Preston food and drink: How city's offering compares to the rest of UK in Muscle Food study

Online food retailer Muscle Food analysed 69 UK cities in terms of the number of various food establishments they offer, from Michelin star restaurants to dessert parlours, as well as what the average household spends on food, to “crown the foodie capital”.

Preston placed as the 32nd best city in the UK for foodies, scoring a total of 49.3 out of 100, compared to Edinburgh which had the highest score of 90.7 and Wells, in Somerset, which had the lowest at 8.7.

The city of Preston had 0.29 restaurants per capita, which ranked as the 44th highest, and this included 197 Uber Eats restaurants, 12 health restaurants, 13 dessert parlours, 37 cafes, four bakeries, and zero Michelin starred restaurants.

The average weekly household spend on food and non-alcoholic drinks in Preston was also £57.80, the 40th highest in the UK, compared to the biggest spenders in London whose weekly bill was £69.90.

Households in Preston’s neighbouring city Lancaster spent the same amount a week on food, however Lancaster did not fair so well overall for foodies, coming in as the 62nd best, or seventh worst, city with a score of 20.8 out of 100.

Lancaster had 0.0952 restaurants per capita, which was the sixth lowest amount in the country, and this included only 56 Uber Eats restaurants, five healthy restaurants, three desert parlours, 14 cafes, three bakeries and again, no Michelin starred restaurants.

Overall, the top 10 best cities for foodies were Edinburgh, Manchester, Glasgow, Leeds, London, Cardiff, Liverpool, Brighton and Hove, Newcastle upon Tyne and Birmingham.

On the opposite end of the scale, the worst city was Wells, followed by Newry, Ely, Armagh, Lisburn, Derry, Lancaster, Bangor, Chichester and Lichfield.

For the study, Muscle Food calculated population size and household spends using ONS data, the number of healthy restaurants, dessert parlours, and cafes using Tripadvisor, whilst the UberEats website and Michelin Guide websites were used for their respective statistics.