Here’s a fact that trips people up: the man who has lived in gold-plated penthouses and owned multiple luxury properties reportedly gravitates toward the kind of food most Americans eat on a Tuesday night. Donald Trump’s restaurant preferences — both his favorites and the places he’s publicly trashed — tell a weirdly fascinating story about taste, expectation, and the internet’s obsession with what powerful people put in their mouths.
Wait, so what does the guy actually eat?
If you’ve followed Trump’s eating habits over the years, you already know the broad strokes. The man loves fast food. McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC — he’s been photographed eating all of them, sometimes on his private jet with a knife and fork. His go-to order at McDonald’s has been reported as two Big Macs, two Filet-O-Fish sandwiches, and a chocolate milkshake. That’s not a joke. That’s been documented by former aides.
But beyond the drive-thru runs, Trump has long been associated with specific sit-down restaurants — mostly steakhouses and hotel dining rooms. His well-known preference for steak cooked well-done with ketchup on the side has generated more discourse than some actual policy debates. The internet has strong feelings about this.
The steakhouse thing runs deep
Trump’s connection to steak goes beyond just ordering it. He literally had his own brand of steaks — Trump Steaks — which launched through The Sharper Image in 2007. That venture didn’t exactly take off, and the steaks quietly disappeared from shelves. But the preference itself has never wavered. When he dines out, it’s almost always at places that serve a thick cut of beef. Peter Luger in Brooklyn was reportedly a spot he frequented. The Trump Grill (yes, inside Trump Tower) serves a predictable menu of American classics — burgers, steaks, club sandwiches.
What catches people off guard is how simple the food actually is. There’s no omakase. No tasting menus. No molecular gastronomy. For a billionaire, the menu reads more like an Applebee’s with nicer chairs. And honestly? That’s kind of the whole point of why people find it interesting.
And then there are the restaurants he doesn’t like
This is where it gets fun. Trump has been vocal — publicly, loudly vocal — about restaurants that don’t meet his standards. And naturally, the internet has taken those grudges and run with them. One TikTok creator from the account Blatant Reviews actually went and tried what was described as Trump’s least favorite restaurant. The video racked up tens of thousands of likes and hundreds of comments, most of them agreeing that the food looked genuinely bad.
The comments section was brutal. People pointed out raw chicken, unevenly cooked steak, and one commenter said the meat “still had a pulse.” Another wrote, “Trump was right once again,” which got dozens of likes. Whether you’re a fan of the man or not, the consensus seemed clear: the food was rough.
Why anyone cares what a president eats
This might seem trivial, but Americans have always had a weird fascination with presidential food choices. Obama caught heat for ordering Dijon mustard on a burger. George H.W. Bush famously hated broccoli and banned it from Air Force One. Bill Clinton was known for his love of McDonald’s long before Trump made fast food a personality trait. What a president eats — or refuses to eat — becomes shorthand for who they are.
With Trump, the fast food fixation plays directly into his brand. He’s pitched himself as a man of the people despite the private jets and gold fixtures. Eating Big Macs and well-done steaks with ketchup says “I’m one of you” to a lot of voters. It’s calculated, sure. But it also appears to be genuinely what the man likes to eat. Former White House staff have confirmed as much — the guy just really likes his food simple and predictable.
The ketchup-on-steak controversy that won’t die
Let’s talk about it. Because it comes up every single time. Trump orders his steaks well-done and puts ketchup on them. Chefs have publicly cringed. Food critics have written columns. The steak community — yes, that’s a thing — has expressed collective dismay. A well-done steak with ketchup is, to a lot of food people, roughly equivalent to putting ice cubes in a glass of wine. It works. Nobody’s stopping you. But people will have opinions.
Here’s the thing though — millions of Americans eat steak the exact same way. A 2019 survey found that well-done was actually the most popular doneness level in several states. Ketchup as a steak condiment isn’t as rare as the internet pretends. Trump’s preference just gets amplified because of who he is. If your uncle orders the same thing at Outback Steakhouse, nobody writes an article about it.
Fast food photo ops are basically a political tradition now
Trump didn’t invent the presidential fast food moment, but he turned it into an art form. Remember the White House spread during the 2019 government shutdown? He ordered McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, and Domino’s for the Clemson Tigers football team when the White House kitchen was understaffed. The image of silver trays loaded with Big Macs under crystal chandeliers became one of the most memed moments of his presidency. Love it or hate it, you remember it.
That event also kicked off a broader conversation about fast food in formal settings. Some people thought it was disrespectful to the athletes. Others thought it was hilarious and refreshingly honest. A few Clemson players said they actually loved it. The whole episode was very on-brand for someone whose restaurant preferences have always leaned toward the familiar over the fancy.
What his restaurant opinions have spawned online
Food TikTok and YouTube have turned Trump’s dining habits into a content genre. Creators visit his favorite spots. They try the meals he’s publicly praised. They go to places he’s dissed and see if the criticism holds up. It’s become its own little ecosystem of food content, and it performs well because people are curious. The Blatant Reviews video mentioned earlier pulled in nearly 40,000 likes on a single clip about Trump’s least favorite restaurant. The comments had over a thousand replies debating the food quality.
What makes it work as content is the built-in hook. You don’t even have to like Trump or care about politics to be curious about whether the restaurant he complained about actually serves bad food. It’s pure food drama, wrapped in a celebrity angle, and that’s a recipe TikTok eats up every time. Some of the comments are politically charged, sure, but most of them are just people reacting to undercooked chicken and bloody steaks.
The restaurants that claim him as a regular
Several restaurants have leaned into the Trump connection over the years. The Trump Grill inside Trump Tower in Manhattan is the obvious one, but he’s also been associated with Jean-Georges (which occupies space in the Trump International Hotel in New York), the Mar-a-Lago dining room, and BLT Prime at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. These places range from upscale to very upscale — but his actual orders at them tend to be the same simple stuff. Shrimp cocktail. Meatloaf. Steak, well done.
Some restaurants have even quoted Trump on their menus or promotional materials, which, given his vocal nature about food, can cut both ways. One commenter on the Blatant Reviews TikTok pointed out that a restaurant was quoting Trump while serving food he’d apparently criticized. “Can’t believe the nerve,” the comment read, “to quote Donny on their menu and still serve this.” That’s the kind of detail that makes the internet great.
It says something about American food culture too
Step back from the politics for a second, and Trump’s food preferences reflect something real about how a huge chunk of America eats. We are a country built on burgers, fries, steak, and Coca-Cola. Fast food chains generate over $300 billion in revenue annually in the U.S. The average American eats fast food multiple times a week. Trump’s diet isn’t unusual — it’s just unusually visible. He eats like a lot of Americans eat. He just does it while being one of the most recognizable people on the planet.
And that visibility is what makes it all so fascinating and so contentious. When a billionaire president eats the same $5 value meal as a construction worker in Ohio, it reads as either authentic or performative, depending on your political leanings. There’s really no neutral take. But the food itself? It’s just food. Burgers and steaks and chicken tenders. The reactions tell you more about us than they do about him.
So what’s the actual takeaway here
Trump’s restaurant preferences are a mix of relatable fast food loyalty and billionaire steakhouse dining — which is a weirder combination than most people expect. The internet has turned his food opinions into a content machine, and creators are cashing in by testing whether his restaurant critiques hold up. Most of the time, the commenters seem to think they do.
Next time someone tries to tell you a restaurant is amazing or terrible, maybe do what those TikTok creators do: go try it yourself and see if the hype — or the criticism — actually matches reality.
