The Paradox of American Restaurants

For restaurants in America, it is the best of times, and it is the worst of times.

Last century’s dystopians imagined that mediocre fast-food chains would take over every square inch of the country. But in cities across the U.S., residents are claiming that the local restaurant scene is in a golden age of variety and quality. I’ve heard it in Portland, Oregon, named the best food city in America by the Washington Post; in Washington, D.C., named the best food city in America by Bon Appetit; in New Orleans, where the number of restaurants grew 70 percent after Hurricane Katrina; and in San Francisco, which boasts the most restaurants per capita in the country; and in Chicago, which has added several three-Michelin-star restaurants this decade. I live in New York, which will always lead the country in sheer abundance of dining options, but after years of visiting my sister in Los Angeles, I’m thoroughly convinced that America’s culinary capital has switched coasts.

Restaurants are such a revitalizing force in urban life that a fine meal now carries a sacred profundity. “Food has replaced music at the heart of the cultural conversation,” Eugene Wei, a technologist and writer who is currently the head of video at Oculus, in a 2015 essay. “It’s hard to think of any sphere of American life where the selection and quality have improved so much as food,” the economist Tyler Cowen, who moonlights as a food blogger, this year. For the first time in US history, Americans are spending .