Osaka

Scenes from Our New Osaka Tour: A Photo Essay

On our culinary walk of Osaka, we taste our way through the historic merchant district of Kitahama to Kuromon Market to the lively entertainment area of Dotonbori. We stop at kombu (kelp) shops, miso producers, fishmongers, and street food stalls to dive into the flavors that define Osaka cuisine, with a particular focus on the savory fifth taste: umami. While Osaka is known as the "Kitchen of Japan," many outside the country are unaware of the colored history and diverse influences that have shaped its unique gastronomy. World War II destroyed much of Osaka, and the society changed significantly as well – but the spirit of the city remains intact in its markets, standing bars, and small independent restaurants.

Mexico City

The Essentials: Where We Eat in Mexico City

The streets of Mexico City, lined with vendors hawking everything form elotes to pan dulce, wind from leafy parks to old neighborhoods where music spills from crowded cantinas – here is a metropolis that sings a siren song to food lovers of every variety, making where to eat a hard question to answer simply. We’re talking more than just tacos. Comforting pozole, mole prepared every which way, the chocolate of legend, traditional cuisine abounds if you know where to look. The old, the bold, and the new collide, and local flavors mix with regional and international influences – as they have for centuries. You'll find cochinita pibil from Yucatán sharing the stage with Oaxacan tlayudas, and contemporary chefs adding an elegant spin to age-old recipes. Here, culinary traditions are both honored and reimagined.

Worldwide

Umami Town: Feasting, Osaka Style

On this full-day food tour in Osaka – Japan’s “umami town” – we’ll chase down the eats and flavors that make this city such a culinary capital.

New Orleans

First Stop: Ian McNulty’s New Orleans

I know it sounds like a cliché – New Orleans and gumbo – but no other dish so genuinely represents the food culture and the food love of this city. It’s a dish you’ll find on countless menus, from the most upscale to backstreet joints. You will also find it in most New Orleans homes. It’s the dish we make at Thanksgiving and at Christmas. It’s the dish we make when it gets cold and we need comfort food and the dish we make when we have company over and we want to give them a taste of New Orleans. So eating gumbo, a really good gumbo, at a restaurant is a very true New Orleans experience. As a visitor, you are doing exactly what locals do.

Bangkok

Introducing Bangkok: Through the Eyes of Our Local Team

To properly introduce Bangkok, CB’s newest location, we turned to Austin Bush, who helped design our Bangkok culinary walk. An American photographer and writer (who frequently writes about Lisbon, his current home base), Austin previously lived in Bangkok for more than 20 years, from where he contributed to just about every major food and travel publication, as well as to more than 40 guidebooks for Lonely Planet. In 2018, he wrote and photographed the James Beard Award finalist, The Food of Northern Thailand. Its successor, The Food of Southern Thailand, was released in 2024. Here, Austin shares some of the ins and outs of dining in Bangkok, his visions for the new CB tour, and what makes the bustling Thai capital so great for exploring – and eating.

Worldwide

Backstreet Bangkok: Exploring the Cradle of Thai Cooking

Get ready to rethink what you know about Thai food on this full-day tour of Rattanakosin Island, the place where today’s Bangkok – and its vibrant cooking – was born.

Mexico City

Mercado Mania: The Best Markets in Mexico City

Each Mexico City market is a universe unto itself – a bustling hub of neighborhood activity and a feast for the senses that borders on the overwhelming. From food stalls serving up just about any dish from around the Republic to entire city blocks of plants and cut flowers to fresh produce and meat, the many local markets are a can’t-miss stop on every visit to the Mexican capital. Each one has its own specialties, its own rhythm and its own tricks of the trade. Our local guides have broken down a few of their favorite markets and here we dive into what makes each one unique. A mecca for the capital’s culinary explorers, San Juan Pugibet is likely the only market on the planet where you can pick up tofu (at Productos Orientales), ostrich meat (at Los Coyotes), and chicatana salsa (at Productos Oaxaqueños, made from Oaxacan flying ants!) on any given day.