15 Most Expensive Cities for Sushi
Find out which Midwest city is in the top 10.
Sept. 11, 2012 -- intro:
Raw fish prices are on the rise and sushi lovers in New York City are paying the price with the most expensive Japanese-style delicacies, beating out Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Bloomberg measured prices for spicy tuna and California rolls at restaurants in 25 major cities for its Sushinomics Cost-of-Living Index.
New York City's index score of 132.98 indicates its sushi prices are 32.98 percent above average, a 10 percent increase from the previous year, Bloomberg reported.
The least expensive of the 25 cities were New Orleans, followed by Columbus, Ohio.
Rent and labor costs drive much of the cost of restaurant food in general, so it may be no surprise that New York City tops the list.
Last month, the Council for Community and Economic Research published its quarterly living of the most expensive places to live, taking into account grocery items, housing, utilities, transportation, healthcare and miscellaneous items. Two boroughs of New York, Manhattan and Brooklyn, led that list, followed by Honolulu, San Francisco, and San Jose, Calif.
The list may reflect sushi art rather than science, as the index shows the cost of living by sushi jumped 5.5 percent from a year earlier, Bloomberg reported, compared to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index, which increased 1.9 percent.
With that, here are 15 of the most expensive cities for sushi and their index score from Bloomberg's list:
quicklist:category: 132.98title: New York
quicklist:category: 127.68title: Los Angeles
quicklist:category: 119.22title: San Francisco
quicklist:category: 115.18title: Dallas
quicklist:category: 111.66title: Sacramento
quicklist:category: 110.97title: Minneapolis/St. Paul
quicklist:category: 110.70title: Seattle
quicklist:category: 110.32title: Austin
quicklist:category: 108.31title: Denver
quicklist:category: 108.06title: Miami
quicklist:category: 107.98title: Boston
quicklist:category: 107.61title: St. Louis
quicklist:category: 107.12title: Atlanta
quicklist:category: 105.53title: Philadelphia
quicklist:category: 105.36title: Orlando