This may come as a surprise to Dallas diners: The city been ranked the No. 1 most affordable city in the world to dine out.

The new study, by international food magazine Chef's Pencil, analyzed the cost of a three-course meal, coffee, and beer for one person at a "mid-range" restaurant and compared it to the average monthly net wage across 177 cities around the world. According to Chef's Pencil, this provides a "meal-to-salary ratio" representing the true cost of dining out at restaurants.

Dallas has the lowest meal-to-salary ratio out of all 177 global cities, and landed atop the "1 percent club" of cities where locals spend one percent or less of their monthly take-home pay on dining out at a mid-range restaurant. Only 26 cities earned this designation.

According to the report's findings, the average Dallas resident earns an average net salary of $4,686 per month, and a three-course meal for one person costs $35, meaning the average Dallas resident spends 0.7 percent of their monthly post-tax income on dining out. The study's authors add that the cost of dining out doesn't account for tips.

"Adding a standard 15-20 percent tip raises the cost to around $40-$42 per person," the report said. "This adjustment lowers Dallas’s affordability ratio slightly, though it still remains among the highest in the world — illustrating how service charges can significantly affect the real cost of dining out in the U.S."

The study also determined the most affordable global cities for cheap eats and ranked Dallas 12th on the list. The reigning cities with the most inexpensive meal costs are Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi in Vietnam, where a cheap meal will run customers just $1.90.

Dallas also ranked 14th in Chef's Pencil's "Coffee Affordability Index" that compared the cost of a cappuccino to the local monthly wages of all 177 cities. It costs $1.90 to buy a cappuccino in Dallas, the report says, meaning that the daily cost of a coffee drinks up 3.6 percent of a Dallas resident's average monthly income.

One is loathe to challenge the credibility of this index — but one also has to ask where "Chef's Pencil" was able to find a cappuccino in Dallas for the unheard-of amount of $1.90? UPDATE 9-22-2025: According to a Chef's Pencil spokesperson, the cost of a cappuccino displayed incorrectly in the study for several cities including Dallas, where the average cappuccino is actually $5.60. The rankings and affordability figures are correct; only the cappuccino price shown was not.

The "Beer Affordability Index" ranked Dallas 15th best city worldwide, and the study found that a domestic beer costs about $7 on average.

The top 10 cities where dining out is the most affordable for locals are:

• No. 1 – Dallas, Texas, U.S.
• No. 2 – Muscat, Oman
• No. 3 – Bern, Switzerland
• No. 4 – Denver, Colorado, U.S.
• No. 5 – Osaka, Japan
• No. 6 – Singapore
• No. 7 – Tokyo, Japan
• No. 8 – Shenzhen, China
• No. 9 – Seoul, South Korea
• No. 10 – Houston, Texas, U.S.