Italian food is the most popular cuisine in the world, survey finds

Considering pizza and pasta exist in the realm of Italian food fare, it’s not hard to imagine this as a conclusion. (iStock)

There is so much great food in the world that it seems like it would be hard to narrow down what everyone’s favorite might be. However, a new survey has found that Italian food is the most popular cuisine in the world.

Considering pizza and pasta exist in the realm of Italian food fare, it’s not hard to imagine this as a conclusion. But now a survey by YouGov strongly supports it. The market research firm found that 99 percent of Italians love Italian food, and over 90 percent of Spaniards, French, Swedes, and Brits favored Italian food above any other foreign cuisine.

Filipinos and Australians also love Italian, as 90 percent of all people surveyed from the Philippines and Australia said it was their favorite.

The survey from the global public opinion and data company also found that Chinese food was the second most popular cuisine in the world, while Japanese ranked third. The least popular food in the world is Peruvian cuisine, and that Finnish food came not far behind. But according to the survey’s authors, Peru was not surveyed. “Had the study included Peruvian opinions, then Finnish cuisine would likely have come bottom.”

Italian food is the second most popular cuisine in America, despite the fact that we have some of the best cities for Italian food. Americans love American food above all else, but our cuisine is only the seventh most popular cuisine across the world. Funnily enough, very few dishes we consider “American” are actually from America. Actual food from the U.S.A. can be pretty strange to people from other places, but some of the best of this country’s food can be found at America's greatest old-school restaurants.