there was a bucket big enough. A great read and a book worth keeping. Great work as ever from lonely planet
If only there was a bucket big enough. A great read and a book worth keeping. Great work as ever from lonely planet
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews