American food isn’t one cuisine but dozens, with regional dishes worth travelling for. Photo / Unsplash
Erase all notions of fast food, regional American dishes are worth travelling for. From beignets to the Chicago beef shop that inspired The Bear, these are Ash Jurberg’s top spots.
I’ve eaten across more American states than I can count. The one thing I’ve learned is that there is no single American food culture. There are dozens. Each region has distinct dishes, origin stories and a local pride that can get surprisingly heated. Skip the chains and you’ll find food worth building your trip around.
Texas barbecue is built on patience. The technique is low and slow over oak or pecan wood, and brisket done properly needs no knife and no sauce. Every serious barbecue town has its loyalists, but Austin is where I’ve found the best.
The most famous is Franklin Barbecue, where queues start before sunrise. The first time I went, I arrived at 7am on a Saturday to find 80 people already in the queue. Most had brought chairs and coolers, and several were already drinking beer, which felt ambitious at that hour. I started with coffee. It took seven hours for me to make it to the front, but the brisket was the best I’ve eaten in Texas, and I’ve eaten a lot of it.
Texas also runs on breakfast tacos, with a fierce and unresolved debate between Austin and San Antonio over who does them best. San Antonio, just. My go-to order is migas: egg, bacon, cheese, sometimes potato, wrapped in a fresh tortilla.
The Italian beef sandwich is Chicago’s signature dish, and if you watched The Bear, you’ve had an introduction. The show was inspired by Mr. Beef on Orleans, which was my first stop. The inside looks nothing like the show, but the menu is the same. Thinly sliced seasoned beef in a long roll with sweet or hot peppers. Order it dipped, with the roll dunked into the cooking juices.
Chicagoans are passionate about deep dish pizza and will spend hours arguing who does it best. It’s more of a pie than pizza. Thick, buttery crust with cornmeal, a massive amount of cheese on the bottom, and tomato sauce on top.
Then there’s the Chicago-style hot dog. Beef frankfurter, yellow mustard, neon relish, sport peppers, a pickle spear, tomato and celery salt on a poppy seed bun. Ketchup is not permitted – ask for it and see what happens.
Hot chicken was invented in Nashville in the 1930s. A woman fed her unfaithful partner fried chicken coated in so much chilli she assumed it would be punishment. Instead, he loved it, opened a restaurant, and Prince’s Hot Chicken has been there ever since. The heat levels run from plain to XXX Hot.
My wife Cece, who is Texan and not easily intimidated by spice, ordered the super-hot. When I asked how it was, she said, as she always does, “yeah, it’s not too bad”. She was sweating. I went for mild and one bite of hers confirmed this was the correct choice. The heat isn’t just chilli. It’s a spice rub fried into the crust with more sauce applied after.
The chicken comes on white bread with pickles, the same way it has for almost 100 years.
New Yorkers will tell you that something in the water makes their bagels different. Having eaten them in other cities, I think they’re right. The bagel is boiled before baking, which gives it its chew.
We landed jet-lagged after 22 hours of travel and couldn’t check into our room until the afternoon. So our first stop was Russ & Daughters on the Lower East Side. It’s been open since 1914, specialising in smoked fish and classic bagel pairings. They have a serious selection of schmear (cream cheese spreads). The locals in line pointed us towards the scallion and the horseradish dill. A bagel with lox at nine in the morning, still wearing yesterday’s clothes, is hard to beat.
The other staple is New York pizza. It’s sold by the slice, so can be a cheap snack or a full meal. The slices are wide and thin with just enough structure to hold their shape when folded in half. We grabbed ours from a corner spot with no seats and ate it on the footpath with everyone else.
Is it better than Chicago deep dish? Depends who’s in the room when you answer.
Low Country cooking has shaped coastal South Carolina for centuries, built around seafood, rice and the produce of the Carolina coast.
I was a shrimp and grits virgin before visiting Charleston. Creamy grits, slightly sweet, with shrimp and a sauce that changes depending on the kitchen. Grits look somewhere between mashed potatoes and porridge, but taste far better than that sounds. Then there’s she-crab soup. It’s smooth, creamy, made with crab and roe. I drained the bowl.
Hot biscuits are everywhere. Small and flaky and warm, closer to a scone than a dinner roll. Most restaurants serve them free in place of bread, and they always disappear quickly.
Everyone who visits New Orleans ends up at Cafe du Monde. There is always a queue, but it moves quickly. The beignets it’s famous for are fried dough under a heavy coat of powdered sugar. Within 30 seconds, the sugar is on the table, your shirt, and anyone sitting next to you.
Louisiana runs on Cajun cooking. In Baton Rouge, Cece took me to lunch near her old university campus. The waitress said they were known for crawfish etouffee. I had no idea what it was, but ordered it anyway, badly mispronouncing it. It’s a butter-based stew of crawfish tails over rice. I wish I could get it at home.
Gumbo is the other essential: a roux-based broth with celery, onion, bell pepper, and andouille sausage over rice. Every kitchen has its own version, and every local will tell you theirs is the best. I’ve learned not to disagree.
The writer travelled at their own expense.