Buford Highway Food Tour: Your Complete Guide to Atlanta’s Most Exciting Dining Destination

Category: Food & Restaurants | Date: June 2026 | Hungry Homegirl

If you have never done the Buford Highway food tour, you have not fully experienced Atlanta. This stretch of road running northeast from Chamblee through Doraville and beyond is one of the most remarkable culinary corridors in the entire United States, a six-mile string of restaurants representing dozens of countries, all within a short drive of each other.

Buford Highway exists because of Atlanta’s remarkable immigrant communities. Starting in the 1970s and accelerating through the 80s and 90s, families from Mexico, Vietnam, Korea, China, the Philippines, Ethiopia, El Salvador, and dozens of other countries settled in this area and brought their food with them. What they built is irreplaceable.

How to Do the Tour
Start hungry, we mean it, skip breakfast. Bring a group of at least four people so you can order widely and share. Plan on three to four stops maximum, because portions are generous and you need to pace yourself. Budget about $30 to $50 per person for a properly indulgent afternoon.

Stop 1: Pho Dai Loi 2, Vietnamese
Start with a warming bowl of pho. The broth has been simmering since before you woke up, the noodles are cooked to order, and the herb plate arrives piled high with Thai basil, bean sprouts, jalapeños, and lime. This is the reset, the foundation, the base layer on which all subsequent food adventures will rest.

Stop 2: El Maiz, Mexican
The tlayudas here are massive, hand-made, and extraordinary. Get the one with black beans, Oaxacan cheese, and your choice of meat. The agua fresca, hibiscus or tamarind, is the ideal palate refresher between bites.

Stop 3: Han Il Kwan, Korean
Order the soon dubu jjigae (tofu stew) and at least three banchan sides. The kimchi here is house-fermented and has that funky, complex flavor that store-bought cannot replicate. If your group is adventurous, add an order of crispy pajeon (scallion pancake) to share.

Stop 4: The Dessert Stop, Your Choice
Finish at one of the many Asian dessert shops on the strip. Mango sticky rice, shaved ice with condensed milk and tropical toppings, or Vietnamese coffee ice cream. The tour ends with something sweet and the collective agreement to return next month.
Buford Highway is not a destination, it is a practice. The more you go, the more you discover. The community here deserves your business, your curiosity, and your appetite.