Suggests that, in the US at least, the ethnic enclave suburbs (not the richer ones or the exurbs) are often better choices for food than the trendy downtowns, for that very reason. I'm sure he's right about his home in the DC area, but NYC is its own thing- effectively Queens and Brooklyn function like suburbs in his dining cosmology.
In contrast, I went to 100+ restaurants in the Del Mar area (which is quite wealthy) and while it was a fun experience and I had lots of great food, the breadth wasn't as wide.
That's very much a function of location. The last time I checked here in San Francisco there were 12 Michelin restaurants within walking distance of where I live. I suspect the density in Manhatten or Vegas or Paris would be even higher.
I should also note that there is a real difference in food and experience quality between one star Michelin restaurants and three star. At the three star joints your dates purse gets its own stool. I'm not even joking.
"We're a party of 6 with 3 different food allergies, and one each of a pescetarian, vegan, vegetarian, omnivore, devout Jew/Muslim and devout Hindu."
I only slightly exaggerate vs. personal experience.
We encountered the purse stool at a one star restaurant, Eipic, in Belfast. Genuinely wondered if the little stools were made solely for holding handbags, or if they had dual purposes.
A hobby of mine is picking a neighborhood and going to every single eatery, from possibly-illegal hole-in-the-walls and popups to fast food chains to bakeries and delis to cafes to fine dining establishments. I think I've only been to one Michelin-starred restaurant though — there aren't a lot of those.
Restaurants have to cater to their clientele, even high-end ones. If you offer something creative on your menu, odds are there won't be a large market for it because most people want familiar fare. There are a lot of expensive-yet-conservative Italian restaurants in the US, for example — with lots of patrons who love them! The chefs may chafe at the constraints, but running a restaurant and bringing pleasure and satisfaction to your customers is a different endeavor than exploring the possibilities of cuisine.
If you want to experience unfamiliar flavors, presentations, and ingredients your best bet is to go to places run by and primarily frequented by first-generation immigrants. It's not that such eateries are any more adventurous — the same economic forces constrain them — but they target a clientele with different tastes.
The 80 eateries I've visited in San Diego's City Heights district offered way more variety and novel-to-me fare than the 70 or so restaurants I checked out on a tour of downtown San Diego. That's because City Heights has large enclaves of Mexican, Vietnamese and Somali immigrants, enough to sustain businesses which cater primarily to the tastes of those enclaves.
I can think of some high-end restaurants that had very interesting menus, but in my experience there is only a weak correlation between price and adventurousness. It may be different though for specifically Michelin-starred restaurants, since that's a curated list.