Take a rich chicken bone stock and toss in a handful of whole ground spices and herbs. Add a whole chicken leg, braised until the meat is almost sliding off the bone. Slip in a bouquet of cooked vegetables – the bare minimum being carrot, broccoli, bell peppers, eggplant and potato – and serve alongside rice. This is a classic Hokkaido soup curry, a spicy, vibrant soup-and-rice dish guaranteed to warm even the cold, dead bodies of your enemies. But this isn’t its final form. Like the Choose Your Own Adventure books of the 1980s, you can customize almost every aspect of your bowl.

Bhanchha Ghar (Bahn-sah Gar) is the only four-time winner of New York City’s annual Momo Crawl. Early one afternoon, more than a thousand event goers fanned out from the block-long, pedestrian-only Diversity Plaza, at the western edge of Jackson Heights, and called on dozens of nearby restaurants, cafés, trucks and carts. Each dished out at least one style of momo, a filled dumpling best-known from Tibet and Nepal. Several hours later, after momo-crawlers had returned to the plaza and the popular vote had been tallied, Yamuna Shrestha, the owner of Bhanchha Ghar, once again proudly raised the Momo Belt high. The decorated yak-hide belt returned to its glass case, mounted on the back wall of the upstairs dining area, where it overlooks an open kitchen and a handful of tables.

The Catalan ensaïmada is more than just a pastry – the sweet, spiral-shaped bread covered in powdered sugar serves as a direct link to the ancient Sephardic Jewish history of Spain and, more specifically, the Balearic Island of Mallorca (Majorca, in English). Despite the Jewish connection, the name of the pastry actually comes from the Catalan word for lard, saïm, and literally means “mixed with lard.” According to recent research conducted by the Majorcan pastry chef and culinary anthropologist Tomeu Arbona, ensaïmadas are Christianized relatives of an ancient Jewish bread baked on the island, similar to braided challah.

Legumes have been at the core of the Greek diet since antiquity, with chickpeas being especially popular. We find references to them, and the ways they were cooked, in the works of several ancient writers and poets, including Homer, whose epic poems provide insight into the eating and cooking habits of the time (roughly the 8th century B.C.). Revythi (ρεβύθι) is the Greek word for chickpeas, and it derives from the ancient Greek word erevynthos (ερέβυνθος), which referred to both the plant and the seed. Sappho (c. 630-570 B.C.), the greatest female Greek lyric poet, spoke of “Χρύσειοι ἐρέβινθοι ἐπ ̓ ἀιόνων ἐφύοντο,” which translates roughly as “Golden chickpeas that have for centuries been growing.”

The requirements for a place to qualify as an authentic Neapolitan trattoria are simple: It must be tiny, intimate and quiet, with a small menu and a genuine atmosphere. In other words, it must be La Cantina Di Via Sapienza. This is not a trattoria with fake antiques strategically placed inside to draw tourists or chic Neapolitans looking for “aesthetic” culinary experiences. Rather, La Cantina Di Via Sapienza is a true neighborhood spot that serves meals to the employees and nurses of the nearby polyclinic, and to the students and professors from the various universities of the historic center.

"Everything had to remain the same." In the dining room of Rincon Criollo, a Cuban restaurant in Corona, Esther Acosta recalls the pledge that she and her older brother, Rudesindo ("Rudy") Acosta, made to their great-uncles when they took the reins of the family business. The surrounding community has changed in the years since the restaurant opened in 1976. Today, it's easier to find chaulafan from Ecuador, chalupas from Mexico or chow from many other Latin American countries than to find the shredded, slow-simmered flank steak of a traditional Cuban ropa vieja.

Oaxaca has become one of our favorite food destinations in Mexico. A few weeks ago we visited the city again, but this time it wasn’t the moles or the decadent regional food that caught our attention, but an organic market where we had a delicious breakfast one morning. El Pochote (named after a thorny, flowering tree native to Central America) is an organization of local organic producers that was founded in November 2003 by local artist Francisco Toledo. Making an omelet at Mamá Lechuga, photo by Ben HerreraThe market offers all kinds of products, from vegetables and fruits to prepared meals and juices. The main objective of the market is to support those who grow or make healthy products of excellent quality, who interact with the natural environment in a way that respects local ecosystems and who maintain and increase the fertility of the soil and land.

Barcelona’s old bodegas are resilient specimens. Despite facing the forces of development and gentrification, they have had an incredible capacity for preservation, remaining one of the few businesses in the city still alive with the same energy of decades past. The strong attachment of locals in Barcelona to the magnetic personality of their neighborhood bodega is the secret of these survivors’ evolutionary strength. Bodega Josefa, located in El Farró neighborhood’s Lesseps, is one such bodega. Originally a 1920s cellar and shop for bulk wine called Casa Paco, now the bodega offers one of the best homey lunch menus and vermut aperitifs in the area, as well as stomping grounds for neighborhood FC Barcelona fans.

Just as Marseille’s Mediterranean port has welcomed people from across the globe for centuries, Île de Réunion’s plum location in the Indian Ocean has made the island a crossroads for many cultures. Each one has tossed their ingredients into the melting pot of island cuisine. The island’s first colonists, the French, brought their technique for daube (stews) in the 17th century. During the burgeoning coffee trade, enslaved Malagache (people from Madagascar) brought ginger and chilis from their much-larger island just to the west. In the mid-1800s, Indians working on sugar plantations brought a myriad of spices: masala, turmeric and cinnamon, to name a few. At the turn of the 20th century, the Chinese brought with them soy, oyster and fish sauces as well as frying techniques.

The restaurant that Inês Mendonça dreamed of can only be described using the Portuguese expression levantar as pedras da calçada – literally, to raise the stones from the sidewalk” –to create something totally new and groundbreaking. When Porto’s now-popular Ruas das Flores was being restored, the din of construction clanging as workers labored to turn it into a pedestrian-only thoroughfare, Inês was seeing miles ahead. It was there that her restaurant would open its doors, she decided, and it would be a place different from all the rest – relaxed and full of curiosities.

Ahead of our recent launch in Los Angeles, we spoke to our L.A. editorial advisor Hadley Tomicki and L.A. walk leader Ethan Brosowsky about their relationship with food in the city and their views on its culinary atmosphere. Hadley is a Los Angeles-based critic and journalist whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, New York Magazine and many other places. He is also one the co-founders of the site LA Taco. Ethan has been guiding people around Los Angeles for over two decades, first as a skipper on Disneyland’s Jungle Cruise, then later as a private guide. Ethan studied at University College London and received his bachelor of arts in politics and history of art from New York University.

“I don't want to die, because I just can't get enough of Istanbul,” proclaims Mari Esgici, chef and owner of Marinee Kaburga, a small, cozy restaurant specializing in kaburga (beef ribs) and brisket that is a delightful addition to the Kurtuluş neighborhood's culinary patchwork. Hailing from an Armenian family with roots in the southeastern city of Diyarbakır, Mari came to Istanbul in 1980 as a child and has seen a great deal of the City. In the process, she has become a vital part of its culinary scene, in no small part due to her larger-than-life personality. It would be an understatement to say that Mari is a character, her intense vibes radiate from the kitchen and you know exactly where you stand with the chef.

On a hidden street in Lisbon’s residential Anjos neighborhood, Francisco (Chico) Jesus and Daniela Silvestre are busy prepping for dinner service. It’s still early afternoon, but there’s a lot to do before the doors of Patuá open at 7:30pm. Some Chinese art pieces are scattered about their restaurant, hinting at the tastes to come – though these only tell one part of the story. At Patuá, food hailing from the former Portuguese colony of Macau – now administered by China – anchors the menu, but the restaurant is also chronicling the evolution of the Portuguese post-colonial kitchen, with the country’s connection to India and the African continent making an appearance on the plate.

It’s noon on the first day of 2022 in Tokyo’s historic Asakusa neighborhood and we find ourselves in Hinatomaru, a casual standing sushi bar. There are few better places to eavesdrop on conversations than in small bars like this one. Outside, thousands of people bundled in winter coats and kimonos throng the main approach to Sensoji, Tokyo’s oldest Buddhist temple. Shepherded by police into a queue spilling out onto the road in front of Kaminarimon Gate, which has been closed off to cars today, they’re here for hatsumōde, the first shrine or temple visit of the new year. We decided to forgo the crowded shrine for our own venerable tradition of hatsuzushi: the first sushi of the year.

“You can’t call yourself Mexican if you don’t eat rosca de reyes,” jokes Rafa Rivera, head baker and owner of Forte Bread and Coffee in Mexico City. Distracted, he stops grating orange peel long enough to muse about the king’s cake he is making. Only 29, he already has several businesses under his belt, and is about to open a second Forte location in Colonia Juarez. Rafa opened the flagship Forte in the Roma Norte neighborhood, serving up delicious pastries and coffee, with beans from Pólvora Coffee Roasters – where his brother Julián is the lead roaster. (In 2017, Julián won first prize in the Mexican Brewers Cup Championship with his Pólvora beans.)