Oh and it's also the least spontaneous place I've lived in. All the food in the world, but you can't really just decide to try something, because everyone knows about the place, and they don't do bookings anyway, and everything is packed all the time, so there's an hour and a half queue to get in, after which you'll be granted a generous 35 minutes to eat before being softly nudged out by the waiter.

This is probably good enough for the anglosaxons or the nordics, but food is just a small part of what makes a good dining experience.

> It's not that interesting outside of zone 1

Bizarre take. Zone 1 is the absolute worst part of London, full of tourists and unimaginative morons.

Paris is ruthlessly segregated by race and class, not what I'd call charming.

I have the opposite feeling. I would put London and NYC on roughly the same level, but London definitely beats SF and LA in terms of variety, quantity, and quality for a lot of cuisines. Tokyo is also not as good, but it’s different because you can find high quality (higher than basically anywhere in the world), but low variety.

The great thing about London is that it has diversity without segregation. So no, you won’t find a huge area of town where almost everyone is of the same ethnicity, but the diversity is still there. Race isn’t the only index. A higher percentage of London’s population is foreign-born than LA’s.

Food depends a lot on what you go for. You won’t find much good Mexican food in London, but on the other hand, you can by a better croissant in a supermarket here than you can find in most of the US.

I would say [even] Berlin is better than London.

I disagree, NYC was OK but LA and SF specifically, the average quality of food was pretty bad. There were absolutely good options, plenty of them, but on average, just walking around, seeing something that looks good and checking Google Maps reviews (including reading them), had 0 guarantee of the food being of any quality.

Compared to London and Paris where you're guaranteed a good meal in any random place as long as the google reviews are ~3.5+. And even for the lower, the complaints are usually that the service is slow or rude, not that the food is shit tier quality. I mean 4.9 noted places with ramen that tastes like margarine and uses canned vegetables, or where the meat tastes bad.

You can certainly do that in Houston. Food from anywhere is something we have more of than most American cities, and you don’t have to wonder if you’ll be able to get a table in the restaurant tonight. But if you like living in densely populated London, you might not prefer how spread out Houston is. I do love visiting London to experience a totally different world from my usual daily life.

No, you can't do it in Paris or Berlin. I don't know enough about LA and SF but, like Berlin, they're much smaller than London. Berlin is 1/2 the pop of London.

For example, there are 4 Uyghur restaurants just on my cycle to work. According to Google, Paris has 1 and Berlin has 0.

Only NYC can compare for population, density and diversity.

Definitely, even Mumbai and Bangalore.

You could not possibly compare Sydney and London, they are very different. London is a bustling diverse city, Sydney is a nice (big) town. Sydney is a great place, and London is far from perfect but they are not in the same conversation. They are different.

The Global Liveability Index is, essentially, highlighting the most middle of the road cities. London (as with New York) has huge disparities and that guarantees it will never rank well on the Global Liveability Index. The people who choose to live in London and love London (as with the people who choose to live in New York and love New York) do not choose it because it is average.

I have lived in London and Sydney and many other cities. I have fallen out of love with London. I would rather live in Sydney than London. I still cannot imagine ever describing Sydney as a better city than London. Just as I can't imagine describing Copenhagen better than London.

Healthcare in London is world class. A city is crowded. The weather is very average for Europe.

People from Sydney who move to London come to hate it, once the novelty wears off, just as they would with New York, because the Australian way of life is very different. Sydney is closer to island life than city life.

Even with London's ongoing decline due to the U.K's inexplicable self sabotage, it still has something to offer.

London has a special microclimate and pleasant weather all year around. No extremes and less rain than other parts of the country.

Yes I really wish people saying "X is the best place to live in the world" would add where else they have lived, otherwise their opinion is not very useful to me.

I'm fairly well travelled. Lived in Tokyo for a bit. There's no perfect city. London has the best combination of all attributes, for me.

Have you lived in London and Sydney both, or are you just reading numbers off of Google and "best city" lists? Sydney is boring and in the middle of nowhere.

It was one of the best places to live in up until about 10 years ago.

Places I have lived in: London, Santiago, Rio de Janeiro, Miami, New York, San Francisco.

Bangkok has the best food of anywhere I’ve been. The country is obsessed with food in general, while not being snobby about it. It is an absolute highlight of expat life there. The bar/cocktail scene can also hold its own against literally anywhere.

Where can I find a list of food unavailable outside of its origin?

It's okay not to be that into food, but a bit odd to expect everyone else to be the same. If I had to eat steak and potatoes every day I'd be miserable by day 2.

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