Athens

Yiantes: Diamond in the Rough

Exarchia is one of Athens’ liveliest neighborhoods. Home to students and intellectuals alike, it’s filled with bookshops, music stores and “free-thinking spaces,” an interesting bookstore/café hybrid where political debates and local residents’ council meetings are sometimes held. The area looks slightly worn-down: the neoclassical and post-war buildings are littered with graffiti tags and music posters, which means – as visitors to other European capitals might know – that there are great places for eating and drinking here.

Istanbul

Fish in Istanbul: Natural Selection(s)

In the evolutionary process of the Istanbul fish restaurant, there was a moment in the late 1990s when the amphibious, shore-hugging boat restaurants crawled out of the Bosphorus and became land dwellers. Overnight, yellow Wellington boots became black loafers as seafaring grill men became restaurateurs and waiters.

Istanbul

Lades 2: A Beyoğlu Greasy Spoon

The no-frills Lades 2 presents diners with that age-old question: what to eat first, the chicken or the eggs? A Turkish version of the American-style greasy-spoon diner, this restaurant specializes in all things fowl, from chicken soup to a variety of egg dishes and even a dessert that – we kid you not – weds a thick, milky pudding with chicken. Even the name (“lades” means wishbone) follows the chicken theme.

Barcelona

La Flauta: Fisherman’s Friend

Catalan owners, Filipino chefs and a menu offering comfort food inspired by the cooking of Iberian sailors: La Flauta, a restaurant-cum-tapas-bar that goes long both on good taste and good value, is an excellent reminder of the benefits of Barcelona’s being a port town.

Shanghai

A Da Cong You Bing: Cult Pancake

[Editor's note: We're sorry to report that A Da Cong You Bing has closed.] In China, where queuing isn’t part of the culture, a long line of hungry diners patiently waiting for their food is just about the highest compliment a restaurant can receive. By those standards, Mr. Wu’s scallion oil pancakes are, hands down, one of the most sought-after breakfast treats in Shanghai. The line that stretches out his kitchen’s back door and wraps around the street corner means that fans of his savory pancakes can wait for hours, gulping in the scallion-scented air as they look forward to their chance to sink their teeth into the real thing. Scallion oil pancakes (葱油饼, cōngyóubǐng) are a common breakfast treat in Shanghai, but when Mr. Wu makes them, the little savory rounds stuffed with salty pork and scallions become an art form.

Introducing Culinary Backstreets: Our Gastro Manifesto

Let’s be honest: for most of us, city travel is really about eating. Sure, we make plans to visit the local monuments and important museums, but those are merely placeholders.

Istanbul

Istanbul: State of the Stomach 2012

Beyond the kebab – and what you will find listed in most guidebooks for Istanbul – lies a wide range of unique Turkish regional cuisines and restaurants with hints of Balkan, Caucasian and Middle Eastern cooking. The city has been a crossroads of numerous civilizations for centuries and, more recently, a magnet for migrants from across Turkey, with every group that has either come through or stayed put adding their ingredients to Istanbul’s culinary stew. Thanks to this, one of the joys of visiting Istanbul is that, in terms of eating, it’s possible to visit every one of Turkey’s varied regions – and even a few neighboring countries – without ever leaving the city limits. With restaurants serving everything from the Middle Eastern-influenced kebabs of Southeast Turkey to the homey, rib-sticking soul food of the Black Sea area in the North, Istanbul has truly become the culinary Babel of the country.

Shanghai

Shanghai: State of the Stomach

Dining like a local in Shanghai often requires a small leap of faith. You have to forget about ambience and brave tough crowds with even tougher elbows to join the raucous, slurping masses with their steamers of the city’s famous soup dumplings, xiǎolóngbāo. Even with its thriving economy and sky-high construction boom, Shanghai still has a street food culture that is deliciously cheap and easy to find. To become a part of the appetizing fun, just look one street off the main road or wander into the city’s disappearing lilong (里弄, alleyways), which more often than not are teeming with Chinese pancake hawkers, wonton shops or makeshift grills emitting the smoky aroma of charred lamb kebabs.

Barcelona

Barcelona: State of the Stomach

While even glass-half-full types are calling Spain’s economic forecast gray, the food climate in the Catalan capital couldn’t be sunnier. With packed tables, new venues such as Tickets and 41˚, and Spain’s hottest restaurant, Can Roca (recently voted #2 in the world) just a stone’s throw away in Girona, Barcelona’s restaurant scene provides an elixir guaranteed to cure the eurozone’s worst economic hangovers. Interviewed recently on Spanish national television, legendary chef Ferran Adrià was asked by radio journalist Luis del Olmo, ¿Cómo se cocina la crisis? (How does one cook the crisis?) Adrià answered, “With innovation and taking risks.”

Athens

Athens: State of the Stomach

For the average visitor to Athens, the culinary scene remains captive to a number of clichés. The cobblestone streets of Plaka are still lined with tavernas and restaurants ready to cater to a rather outdated and make-believe idea of Greek eating: drinking retsina and eating moussaka under the moonlit Parthenon with the occasional bouzouki playing in the background, or going for souvlaki (the most famous Greek street food) near Monastiraki Square among a throng of tourists. These experiences are, unfortunately, still the norm for the majority of travelers to Athens.

Shanghai

Mi Xiang Yuan: Alleyway Gourmet

Twenty years ago, lilong, the tiny alleyways and courtyard houses that make up the backstreets of Shanghai, were packed with tiny mom-and-pop restaurants serving longtang cai, alleyway cuisine, to office workers and neighboring residents. But as the city’s construction boom demolished many of these lanes, the longtang dishes went back into grandmothers’ kitchens, only available to those who were heading home for lunch.

Istanbul

Şahin Lokantası: Edible Complex

For Turks, mealtime is often a complicated emotional drama, one that revolves around a lifelong effort to return to the culinary womb – in other words, Mother’s kitchen. In Turkey, Mom’s cooking sets the standard by which all others are judged and, truth be told, some of the finest meals we’ve had here have been home-cooked ones.

Shanghai

Shouning Lu: For When You’re Feeling Shellfish

You know you’ve picked a good spot to eat when you give the taxi driver the address and he knows exactly what you’re up to. “The place to eat crayfish!” he’s likely to say enthusiastically.

Athens

Kriti: Cretan Comforts

It all started about six years ago, when Cretan cuisine – food from Crete, one of Greece’s largest and most famous islands – became fashionable in Athens. Suddenly, Cretan restaurants started popping up all around the city.

Istanbul

Kandilli Suna’nın Yeri: Port of Call

Boat-spotting on the Bosphorus is a favorite pastime for those lucky enough to have windows with the right view. On any given weekend afternoon on the busy straits that divide this city, the ship and boat traffic unfolds like a caravan of the flags of the lesser-known countries of the world.

Athens

To Triantafilo tis Nostimias: Locals Only

To Triantafilo tis Nostimias restaurant would be impossible to find if someone didn’t tell you it was there. Although just a five-minute walk from busy Syntagma Square, it is hidden in an arcade on the rather unappealing Lekka Street. Despite the central location, the downtown Athens standout remains largely unknown and is not even included in most Athenian food guides. You truly have to be a local to come here.

Shanghai

Wei Xiang Zhai: One Dish Wonder

Sometimes a word in Chinese so perfectly captures a mood or feeling that the English approximation seems woefully inadequate. To take one example, the Chinese combine “hot” (热) and “noise” (闹) to describe the loud and lively nature of local hotspots, but in English, the best we can do is “bustling.” To experience what China’s “hot noise” is really all about, head to Wei Xiang Zhai. Not for the claustrophobic or timid, this wildly popular noodle house demands that you elbow your way to a table for your chance to slurp down a bowl of the city’s best sesame paste noodles (麻酱面, májiàng miàn). Don’t be intimidated by the Chinese-only menu here. It may look long and complicated, but over the years, the character for “sold out” (无) has become a permanent menu fixture, collecting dust and reminding diners that once, long ago, there were other options here.

Barcelona

Cala del Vermut: Sweet Tradition, On Tap

In many parts of the world, sweet red vermouth is assigned a supporting role on the liquor shelf, a neglected bit player occasionally dusted off to sing a tune or two. In Barcelona, however, the aperitif has played a starring role for ages, so much so that some places even serve the stuff on tap. That’s right. Vermouth. On tap.