Australia’s Most-in-Demand Cuisines

Australia is a majority migrant nation packed with food lovers spoiled with choice, but when it comes to preferences, which cuisines make our mouths water the most?

BizCover, Australia’s leading online insurance service for restaurants and cafes, set out to discover the country’s favourite cuisines by analysing a whole year of Google searches to determine today’s most-in-demand cuisines in our 50 biggest cities.

Thinking of starting or expanding your restaurant or takeaway? Perhaps wondering who your competition is? Keep reading to discover what’s trending in your area.

Key Takeaways

• Japanese and Indian top the list of Australia’s most searched cuisines.
• Sushi is the most-searched Japanese dish; biryani tops Indian cuisine searches.
• Australia’s top dish searches include hot dogs, pizzas, sushi and kebabs.
• Adelaide is the only capital city that prefers European cuisine (Italian).
• Japanese cuisine is favoured by the most states—QLD, NSW, VIC, WA, NT and ACT.
• Italian was the most-searched cuisine outside the capital cities.

When it comes to food, Aussies favour eastern flavours. The nation’s most in demand cuisines are Japanese (over 22.4 million searches) and Indian (over 21.3 million searches). Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese also make the top 10.

But don’t count out our European roots! Italian is the third most searched cuisine, and English and Spanish foods squeak in at numbers nine and 10, respectively.

New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, Western Australia, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory all crave the nation’s favourite cuisine—Japanese! Meanwhile, Tasmania is searching up tasty Indian dishes, and South Australia is looking for the best Italian eateries and recipes.

Japanese cuisine is the favourite nationwide, so it’s no surprise that it dominates in the capital cities. Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Darwin and Hobart dwellers are all searching for Japanese foods, restaurants and takeaways.

Keeping their flavour preference in Asia, Brisbane’s most searched cuisine is Vietnamese.

And what’s the best cuisine according to Adelaide? Italian—Nonna would be proud.

Japanese food is less loved outside of the capital cities. Only the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, and Darwin count it as their most-searched cuisine.

Italian food is the favourite across most areas, including much of the regional cities in New South Wales. It’s also the most popular cuisine searched in Geelong, Bendigo, and Cairns.

Adding some variety to the map, both Canberra and Toowoomba prefer Indian food. Townsville is the lone city searching up Chinese, and Ballarat residents are looking for tasty Thai dishes.

Which dishes dominate by cuisine? Japanese lovers are looking for the best sushi, ramen, and tempura. Australia’ s second favourite cuisine is Indian, with Aussies searching for biryani, curry, and tandoori.

For Italian lovers those hearty pastas, tasty pizzas, and creamy gelato come first. Yum!

Other international dishes searched by Australian’s include hot dogs (American), Kebabs (Turkish), Fish and Chips (English) and Tapas (Spain).

Methodology

This research studied Australia’s most searched cuisines and dishes.

Using Google Data (Keyword Planner) BizCover analysed data spanning 12 months between April 2023 through to April 2024, to get an understanding of the total average monthly searches.

A seed set of keywords was used to generate a complete list of keywords (11,826) covering a broad cross-section of terms related to cuisines and dishes. This keyword list was then segmented against each of the 50 cities through targeting in the Google platform to retrieve search volumes. BizCover then ranked each cuisine and dish according to the number of people searching for it.

This comprehensive study evaluates the top 50 most populated Australian cities (50 largest urban areas in Australia by the Significant Urban Area* measure using the seed list here) for the most searched cuisines and dishes.

Our approach involved using various search terms related to cuisines and popular foods, including variations like ‘[cuisine name] near me’ and ‘[cuisine name] restaurant close by’ e.g. ‘thai near me’ and thai restaurant close by’.