The world's best and worst pizza and burgers aren't where you think

This foodie's eaten just about everywhere - and it turns out the world's best and worst pizza, burgers and fast food aren't always the places you'd expect to find them, despite the hype.

The plight of the omnivorous traveller is that you want to taste everything on offer – jamón ibérico in Spain, alpaca ceviche in Peru, fragrant seafood stew in Brazil with the samba-like name moqueca.

But when navigating a city at a madcap clip, fast food is infinitely easier to consume and reliably cheaper, too. The internet is awash with rankings of the most-renowned offerings, so locating these moreish morsels is simpler than ever.

Here are my highs and lows in fast-ish food.

Lahmacun (Turkish pizza) from Maçakizi in Bodrum. Picture: Elise Hassey

PIZZA

Best: My peak pizza is thin, crisp and spicy, and I have an enduring obsession with lahmacun, the Middle Eastern flatbread with minced lamb and herbs, often topped with a leafy thicket of parsley. It differs from pizza in one major way – it’s devoid of cheese – but it’s a similar dining experience. The loveliest lahmacun I’ve ever encountered was at Maçakizi in Bodrum, a retreat on the Turkish Riviera. Here, at its open-air eatery on the Aegean, it arrived piping hot from the wood-fired oven, dense with a tangy interplay of meat and tomato, and served with a clutch of rocket. I inhaled it.

Worst: Chicago is proud of its deep-dish pizza whose high crust, circular pan and molten blend of cheese and tomato approximate a sizzling, savoury pie. I found it deeply disturbing. At Pizzeria Uno, where the dish was famously invented, I ordered a seven-inch, pepperoni-accented individual, the smallest option, and managed just one slice. It was a soggy, goopy, doughy mess. But perhaps my mistake was dining solo. Even the seven-inch could have fed an extended family. “Everything okay?” asked my server. “This side salad is amazing,” I said. “Check, please!”

Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack, Nashville.

FRIED CHICKEN

Best: Honky-tonking and hot chicken are the twin draws of Nashville, Tennessee. The vital ingredient of the fiery bird is cayenne pepper, though some die-hard adherents also add chilli oil. At Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack, the GOAT of Nashville chicken, I ordered “hot” tenders from a sliding scale, with “XXX hot” reserved for pie-hole pyromaniacs. Brown sugar and garlic powder added sweetness and punchiness to the tantalising tenders, though I still needed to quell the inferno in my mouth with the accompanying slice of white bread. It was finger-licking delicious, and I think of it often.

Worst: Considering the limitations of serving food on a plane, it might be unfair to highlight this dish. And yet this airline was supremely confident, cocky even, about offering Korean fried chicken as part of its business-class menu. The lacklustre result – the withered meat was enveloped in an inedible carapace of sepia-coloured starch – made me wish I had dined at the airport KFC before boarding. Korean fried chicken’s ultra-crisp exterior comes from double-frying, which you can’t replicate on a plane. So why even try?

Burgers Never Say Die, Los Angeles.

BURGERS

Best: As with pizza, I prefer burgers that are slender, not least because the wider surface of the patty creates more intense flavour. Also, you can easily enjoy them with two hands. At Burgers Never Say Die, a takeout spot in LA’s Silver Lake neighbourhood, the smashed burgers looked unimpressive at first. But the combination of salty, smoky, cheesy notes was exceptional. Creator Shawn Nee opts for crisp, caramelised and ultra-thin patties, American cheese and a soft bun, along with pickles, onion and equal squirts of ketchup and mustard. Nostalgia is another detectable flavour: smashed burgers are more like the way burgers used to be cooked in American diners.

Worst: There’s no denying that In-N-Out has a feverish following for its fast food. Its burgers are devoured at Hollywood events, celebrated on social media and fêted by chefs like Gordon Ramsay. The company even takes part in annual pop-ups in Australia, which draw ravenous crowds. But on sampling their offerings in LA a few times, even exploring the so-called “secret menu” of options, I always found the burgers underwhelming. They were sloppily assembled, the patty was unremarkable and the fries were ho-hum. Wrappers printed with biblical verses did nothing to glorify the experience, either.

Falafel sandwich from Zooba, Cairo.

FALAFEL

Best: In most parts of the world, falafel is prepared with ground chickpeas. But in Egypt, dried fava beans play the starring role, which creates a lighter, crisper and tastier fritter. Zööba, an eatery in Cairo’s upscale Zamalek district, offers cheffy takes on local street food. It was the falafel sandwich that floored me. The golden spheres were made to order and paired with fluffy baladi bread, peppery harissa, pickled lemon and rocket. Little wonder the company has added outlets in other cities.

Worst: We’ve all experienced frightful falafel – tough as a hockey puck, dry as a scourer, and irredeemably bland. In fact, it’s more common than the pinnacle versions. Pre-made, oven-baked and wacky pairings can all be disastrous, too. Strapped for time at an airport recently, I bought a falafel and haloumi hot wrap at Pret a Manger. It wasn’t so much “ready to eat” as ready to dispose of. I managed a few bites, but the combination of sweet potato balls, cloying red pepper sauce and blazing temperature left me cold. A protein bar was more palatable.

Originally published as The world's best and worst pizza and burgers aren't where you think