I often use apps using OSM data to find nearby restaurants to go to. However I noticed that most restaurants in my area do not have cuisine information, and many that do have typos or other non-standard values that can’t be processed by the apps I use. This makes it harder to find a place to eat. So I cleaned up all the cuisines in my country to improve the usability of the data that is already there.

Using JOSM I was able to do this at scale. I would do it for more places but it requires some knowledge of local cuisines. I left instructions at the bottom of this post so you can do it for your area if you like.

Process

First I researched all the existing uses (mostly using taginfo) and updated the Key:cuisine wiki to reflect current usage. With a clearer picture of what tags are in use and which are duplicates, I felt confident in sorting through thousands of tags and determining which ones had issues that needed to be fixed.

JOSM allows me to easily download and filter objects. The Tag Editor plugin allows me to easily edit a large list of objects. With these tools I was able to focus on making edits and not on repetitive tasks or on sorting through objects I don’t need to see. The exact steps and filters I used are below.

I want to be clear that I’m specifically trying to avoid making decisions about which tags should or should not be used, and I’m not making any decisions about what cuisines a restaurant serves. I’m merely matching the original mapper’s intent with current tagging standards. Mostly this means fixing typos and syntax, and occasionally moving the information to a different tag.

Examples

• Brunch -> brunch. Fix the capitalization.
• canadian -> no change. This value isn’t on the wiki because it doesn’t have much global use but clearly it is a reasonable value.
• juice_bar -> juice. Change it to the very common tag documented in the wiki.
• brewery -> no change. This place is probably better tagged as craft=brewery but that would require more knowledge about the specific place and about the differences between brewery, brewpub, pub, microbrewery, brasserie, etc. As long as this tag remains it would be easy for someone to undertake a project to clean that stuff up later.
• Bar_&_Grill -> bar&grill. Change to a much more common way of spelling the same thing, even though it’s not common enough to be on the wiki.
• chinese/canadian -> chinese;canadian. Fix the list syntax.
• Cakes,_Bread,_Pastry -> cake;bread;pastry. Just fix the capitalization and list syntax and pluralization. Just like the brewery example, this place is probably better tagged as shop=bakery but that’s not a decision to make right now.
• Contemporary -> contemporary. Just fix the capitalization. I don’t know what contemporary cuisine is and it’s rarely used (~10 uses globally) but it was originally mapped as that so just leave it.
• pizza;donair -> no change. Donair is a regionally popular food.
• sandwiches;seafood -> sandwich;seafood. Fix the pluralization.
• greek_pizza -> greek;pizza. This is a place that serves greek food and pizza.
• french_tacos -> no change. French tacos are a specific food that this place serves.
• Alternative_healthy_meals -> Delete cuisine tag and move information to description tag.
• gourmet_take-out -> gourmet. And set takeaway=yes.
• plant -> This is a vegan restaurant, delete cuisine tag and add diet:vegan=only and diet:vegetarian=only.

Statistics

• Worldwide, there were 1070297 objects with a cuisine tag and 59192 unique tags. Of those tags, 48685 (82.3%) appear only once, representing 4.5% of all objects. (Source: taginfo)
• In Canada, there were 37909 objects with a cuisine tag and 1839 unique tags. Of those tags, 1384 (75.3%) appear only once, representing 3.6% of all objects. (Source: taginfo Canada database)
• There were 1199 (3.1%) objects in Canada with cuisine tags that don’t appear on the wiki. (Source: Overpass API download and JOSM filter)

After editing:

• In Canada, there are 1553 unique tags. Of those tags, 1107 (71.2%) appear only once, representing 2.9% of all objects.
• There are only 697 (1.8%) objects in Canada with cuisines that do not appear on the wiki.

Changes made:

• 385 objects were modified and now include only cuisines on the wiki.
• 243 objects were modified but still include non-wiki values. Most of these are local foods or uncommonly used ethnicities.
• 29 objects had their cuisine values deleted.
• I also cleaned up a number of other issues like duplicated POIs, closed businesses, cuisines on non-food businesses, etc.

Edit: Here’s the changeset: https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/128574390

Steps in JOSM

1. Enable Tag Editor plugin
   • Edit > Preferences > Plugins
   • Download list of plugins
   • Select tageditor plugin
   • Update
2. Set Carto as basemap
   • Imagery > OpenStreetmap Carto
   • Layer view options (eye with gradient underneath) > Set opacity to about 25%
3. Enable Overpass API download
   • Edit > Preferences
   • Select Expert Mode (in lower left corner)
4. Download Data
   • File > Download data > Download from Overpass API
   • Query wizard > cuisine=* AND -(cuisine~"^(a|b)(;(a|b))*$") in "Your Location"
     • Replace both a|b with the long list of cuisines below
     • Replace Your Location with your country, state, region, or city
   • Build query
     • If you prefer, you can copy the whole query text from below
   • Download
5. Filter cuisines so they disappear after they’ve been fixed
   • Windows > Filter
   • Add filter (plus in lower left of filter window)
   • Select case sensitive
   • Search string: cuisine~"(a|b)(;(a|b))*"
     • Replace both a|b with long list of cuisines below
   • Submit filter
   • If you find other common tags to filter, add them to both places in the filter
6. Open Tag Editor
   • Edit > Search cuisine=* (or CTRL+F)
     • (A regular select all would also select the nodes that make up buildings)
   • Data > Tag multiple objects (or CTRL+T)
   • Set top bar to amenity, name, cuisine
   • Sort by name so that you can find your place later
   • Edit cuisine field directly
     • The rows will disappear if they match the filter
     • You can add more terms to the filter if you want

Text

For copy and pasting

The big list of cuisines on the wiki:

afghan|african|american|arab|argentinian|armenian|asian|australian|austrian|balkan|bangladeshi|basque|bavarian|belgian|bolivian|brazilian|british|bulgarian|cajun|cambodian|cantonese|caribbean|chinese|colombian|croatian|cuban|czech|danish|dutch|egyptian|english|ethiopian|european|filipino|french|georgian|german|greek|hawaiian|hungarian|indian|indonesian|irish|italian|jamaican|japanese|jewish|korean|lao|latin_american|lebanese|malagasy|malaysian|mediterranean|mexican|middle_eastern|mongolian|moroccan|nepalese|oriental|pakistani|persian|peruvian|polish|portuguese|romanian|russian|senegalese|serbian|southern|spanish|sri_lankan|swedish|swiss|syrian|taiwanese|tex-mex|thai|tibetan|turkish|ukrainian|uzbek|venezuelan|vietnamese|western|açaí|bagel|beef|beef_bowl|beef_noodle|beer|bubble_tea|burger|cake|chicken|chili|chocolate|churro|coffee_shop|coffee|couscous|crepe|curry|donut|dumpling|empanada|falafel|fish|fish_and_chips|fondue|fried_chicken|fries|frozen_yogurt|gyazo|gyros|hot_dog|hotpot|ice_cream|juice|kebab|meat|noodle|pancake|pasta|pastry|piadina|pie|pita|pizza|italian_pizza|poke|potato|pretzel|ramen|salad|sandwich|sausage|savory_pancakes|seafood|shawarma|smoothie|smørrebrød|soba|soup|souvlaki|steak|sushi|tacos|takoyaki|tea|udon|waffle|wine|wings|yakitori|bakery|bar&grill|barbecue|bistro|brasserie|breakfast|brunch|buffet|buschenschank|cafe|deli|dessert|diner|fast_food|fine_dining|fried_food|friture|fusion|grill|heuriger|international|local|lunch|pub|regional|snack|steak_house|tapas|yakiniku

The Overpass API query in case you need it:

[out:xml][timeout:90];
{{geocodeArea:Your Location}}->.searchArea;
(
  nwr["cuisine"]["cuisine"!~"^(a|b)(;(a|b))*$"](area.searchArea);
);
(._;>;);
out meta;