Where döner becomes shawarma, pierogi become vareniki, and plov becomes biryani. A map of food borders, from restaurant names on OpenStreetMap.
A restaurant's name is often more honest than the menu. Pho House, Döner Kebab, Pelmeni — the sign says right away what they mean to feed the passer-by.
And that same restaurant may carry a cuisine type in OpenStreetMap: Japanese, Mexican or Chinese. From these traces a map of food borders takes shape: where it's still döner and where it's already shawarma; where pierogi, where vareniki; where pho, where pad thai.
Filled dough changes its name gradually. In the west you mostly meet pierogi, further east — vareniki and pelmeni, though the signs wander across the line easily enough. Pierogi gather 411 venues and all but vanish beyond their own zone.
On the map the Aegean behaves like a very salty dictionary. On the Greek side souvlaki lights up, on the Turkish — kofta. And by much the same logic gyros, once it crosses the border of taste and language, becomes döner.
In East Asia filled dough went its separate ways by name long ago. China lights up with baozi, Japan with gyoza, and Korea holds on to mandu especially tightly: 98% of all venues using the word are right here.
In Thailand the map says “pad thai”. In Vietnam it answers “pho”. The comparison is simple: noodles, toppings, a local name — and geography already starts to smell of broth.
North of the Hindu Kush the map holds plov. To the south biryani begins. Here rice with meat lies almost obediently along the mountains — this time the map and the menu agree.
Meat on a stick rarely travels without a passport. On the map it quickly breaks into local words: shashlik is most visible across the post-Soviet region — 97%, souvlaki in Greece, yakitori in Japan — 81%, satay in Indonesia and Malaysia — 80%, kofta in Turkey — 75%. One stick, different labels.
Soba and udon rarely leave Japan: 95% and 74% of venues with these words are there. Ramen travels more freely: nearly half the spots using the word are already outside the country. Even close dishes behave differently on the map.
Among cuisine tags in our data, Japanese leads, with Italian close behind. Japanese is a big restaurant shelf: sushi, ramen, bento, izakaya and places with a very approximate idea of Japan. Incidentally, only 44% of restaurants with this tag are in Asia.
Gyros comes from Greece, yet most venues using the word turned out to be in the US: 35% against 9% in Greece itself. The Atlantic, it turns out, is no obstacle to a gyros.
Germany holds 51% of the world's döner shops, and 85 out of 100 venues in this category use the word döner. The name arrived from Turkey, settled in, and opened a branch on nearly every corner.
Going by the names, in Georgia khinkali is a dish, while in Russia it's also a kind of establishment. Nearly nine in ten khinkali houses are in Russian cities; Georgia accounts for just 4%.
In Korea 68% of restaurant tags are Korean cuisine; in Japan the same 68% are Japanese. In China Chinese cuisine stays first. Globalisation reached here too, but first place wasn't handed over.
In London dozens converge on a single patch of the map: Indian, Chinese, Turkish, Italian — all side by side, all sizzling, frying and competing for the passer-by. Some two dozen cuisines crowd a single spot, and even the most common tag takes less than a fifth. London, in this sense, is like a buffet that decided to become an empire in reverse.
In the US the most visible cuisine tag is Mexican. American comes second — a standing that here usually calls for a recount. In Canada a foreign cuisine is on top again — Japanese, if only by a whisker over Chinese. Canadians, it seems, took foreign leadership more calmly.
Pelmeni, shashlik, pho, döner and Japanese cuisine draw different maps. Some words stay close to where they came from. Others grow brighter far from home. Food travels, words change shores, and signs leave traces. Now the map is yours: switch to free mode, zoom into cities, cross the borders and check where a familiar name ends and the next one begins.
