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Time Out has released its 2026 list of the World’s Best Cities for Food, and Cape Town is right up there… but falls seven places from 2025 to rank outside the top 10.
This year’s top 10 is led by the Peruvian capital, Lima, at #1, followed by Bangkok, Mexico City, London, Barcelona, Ho Chi Minh City, Melbourne, Beijing, Athens, and Lisbon. Cape Town just missed the cut, coming in at #11.
Time Out’s prestigious annual list is based on a worldwide survey of locals, who rated their city’s food scene across criteria including quality, affordability and attributes such as ‘family-friendly’ and ‘experimental’. Time Out’s global team of food experts also weigh in to compile the final listing of the world’s most delicious cities each year.
“Cape Town's top food spots are cooking with the tide, capturing the essence of foraging along the Cape's shores and leading with simple ingredients to create bold, moreish menus,” says Selene Brophy, City Editor for Time Out Cape Town, who singles out shoreline-inspired menus at Amura, ‘fun-dining’ at Test Kitchen Fledglings and Zuney Burger's ‘farm-to-fingers’ wagyu smashburgers as highlights in the city's food scene this year.
And the one dish that you simply have to eat in Cape Town this year? The seven-day-aged tuna with coconut, lime, crispy curry leaf and klipkombers seaweed at Seebamboes. That’s also a neat fit with the recent spotlight on Cape Town’s abundant shores, featured on the latest cover of TIME magazine.
Also, don’t miss an iconic Cape Malay curry, says Brophy: “Slow-cooked, golden with turmeric and warm with cardamom. Served with all the sambal trimmings on a bed of fragrant rice or wrapped in roti - this is the Cape's multicultural history served on a plate.”
Are city prices too high?
So if the food’s so good, why did Cape Town fall so many places in this year’s ranking, tumbling from #4 to #11? Turns out, affordability counts as much as deliciousness.
“Cape Town received the third-highest score for the overall quality of its food scene –with 93 per cent of locals rating it highly in our survey – though only 44 per cent agree it’s cheap to eat out in the city,” adds Brophy.
With living costs under pressure for locals, that’s an issue, and the balance between world-class quality and rising dining costs is a challenge for restaurateurs and diners. Although the city’s chefs continue to win global acclaim, eating out is not always seen by locals as an easy, everyday indulgence.
That’s likely behind the higher rating for more casual dining in Cape Town, says Brophy: “The Mother City scored particularly highly for cafés and coffee shops at 65 per cent, followed by special occasion restaurants, which received a 59 per cent approval rating.”
What’s hot this year
Despite the drop in the rankings, Cape Town still stands out – this year’s list runs all the way down to Medellin at #20 – and a clutch of exciting new openings showing that the restaurant landscape is more vibrant than ever.
On the fine-dining front, that was led by Amura by Ángel León at Mount Nelson. Opened in December 2025, Amura marks the first restaurant outside Spain for three-Michelin-starred chef Ángel León, whose marine-led menu has quickly become one of the most talked-about in the city.
Other notable arrivals include Le Bistrot de Jan at the InterContinental Table Bay, where chef Jan Hendrik van der Westhuizen brings a Cape Town take on French bistro cooking. On Bree Street, Tannin has given the city a new wine-focused address. Much-loved Farro has quickly built a local following at its new home in Gardens, while the return of The Melting Pot has brought John van Zyl’s punchy, travel-inspired street-food flavours to a permanent address in De Waterkant. The city’s casual food scene has been just as busy, from Japanese street-food at How’s Your Yaki in Gardens to Korean fare at Chingu.
To top it all off, in May 2026, Time Out Worldwide confirmed that the wagyu-forward burgers at Zuney Burger – at Time Out Market Cape Town and on Kloof Street – are worth the journey. In Time Out’s 2026 ranking of the world’s best burgers, Zuney’s Wagyu Burger ranked second globally, behind only Smash Things in Tokyo!
Johannesburg’s Mafia Bite also cracked that top 10, but for Cape Town, it was another reminder that the city’s food scene is not only about (expensive) tasting menus and fine dining, but a culture of food that embraces the city’s coastal landscape and takes it from swish fine-dining and out onto the streets.
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