When it comes to world cuisine, usually Canada ranks rather low on the list of unique foods most travelers enjoy. Even though we have thousands of fantastic restaurants across the country with amazing chefs and cooks, it’s the countries with more traditional food that get the recognition. Canada is a nation of many cultures that have brought their recipes with them from the “old country,” but that doesn’t mean we don’t have our own signature dishes here.

A group called TasteAtlas assembled a list of the finest food in the world based on nearly half a million ratings and reviews by people who tried about 15 thousand different kinds of food.

As one would expect, Europe dominated the top five for 2024 with Greece coming in at number one. Italian food was second followed by Mexican food in third, Spanish food in fourth, and Portuguese in fifth.

Way down at number 43 on the world list was Canada. We were noted for our Pacific smoked salmon, Montreal smoked meat, Yukon Gold potatoes, our nova salmon, and our California rolls. Believe it or not, poutine, one of Canada’s most famous dishes, wasn’t even mentioned even though it’s one of the most talked about dishes from our country, particularly in the United States.

(pictured: California rolls and sushi)

One of the foods we’re most proud of, especially on the prairies, is our farm raised beef. Canada is renowned worldwide for delicious, high quality beef thanks to hardworking ranchers in Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Manitoba. Unfortunately Japan edged Canada out on this particular list with their Wagyu beef, which came in number nine on the list.