As one of the unsung heroes of traditional foods in Los Angeles, soondae (also known as Korean blood sausage) is having a resurgence in popularity, thanks to culinary pilgrims who make it their mission to visit Los Angeles, a city known for some of the trendiest and best-tasting Korean restaurants outside of South Korea. Wedged into the corner of a strip mall between a beauty salon and a print shop, the tiny Eighth Street Soondae, beloved by the Koreatown community since 1990, is possibly the best place in L.A. to try the dish.

In 1683, so the story goes, an Austrian Jewish baker wished to honor King Jan Sobieski of Poland for repelling an invading army. The king was renowned as a horseman, and so the baker shaped a ring of dough into the shape of a stirrup – a beugel. That origin story might be impossible to verify, but the bagel is inextricably entwined with the culinary history of Eastern European Jews – and, thanks to immigration in the 19th and early 20th centuries, with the culinary history of New York City Today, of course, bagels are consumed not only within New York's Jewish communities but throughout the city – and the United States – as standard American breakfast fare. Commercially packaged and, typically, frozen, bagels are displayed and sold in the same chain stores that sell brand-name sliced bread. But while they might adhere to the basics – yeasted dough shaped into a ring, briefly boiled, then baked – these mass-market bagels are factory-made.

The origin of Gelataria Portuense is not your average love story. It is a more intricate tale, worthy of the universe of writer Isaac Asimov, as it begins with a woman's passion for a machine. In this case, the woman is the Porto-based gelatiere Ana Castro Ferreira, and the device is called Effe, a prodigious gelato machine created at the hands of Otello Cattabriga, an ingenious and talented Italian inventor. When Ana – who formerly worked as a researcher on sustainable energy systems for buildings – took an interest in gelato, she went about searching for a gelato-making class. While investigating online, Ferreira came across a video in which skilled hands demonstrate the agility and elegance of the Effe machine.

Restaurants aren't hard to come by in Tbilisi, but it is harder to find places that feel like eating in your grandmother’s living room. Walls lined with family photographs fading from color to black and white, an eclectic collection of paintings, a whole window dedicated to religious icons, and a menu that can change on a whim. This is Nikolozi, a tiny restaurant in Sololaki run by Dodo Ilashvili, a singular powerhouse who creates the food and the feeling all herself.

For me, some of my favorite dishes when I return to Lisbon are the following: Rissois de camarão – prawn rissoles Grilled Alentejo pork plumas with a tomato salad and piri piri. These are the dishes that make me salivate when I fly back home. Both of them symbolize the food of Lisbon and they always taste better in situ.The pork dish is one you can find with reasonable quality in most good tascas or old school eateries throughout the city. I prefer to sit outside to soak in the sun, perhaps because I now live in London where there’s so little of it.

Summer markets in Marseille come alive, bathed in a colorful, brilliant bounty when fruits and vegetables are in their prime. There are over 25 open markets in Marseille and every Saturday, our mornings are booked. We set out to one of our neighborhood favorites, the market at Place Sébastopol in the town center, to search for a particular treat. A summertime market grandstander is the fleur de courgette, or zucchini blossom. This gorgeous, bright yellow-orange edible flower is in season from May through September. The blossoms are prepared in almost every way imaginable, as toasty beignets (fritters) or farcis, stuffed flowers that contain meat, rice, cheese and vegetables bathed in tomato sauce. Zucchini blossoms can also be eaten raw, and are delicious in a summer salad.

Walk around Piazza Marina and you will come across several city monuments and historical sites. You’ll be enchanted by Palazzo Steri, which today houses the university rectory but until a few centuries ago was home to the infamous Inquisition Tribunal. You will also find the place where the famous New York policeman of Italian origin, Joe Petrosino, who came to Palermo to investigate the Sicilian mafia, was murdered in the early 20th century. At the center of the square, in Villa Garibaldi, designed by the famous architect Basile and dedicated to the leader of the Unification of Italy, stands the largest Ficus tree in Europe: a true natural monument that unloads the weight of its prominence on branches that end up expanding its roots by breaking their way through centuries-old sidewalks.

Some parts of the Mitaka Chige Club’s name obviously ring true. It is one of many restaurants and bars clustered around Mitaka station’s North exit. Jiggae (often written “chige” in Japanese katakana), a shockingly red Korean soup with a gochujang base, occupies a substantial portion of the main menu. The “club” aspect becomes evident with the palpable feeling that this whole experience is carried by a small group. Passionate individuals on both sides of the counter are the lifeblood of the Mitaka Chige Club.

Las Chiquihuitas is a relative newcomer to Oaxaca’s organics scene that celebrates its two-year anniversary this month. A tiny sliver of a corner store located right smack-dab in the city’s historic center, the shop manages to pack a surprising amount of organic, local and lovingly produced foods within the diminutive confines of its four walls. A quick examination of Chiquihuitas’ lone refrigerator turns up a candy-colored array of seasonally flavored kombuchas and ginger beers stacked above a selection of buffalo milk butter and cheeses sourced from the Oaxacan coast, plus chunky glass jars of ferments ranging from classic sauerkraut to spicy kimchi. The store’s selection of dry goods might include shiny black beans, sticky, dark-brown blocks of the unprocessed sugar known as panela and jugs of fragrant virgin coconut oil. Happily, there’s a robust lineup of fresh produce, too, with juicy tomatoes, spiky pineapples and nubby potatoes peeking out of the black plastic crates dominating one of the store’s shelving units.

We all have that friend. A friend we should probably call more often. One who is always there for us, but we don’t see often enough. A friend who we can pick up where we left off with, no matter how much time has elapsed between conversations. A friend whose company always leaves you satisfied and wondering: Why didn’t we do this sooner? Buffa’s Bar and Restaurant is that friend. An outpost in the Marigny neighborhood on Esplanade Avenue, divided from the French Quarter by a neutral ground (which is New Orleanian for “street median”). A few blocks away, the classic dive bar Port of Call draws tourists and locals in a line that stretches around the block for their potent drinks and hearty burgers.

In over a decade of sampling the best of Mexico City’s backstreets, finding a truly good taco has never been an elusive task. Navigating all the different types, toppings and tortillas is another story – from al pastor with Lebanese roots to pit-roasted barbacoa to delectable clay pots of stews for tacos de guisado, the world of Mexico City tacos feels infinite. There appears to be a different taco for every occasion, and the options can be overwhelming. Our local guides have done their due diligence in finding some of Mexico City’s best tacos and, in a long overdue roundup, below we bring you some of our favorites to date. From classic taquerías to busy market stalls and even an auto repair shop, read on for our top taco recommendations.

We’re in Os Papagaios, the restaurant Joaquim Saragga oversees in Lisbon’s Arroios neighborhood, where we’ve asked him to show us how to make one of Lisbon’s more iconic dishes: ervilhas guisadas, peas braised with Portuguese sausages, typically crowned with poached eggs. Come spring, Portugal revels in green-hued produce: fava beans, asparagus, artichoke, spinach and other leaves. Peas feature in this bounty, but the ubiquity of frozen peas means that the dish makes frequent appearances on tasca and restaurant menus during all times of year.

“The future is in water and grain,” says Natia Kalandarishvili. She is the co-founder of Graminea, a minimalist but inviting shop in Sololaki whose mission goes beyond just selling the best sourdough in town. The bakery uses endemic Georgian wheat for their bread flour in an effort to support rebalancing the national wheat market – an unusual approach in a bread-heavy cuisine which relies primarily on imported wheat. Natia and her friend Salome Zakaraia started Graminea in February 2023. Now head baker, Salome was previously a makeup artist by profession, working on film sets. But like many others during the Covid-19 pandemic, she started baking sourdough while she was stuck at home.

It’s a bit of culinary magic. Plain old black-eyed peas are transformed into a fluffy white cloud, before somehow changing once again, this time into a crimson, crispy fritter. This is acarajé, and as a dish with origins in Bahia, the homeland of Afro-Brazilian spirituality, other types of magic can also play a role. In Lisbon, you can witness the results of this transformation at Acarajé da Carol. “There are other people [in Portugal] making acarajé, but they’re not from Bahia!” the eponymous owner – full name Carol Alves de Brito – tells us. Bahia, Carol’s homeland, is the region of Brazil with the strongest links to Africa. Salvador, the state’s capital, was once a major destination in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and today it’s the largest Black city outside of Africa.

At a booth bathed in the winter sun, a group of coworkers happily munch burgers and frites. Behind them, a toddler claps with glee as his mom hands him a meal in a colorful box. Two teens bypass the counter to punch in their order at the giant phone-like kiosk. Customers in cars wait in line at the drive-thru. Despite all these trappings of a fast-food joint, and the Golden Arches on the sign outside, this is no McDonald’s. Even if it was born from one. L'Après M is a fast-food restaurant, professional integration project, food bank, and community center, all rolled into one unique spot. Its name (the M stands for “McDonald’s”) refers to its previous tenant.