Trying new cuisines is one of the best things about travelling and, often, the best way to get a taste of a place is through its street food dishes. Available from stands, trucks, carts and markets, these easily portable dishes offer a glimpse into a destination's history, culture and culinary heritage. From cultural icons like currywurst and tacos to culinary gems like walkie talkies and fischbrötchen, here’s our pick of the world’s most delicious street food dishes.
Click or scroll through our gallery as we count down to the greatest street food dish of them all.
We’ve based our ranking on the enduring popularity of each street food in its place of origin and beyond, and on the opinions of our well-travelled (and well-fed) team. The list is unavoidably subjective.
The national dish of El Salvador, the pupusa has its very own day dedicated to it. One bite, and anyone with taste buds will understand why. This thick griddle cake or flatbread is made from cornmeal or rice flour, then stuffed with cheese or refried beans and accompanied by a fermented cabbage slaw with a serious kick. Its invention is credited to the Pipil tribe, more than two millennia ago, though it didn't become nationally popular until the early 20th century.
Served from street food vendors across Hungary, làngos is a fluffy, deep-fried bread that’s often rubbed with garlic and salt, before being topped with anything from sour cream and grated cheese to ham, sausages and yogurt. The savoury bread was traditionally made in a clay oven and, following the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, vendors began to serve it as a street food.
Similar to krainer wurst found in Slovenia, this lightly smoked pork sausage – laced with cubes of cheese – is traditionally served with a bread roll and a helping of mustard or fresh horseradish. Now a popular street food snack found across Austria, it’s said to have been invented by two butchers from Upper Austria in the late 1960s.
This traditional Russian pancake was first made in pre-Christian times as a symbol of the sun, and was particularly popular at the end of winter, eaten to usher in the return of those rays. The batter of flour, eggs, milk, yeast and salt is cooked quickly, resulting in a thin pancake topped with various additions such as cheese, meat, fruit and jam and, the most well-known option, caviar. In recent years, mini versions have become popular as a posh party snack – though, in Russia, they're sold from street food stands and windows around the country.
The official food of the Nova Scotia city, a Halifax Donair will not disappoint – particularly as a late-night snack or hangover cure. It's said to have been invented in the 1970s by Greek immigrant and restaurateur Peter Gamoulakos, as a riff on the classic Greek gyros (see further down our list). His traditional gyros didn’t hit the spot, so he experimented and found the winning combination for Halifax residents: a pitta packed with spit-roasted shaved beef, tomatoes, onions and the trademark sweet and garlicky Donair sauce.
The origins of pasties are unclear, but today they're a speciality in the most south-westerly point of the UK: Cornwall. They're referenced as far back as the 13th century, and proved especially popular with Cornish tin miners as a complete meal that could be carried easily and eaten without cutlery. The D-shaped crimped pastry is traditionally filled with beef, potato, swede and onion, though endless variations now exist across the county – and similar foods around the world include Latin America's empanadas.
The invention of walkie talkies dates back to the apartheid, when wealthy farmers would use the best cuts and leave the leftovers to their workers. Those workers were inventive, though; chicken feet (walkies) and heads (talkies) were boiled, seasoned and either grilled or stewed with onions, tomatoes and green peppers. They're eaten by scraping the super crispy skin and meat off with your teeth, then chewing the remainder for bone marrow.
The hot dog in all its many variations is a street food classic, but Ohio's Polish Boy takes things a few steps (and ingredients) further. This Cleveland culinary native consists of a bun filled with a kielbasa sausage and fries, all smothered in BBQ sauce and coleslaw. Today, you can find all sorts of alternative toppings at street carts (and restaurants) around the city and across the entire state.
One of Trinidad and Tobago’s most popular street foods, doubles is a dish made up of two pieces of fried flatbread (baras), traditionally topped with curried chickpeas and chutney. Enjoyed for breakfast from street vendors and restaurants, its origins can be traced back to 1936 when Emamool and Raheman Rusulan Deen started selling the delicacy from their stall in Princes Town.
These Chinese dumplings – often called gyoza in other countries – are made with thin pieces of dough, filled with ground meat and vegetables like spring onions and Chinese cabbage. Each tasty package is then sealed by pressing the edges together, and the resulting dumplings are boiled, steamed or fried, then traditionally served alongside a black vinegar and sesame oil dip.
These sphere-shaped snacks have been a part of Japanese street food culture for almost a century. Made from a wheat flour batter and cooked in searingly hot, moulded pans, you’ll usually find them stuffed with minced octopus, pickled ginger and onion. Thought to originate in Osaka, it’s believed that vendor Tomekichi Endo created this delicious savoury treat in 1935. Nowadays, you'll find them all across Japan.
Sate kambing or mutton satay is a staple of Indonesian cuisine. It starts with chunks of goat meat, which are marinated in seasoning often featuring puréed pineapple juice, sweet soy sauce, ground shallot and galangal. The marinated chunks of meat are threaded onto a chunky skewer, grilled and served with peanut sauce or a thick black sauce made of kecap manis.
Take one boiled egg, wrap it in sausage meat, coat it in breadcrumbs and deep fry it – and you've got yourself a Scotch egg. The backstory of this British street food snack is murky, but it's believed they were invented in the 19th century when they may have been known as 'scorch eggs' as a nod to the original open flame cooking technique. Today, they're eaten hot or cold, and are a popular picnic food served with cold cuts and pickles. You'll find them (often along with stalls selling sausage rolls, encased in flaky pastry) at many food markets across the UK.
A spleen sandwich might not sound the most obviously tasty snack, but just wait until you try this popular Sicilian street food. The pani câ mèusa was created in the 15th-century by Jewish butchers in the city of Palermo; they took a soft, sesame-topped vastedda bun and stuffed it with fried slices of veal lung and spleen. This humble meat sandwich is bought to life with a squeeze of lemon and sometimes topped with ricotta, too.
At any festival or food market in Australia, your chances of finding a Dagwood Dog are pretty high. This savoury street food snack, inspired by the US-invented corn dog and named after an American comic strip character, consists of a hot dog on a stick, coated in batter and fried for an easy (and very satisfying) snack on the go. Depending on which area you're in, it might also be called a dippy dog or a Pluto pup.
This fish sandwich is popular across northern Germany thanks to its access to the coast and abundance of fresh seafood. Each sandwich may vary a little, but the basic idea remains the same: a long bread roll filled with fish and a few other accompaniments like onion, pickles, remoulade and horseradish sauce. Herring, sprat and mackerel are often used in fischbrötchen.
Nobody quite knows where pretzels come from, but most accounts credit European monks for their creation. Simple pretzels, made from flour and water, were consumed during Lent, becoming instantly popular. The snack has deep roots in Germany, too; known as brezel, pretzels became synonymous with the country by the 12th century, enjoyed for breakfast in the Bavaria region. Today, pretzels are eaten around the world, becoming a New York City staple since the 1800s. Here, they're sold – hot and fresh – from street carts. Slightly crisp on the outside and tender on the inside, this style is boiled, baked and topped with a generous flaking of salt.
A Sicilian delicacy, these Italian rice balls are stuffed with all manner of fillings, rolled in breadcrumbs and deep fried. Popular fillings include ragu, mozzarella or caciocavallo cheese, and peas. It's believed they were invented in the 10th century during the Kalbid rule of Sicily, and they're now celebrated each 13 December in Palermo, when the city is packed with carts selling various takes on this beloved Italian classic.
This ubiquitous South African dish consists of a hollowed-out roll, or quarter loaf of bread, filled with vegetable, chicken or lamb curry. Bunny chow was popularised in the city of Durban in the 1940s, after being developed by city's the Indian immigrant workers – the bread bowl was their ingenious idea for a portable lunch. So beloved is the dish, each year a 'Bunny Chow Barometer' is held on the south bank of the Umgeni River, with competitors vying for status as top bunny maker.
Fish and chips is pure British comfort food, consisting of battered white fish (typically cod or haddock) served with a portion of chips, traditionally fried in beef fat (dripping). It also tends to be seasoned liberally with salt and vinegar, while a portion of mushy peas and/or tartare sauce on the side is a must for many. The dish is served in many restaurants and pubs but, for the best experience, order it from chip shops or chippies, where it's served wrapped in paper or in an open container, ready to eat outside – preferably by the sea.
The Philly cheesesteak hails (of course) from Philadelphia, but this taste sensation has been transported far and wide since its conception in the early 20th century. The dish takes one crusty hoagie roll, which is split and filled with thin slices of beefsteak (usually rib-eye or top round) before being covered in oozing melted cheese. Sometimes sautéed onions and peppers, grilled mushrooms, hot sauce or ketchup are added.
A hand-sized pie filled with minced or diced meat and gravy and often topped with a dollop of ketchup – this portable dish sits somewhere between a snack and a full meal. It's been reported that the average Australian eats 12 meat pies a year, with the average New Zealander consuming 15. Each country claims the meat pie as something of an unofficial national dish, while the annual Great Aussie Pie Competition is always hotly contested.
The baguette was introduced to Vietnam by the French in the mid-19th century and, by the 1950s, the bánh mì was a firm favourite in Saigon. Each bánh mì starts with a crisp on the outside, airy on the inside Vietnamese baguette, which is sliced and loaded with fillings including meat (usually pork), coriander leaves, pickled carrot and shredded radish. It's all finished with mayonnaise or oyster sauce.
Today, falafel – deep-fried balls of highly flavoured ground chickpeas – are eaten around the world, yet nobody can quite agree on where they first came from. Popular across the Middle East, and one of Israel's national dishes, it's thought falafel most likely evolved in Egypt. Today, they're most often enjoyed tucked into a flatbread with salad and topped with hummus or another tahini-based sauce.
Arepa is a type of bun made from ground maize, eaten across areas of South America since pre-Columbian times. These days, it's an everyday staple in Colombia and Venezuela. The flat, round, unleavened patty – which can be steamed, boiled, fried or baked – is stuffed with all sorts of delicacies depending on the region, with popular options including cheese and butter, fried eggs, beans, meat or fish.
Take one serving of French fries, smother in a hearty meat gravy and top with cheese curds – and you’ve got yourself poutine. Said to have emerged in Quebec in the 1950s, its exact origin story is unknown, yet it’s skyrocketed to icon status across Canada and beyond. Today, annual poutine celebrations take place across the country, and often it's referred to as Canada's national dish.
Gyros is a popular Greek street food that's now enjoyed around the world, though it rarely tastes better than when eaten in its place of origin. It consists of a pitta stuffed with meat that's been cooked on a vertical spit and then served in thin shavings. Popular accompaniments include cucumber, lettuce, onion and tomato with a tzatziki sauce. The meat portion of gyros dates back to the Ottoman Empire, when a vertical spit was first used to cook meat.
With heritage dating back to the Ottoman Empire, it’s fair to say the shawarma has stood the culinary test of time. And for good reason. Marinaded, slow-cooked meat wrapped up in a warm flatbread and finished with all manner of garnishes, from pickled vegetables to tahini, this hand-held snack packs a serious flavour punch. Shawarma is an Arabic word meaning to rotate or spit roast – a reference to how the meat is cooked on a vertical grill.
A soft, steamed bun packed with braised pork belly, gua bao is sold by street vendors and across the famous Taiwanese night markets. The meat is braised in a heady mix of soy sauce, red wine and spice powder. Once done, it's stuffed into the lotus leaf bun and topped with pickled mustard greens, coriander and ground peanuts.
First eaten during the Aztec era, tamales consist of densely packed masa dough (made with ground corn) loaded with fillings such as meat, beans, eggs, root vegetables and seeds, before being steamed in a corn husk or banana leaves. Traditional recipes are thought to originate in Guatemala and Mexico, though their popularity has spread across Central and South America. Now eaten with or without sauces, the dish is enjoyed as street food and in restaurants, or made in big, tasty batches at home.
Close cousins of Indian dosas (see the next slide!), these paper-thin pancakes are made from fermented rice batter and coconut milk. They’re cooked quickly and in a very deep pan, which is what gives them their unusual shape. Hoppers are served for breakfast and dinner, with sweet and savoury options available, though they’re most commonly served with an egg nestled inside to make for a more robust snack.
This thin savoury crepe is an ancient Indian street food snack made from a fermented batter of rice and ground white gram. The batter is usually flavoured with a sprinkle of fenugreek seeds, bringing the characteristic golden hue and crisp texture. The dish dates back to at least the 1st century AD, where it's recorded in Tamil literature. Dosas are usually eaten piping hot, either alongside chutney or topped with aloo bhaji or a lentil and vegetable stew.
Sold from snack stands, or schnellimbisse, throughout Germany, and also often on menus in diners, currywurst is one of the country's most popular street foods (along with döner kebabs, born in Berlin). The dish is said to have been invented by Herta Heuwer in 1949, when she resourcefully mixed tomato sauce with curry powder and poured it over a sausage. Just like that, an icon was born. It's typically sold with a side of chips or on a bread roll.
The humble hot dog’s exact origins are hard to track down, but many believe it’s closely related to the German frankfurter. German immigrants began settling in the USA in the 1800s, and it’s thought the hot dog style we know today was first sold in New York City during the 1860s. Originally named dachshund sausages, they were sold by vendors across the city and beyond. By the 1890s, the hot dog had firmly established itself as a go-to snack at baseball games. Enjoyed worldwide, the classic ketchup and mustard-topped hot dog has gone on to inspire many variations.
First popularised in Mumbai in the 1960s, this vegetarian sandwich – sometimes called a Bombay burger – is now available from food stalls and markets across India. The dish is made up of potato mashed with chopped green chilli, garlic, mustard seeds and spices like asafoetida and turmeric. Once shaped into a ball and dipped in gram flour, it's deep fried and served in a bread bun. You can jazz it up with an assortment of chutneys and green chilli.
Among Italy's most ubiquitous street snacks are these squares or rectangles of pizza. Known as pizza al taglio, the style dates back to the 1950s, when it was first served up on the streets of Rome with a simple olive oil and tomato sauce topping. Today, it's available across the country with all sorts of flavour combinations and is usually priced by weight.
Among the world's most well-known street foods and, for many, something of an obsession, tacos date back to the Mexican silver mines of the 18th century. Today, the word taco refers to a tortilla that's topped with a variety of fillings, folded and then eaten by hand. The classic carne asada version involves grilled thinly sliced meats, salsa, onion and guacamole, and is topped with a lime wedge. Toppings vary, with fried fish and mayonnaise popular in Baja while, in Mexico City, taco de cabeza – filled with steamed offal – is a speciality.