The World's Best
Soups & Stews

Every culture that ever owned a pot has made soup. It is the oldest hot food there is — water, heat, and whatever the season gives — and it stays the most democratic: 1,592 earn a place in our ranking, from 176 countries, split almost evenly between the clear bowls we call soup and the thick, long-cooked ones we call stew.

What surprises is the geography of quality. The deepest benches belong to the giants — Italy, India, Spain — yet not one of them holds the highest-rated bowl. That honour goes to Moldova, whose sour-chicken Zeama outscores every soup and stew on earth, trailed by Romania, Finland and the Andes. Fame follows a different map again: the most-reviewed bowls are the household names, Ukraine's borscht, Vietnam's pho, Hungary's goulash. Read them below by score, by nation, by kind, or as one long list of all 1,592.