June is probably Lisbon’s most euphoric month, due to the city’s biggest street party that celebrates the patron Saint Anthony. Though the festival officially takes place on June 12-13, the party runs all month long, especially in Alfama, Mouraria and Graça. The smoke of sardines grilling, colorful decorations, makeshift neon fairgrounds and pimba music blaring from outdoor speakers enliven the narrow roads of these traditional neighborhoods. The bedlam isn’t for everyone, however, and for those who want to find a quieter spot that still celebrates fresh, seasonal fish, Largo de Alcântara is a good alternative. Located in the western part of the city, between Santos and Belém, this zone is a concentration of cervejarias and marisqueiras.

In & Out arrived in Beijing years ago to rave reviews, but the Yunnan restaurant only just settled in Shanghai, confusing homesick Californians with its name. Instead of Double-Double burgers and Animal-Style fries, it serves cross-the-bridge noodles (过桥米线, guòqiáo mǐxiàn) and fried potato balls (土豆球, tǔdòu qiú). While most Yunnan restaurants in China span the whole province’s cuisine, from tea leaf salads to crispy adzuki beans, In & Out’s menu is (mostly) specific to Lijiang, a city deemed a UNESCO heritage site that lies about halfway between Shangri-La and Kunming, the provincial capital, and is home to the Naxi and several other ethnic minorities

In Istanbul, there is a single neighborhood where one can find Uzbek mantı, imported Ethiopian spices and hair products, smuggled Armenian brandy, Syrian schwarma and sizzling kebap grilled up by an usta hailing from southeast Turkey’s Diyarbakır. Kumkapı – a shabby seaside strip of century-old homes, Greek and Armenian churches and residents from a vast array of countries that most Americans couldn't pick out on a map – is far and away the most diverse place in Istanbul. Nowhere else comes close. In perpetual motion, Kumkapı is home to a rotating cast of eclectic restaurants that cannot be found anywhere else in the city. Many of these open and close before we can squeeze in a second visit.

Delicious Amazonian food is just one element of our truly adventurous walk in the artsy, hillside Rio de Janeiro neighborhood of Santa Teresa.

As an electrician in the Galeão international airport, Emerson Gama responded to emergencies like exploding transformers. But in his spare time, he was becoming a self-made expert on Latin American mythology, tropical ecology and sustainable resource management. These passions led him to quit his job four years ago; since then, Gama has become the Rio de Janeiro chocolatier with the most dedicated cult following. Only a few South Zone specialty stores carry his Quetzal chocolates, and where they come from is largely unknown, both to the clients on the long waiting lists for deliveries and to Gama’s own neighbors. The “secret” source?

As one approaches the central square of Kalyvia, a small village only 10 minutes from Athens International Airport, the irresistible smell of grilled meat fills the nostrils. The whole area is packed with traditional grill houses, and many Athenians will make the 45-minute drive just to enjoy a meal there. The oldest taverna and one of the most famous is Kollias, which still boasts the traditional butcher shop that gives these grill houses their Greek name (hasapotaverna, or “butcher taverna”). Anastasios Kollias opened the place in 1930 just up the road, but it gradually became too small to accommodate the growing clientele, so it took its current spot on the square in 1991.

Editor's note: In the latest installment of our recurring feature, First Stop, we asked chef Somer Sivrioglu of the Sydney restaurant Efendy where he stops first for food when he returns to his hometown of Istanbul. Sivrioglu is the author of the cookbook Anatolia: Adventures in Turkish Cooking (Murdoch Books, April 2016). Any list is controversial and biased by its nature, and lists do not get any more biased than mine, as I am a Kadıköy fanatic and impossible to convince that there are better versions of food on the European side of Istanbul. I was born and raised in Kadıköy, and we lived first at Caferağa, five minutes to Kadıköy market, then in Moda, Kalamış and Fenerbahçe.

When they come into this shoebox of a pizzeria that still looks like the pé sujo (“dirty foot”) bar it previously was, clients often ask: But where’s Chico? That’s because they’re expecting Santa Teresa’s most beloved pizza chef to be a rotund and cherry-cheeked grandfatherly figure, perhaps in a red or green apron to make the point hit home. The toothy-grinning and somewhat lanky real Chico is instead someone who likes wearing running shoes to work so he can sprint out of his kitchen to greet the passersby on this cobblestone street for which he feels such affection he turned down a proposal to move to California. (More on that later. It involves Sylvester Stallone.)

In Athens, the traditional way to roast a lamb is right on the street. This age-old practice may be encountered during our Backstreet Plaka tour.

Crete, Greece’s largest island, is among the country’s most beautiful and interesting places to visit. Well known for its amazing beaches and unforgettable cuisine, the island also has a long history of wine making, dating back more than 4,000 years. The ancient Minoan civilization was one of the first to be deeply connected with wine. Viticulture and wine making are depicted on paintings in the Minoan palace of Knossos, while ancient wine presses have been found all over the island, with the world’s oldest in Vathypetro, just a few kilometers outside Heraklion, the capital. The Minoans were the world’s best-known merchants of the time, and amphorae carrying Cretan wine have been found in digs all over the Mediterranean basin.

When you think about lettuce, if you think about it at all, it’s probably as the bland but virtuous base to a salad. But in days past in Turkey, this leafy green was just as often consumed as a snack in itself, as an essential part of a main dish or even as a sweet treat. “Marul [romaine] has been cooked as a vegetable since ancient Greek, Roman, and Byzantine times,” says food writer Aylın Öney Tan. “In many parts of Anatolia, it was a spring tradition to dip marul in pekmez (molasses) or honey, to eat it with something sweet that contrasted with the lettuce’s bitterness.” This wouldn’t really work with supermarket iceberg, of course – to fully enjoy lettuce’s culinary potential requires a fresh, high-quality crop.

Pickles are serious business in this shop, which has been passed down from generation to generation. An unusual, surprisingly delicious selection of pickled fruits and veggies are often encountered on our Istanbul walks.

The northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa is nestled between the western Sierra Madre Mountains and the Gulf of California – putting it between surf and high desert, and the sea doth offer bounty. Be it gigantic squid, run-of-the-mill “fish” or marlin, the sinaloenses fear not the chopping block when it comes to seafood, and the state’s devil-may-care attitude (cooking with lime instead of actual heat) comes full force at Los Sinaloenses, located in trendy Roma Sur. The scrappy refuge lights onto a seafood-based, regional cuisine that manages to stand out in a nation with more than 9 km of coastline. It’s characterized by an array of ceviches, cocktails and other arthropod and piscine specialties.

We had to share this lovely photograph taken by Don Kedgley at Diporto, a basement taverna that has been around since 1887 and ranks among our favorite spots in Athen

On a recent sunny afternoon at the tiny Al Ahdab market, a wedge of light slashed through the front windows illuminating posters for condensed milk in Arabic script and one of an energy drink called Hell. The shop is easy to miss, tucked under the slope of Sarı Musa Sokak, which dips quickly from Millet Caddesi – the arterial avenue home to Istanbul’s Little Syria. By the front door was a rack of Cow Brand ghee, in large tin cans stacked like motor oil at a gas station. Entering the shop we were met with a complex layer of scents. By the drawers along the wall a fragrant cloud of spice hung – cumin, coriander, cinnamon