These Are the Spiciest Cities in the US

america's spiciest cities
Thrillist
Thrillist

People who love spicy food are often misunderstood -- labeled as "insane" or "Adam Richman". But what if you could go where your spicy food-loving brethren are? We talked to the folks at GrubHub and asked them which cities in America order spicy menu items the most often, and they delivered with the top 25 hottest cities in the US. (Note: spicy tuna rolls are not considered spicy... amateur.)

According to their data, Charlotte, NC is the nation's best haven for proponents of piquantness -- with 4% of orders registering on the Scoville scale -- followed closely by Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, San Francisco, and Baltimore. No word yet on which cities are the mildest in the nation, but we're just gonna go ahead and say number one is Branson, MO... the capital of the Bland Belt.

  1. Charlotte, NC - more than 4% of orders contain a spicy item. Fire-breathing Champions!
  2. Atlanta, GA
  3. Austin, TX
  4. Dallas, TX
  5. San Francisco, CA
  6. Baltimore, MD
  7. Los Angeles, CA
  8. Seattle, WA
  9. Denver, CO
  10. Orange County, CA
  11. Washington, DC
  12. Charlottesville, VA
  13. Las Vegas, NV
  14. Allentown, PA
  15. San Diego, CA
  16. College Station, TX
  17. Houston, TX
  18. Chicago, IL
  19. Boston, MA
  20. Philadelphia, PA
  21. San Antonio, TX
  22. Bloomington, IL
  23. New York, NY
  24. Bloomington, IN
  25. Ann Arbor, MI -- more than 1% of orders contain a spicy item. Not Champions.

Adam Lapetina is a food/drink staff writer at Thrillist, and lives in the 23rd spiciest city in America. He is moderately ashamed of this. Read his musings on Twitter at @adamlapetina.

This article originally published on May 4, 2014.