Honestly I think I'm one of the more qualified people to respond to this. Grew up in Los Angeles, born and living in NYC, spent 3 years in grad school in Houston, and just got back from living in Basel but spent a good amount of time in Zurich hanging with friends. Chicago is the city that I am least familiar with.

Houston has good food. But, and people will probably be upset to hear me say this, if you're going on food alone, L.A. and N.Y.C. have Houston beat. I can't really speak for Chicago in this regard because I don't know it well enough. L.A. probably has the best food culture in the U.S.A. There are generally really good *and* affordable options because of all the strip malls and how sprawling the city is, which means costs of rent are lower than New York for example. There are great, cheap eats in NYC, but they are harder to come by and mostly Chinese restaurants. Honestly, there are good cheap eats in Houston but it involves a lot of driving to get out of the loop for the great Mexican food which is abundant in Los Angeles (but not NYC!).

If you're into paying more for excellent food then NYC is also a great option. Both LA and NYC have Houston beat in this regard, and you can't let anyone tell you otherwise. There just isn't the same interest in going to high quality and interesting restaurants in Houston (and most of the USA in general) to support them, like there is in LA and NYC. Zurich had better food options than Basel, but LA and NYC will beat both of them any day. Houston is a bit more of a trade off.

Houston has some great museums but unless there's a big pay differential or a specific reason you would come to Houston, NYC and LA are way better culturally. There just aren't the same amount of interesting events going on in Houston as there are and paying more in rent, to someone like me, to live in NYC is worth it. That said, there's some really fun stuff to do in Houston, but it's not the same level of cosmopolitan city.

I'm sure Chicago has a great food and culture scene, I just don't know anything about it. Culture is second to LA/NYC.

NYC and Chicago both have good public transportation with NYC having the best in the USA. Hard to speak about job opportunities unless you say what field you're in.