Wilmington lands on a top 10 Yelp list for its 'big flavor' restaurant scene

Yelp, the national website of crowd-sourced reviews, has released a new list with fresh summer travel inspiration. They used their users' restaurant recommendations for a list of ten top U.S. foodie destinations. 

Three North Carolina cities, including Wilmington, made the list. 

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More:Downtown Wilmington restaurant lands on Yelp's national brunch list

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The report made a point to mention that Yelpers love the crab cakes at Bridge Tender, 1414 Airlie Road near Wrightsville Beach. It's one local spot where you can get great food along with views of the Intracoastal Waterway. They also say the crab dip at Cape Fear Seafood Company, which has local restaurant in Leland, Porters Neck and Monkey Junction, is especially popular.

Yelp's data science team regularly compiles a list of destinations for foodies, looking for cities that had the highest restaurant ratings from out-of-towners and what visitors most enjoyed. For the 2022 list, they only included places with populations under 250,000 that have "must-know" food scenes.  

Asheville, home of a couple of recent James Beard Foundation Award winners, was No. 1 and Kill Devil Hills in the Outer Banks was fourth on the list. Elsewhere in the region, Charleston, S.C. and Savannah, Ga. were also on the among the "Small Towns, Big Flavors" spots.

More:Asheville restaurants Chai Pani, Cúrate win 2022 James Beard Awards

Allison Ballard is the food and dining reporter at the StarNews. You can reach her at aballard@gannett.com.