What to eat in the United States? The specialities to try, region by region

American food can’t be reduced to the burger. Each region has its dishes, inherited from waves of immigration, the climate and what is fished or raised there. Trying the local speciality is part of the trip, and it’s often the cheapest meal of the day.

Here’s what to order, from east to west.

🗽 New York and the Northeast

• The pizza slice: large, thin, folded in two and eaten standing up. At Joe’s Pizza, in Manhattan, we waited a good forty minutes on Christmas Day, and the pace at which they serve is worth watching.
• The bagel: filled with cream cheese and smoked salmon (lox), at breakfast.
• The pastrami sandwich from the delis, as thick as a dictionary.
• New York cheesecake, dense and creamy.
• Giant cookies: those from Levain Bakery, still warm and almost raw in the middle, weigh nearly 170 grams.
• The Shake Shack burger, born from a hot dog cart in a Manhattan park. It was our first meal on arriving.
• The Philadelphia cheesesteak: a roll filled with thin strips of griddled beef and melted cheese.

🦞 New England

• The lobster roll: lobster meat in a small toasted roll, with mayonnaise (the Maine version) or melted butter (the Connecticut version).
• Clam chowder: a thick soup of clams, potatoes and cream.
• Fried clams and oysters, in the seaside shacks.
• Maple syrup from Vermont, on pancakes.
• Blueberry pie from Maine.

🍕 Chicago and the Midwest

• Chicago deep-dish pizza: a pie several centimetres high, with the cheese underneath and the tomato sauce on top. Allow 40 minutes’ cooking time.
• The Chicago hot dog: mustard, onions, pickle, tomato, peppers. Never ketchup.
• Cheese curds from Wisconsin: pieces of fresh cheese, breaded and fried.
• Kansas City ribs, with a thick, sweet sauce.

🍗 The South

• Barbecue, which here means slow cooking in a smoker, for hours. Each state defends its own version:

Region	Meat	Distinctive feature
Texas	Beef brisket	Salt, pepper and smoke, sauce on the side
North Carolina	Pulled pork	Vinegar sauce
South Carolina	Pulled pork	Mustard sauce
Memphis	Pork ribs	Dry rub
Kansas City	A bit of everything	Thick, sweet sauce

• Fried chicken, with biscuits (soft rolls) and white pepper gravy.
• Shrimp and grits: prawns on a creamy maize porridge, typical of Charleston and Savannah.
• Mac and cheese, collard greens (braised greens) and cornbread as side dishes.
• Pecan pie and Georgia peach cobbler.
• Sweet tea, served iced in huge glasses.

At Buc-ee’s, the giant petrol station of the South where we stopped in Florida, the brisket is chopped in front of you at the counter.

🎷 Louisiana

A cuisine apart, a blend of French, Spanish, African and Caribbean influences.

• Gumbo: a thick stew of seafood or chicken and sausage, served over rice.
• Jambalaya: a cousin of paella.
• The po’ boy: a baguette sandwich filled with fried prawns or oysters.
• Crawfish, boiled with spices, from February to May.
• Square beignets covered in icing sugar, with a chicory coffee.

🍋 Florida

• Key lime pie: a pie made with Key limes, both sharp and sweet. The real one is pale yellow, not green.
• The Cuban sandwich: roast pork, ham, cheese, pickles and mustard, pressed hot. Tampa and Miami both claim to have invented it.
• Stone crab claws, from October to May.
• Conch fritters in the Keys.
• The fish of the day: grouper, snapper, mahi-mahi.
• Cuban coffee, short and very sweet, at the counter of the cafeterias in Little Havana.

🌮 The Southwest

• Tex-Mex food: fajitas, enchiladas, nachos, chili con carne.
• New Mexico chile: you’ll be asked “Red or green?” for the sauce. Answer “Christmas” to have both.
• The Navajo taco: a round of fried dough topped with beans, meat and salad (see Navajo lands).
• The Sonoran hot dog, in Tucson, wrapped in bacon.
• The steaks of the West’s steakhouses, often enormous.

🥑 California

• Fish tacos from San Diego.
• The Mission burrito, in San Francisco: giant, wrapped in foil.
• Clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl, on the San Francisco waterfront.
• Dungeness crab, from November to June.
• The In-N-Out burger, from the cult chain of the West, with its “secret menu”.
• The French dip, a beef sandwich dipped in its own juices, born in Los Angeles.
• Avocados, citrus fruit, dates from Palm Springs, where people drink date milkshakes.

🐟 The Northwest, Hawaii and Alaska

• Wild salmon, grilled on a cedar plank.
• Oysters and seafood from Pike Place Market, in Seattle.
• Coffee: Seattle and Portland are the capitals of speciality coffee (see our article).
• Hawaiian poke: cubes of marinated raw tuna.
• Shave ice: shaved ice doused in syrups.
• Alaskan king crab.

The classics found everywhere

• Pancakes with maple syrup and French toast, at breakfast.
• Grilled cheese with tomato soup.
• Buffalo wings: spicy chicken wings, born in Buffalo, in New York State.
• The milkshake and the root beer float.
• Apple pie, warm, with a scoop of ice cream: à la mode.
• Doughnuts, different in every city.
• S’mores by the campfire: toasted marshmallow, chocolate and cracker.

Where to try them

• At local places rather than chains: look for queues of locals and short menus.
• In food halls and markets: Chelsea Market in New York, Reading Terminal in Philadelphia, the Ferry Building in San Francisco, Pike Place in Seattle.
• At food trucks, often excellent and cheap.
• At fairs and festivals, for anything fried.

Our favourites

• The Navajo tacos at Goulding’s, just outside Monument Valley: an absolute must.
• The bison burger at the bar of the Old Faithful Inn, in Yellowstone.
• A burger at the Antler Lodge, in Gardiner, at Yellowstone’s north entrance.
• The lobster fish and chips by Gordon Ramsay, in Las Vegas.