Tokyo

The Eel Deal in Tokyo

The thought of eating unagi (freshwater eel) can be off-putting, yet the super-fragrant, umami-tasting, velvety-textured delicacy is one of Japan’s prized foods. In Tokyo the eels are split from the stomach side for cleaning and then steamed before being grilled over charcoal and lavished with a finishing sauce, gleaming and sequestered in a covered lacquer box or ceramic bowl.

Athens

Breakfast on the Go in Athens

Greeks are not a nation of breakfast eaters, so koulouri, a plain, circular bread topped with sesame seeds, tends to be the morning fare of choice for most people. There is something seriously sweet and fresh about these bread rings, which are sold on most street corners in downtown Athens and are a guaranteed encounter on our walks.

Tbilisi

A Game of Chicken in Tbilisi

A customer haggles with a vendor selling freshly plucked village chickens and turkeys in Tbilisi’s Dezerter’s Bazaar. This raw, disorganized, 2,000-square-meter warren of unprocessed agrarian goods is the city’s largest open-air market and the focal point of our culinary walk in the city.

The CB Gift Guide 2018

We said it last year, and we’ll say it again: we’re often not impressed with traditional holiday gift guides. They’re either littered with undisclosed affiliate links or seemingly endless lists (much like our holiday to-dos) that make us want to turn off the computer and hibernate until the end of January. With that in mind, we’ve brought back our gift guide, a highly-selective (and relatively short) list of products, some serious, others frivolous, that our correspondents and guides eat and use, made by people they know.

Istanbul

Sweet and Savory in Istanbul

On our Born on the Bosphorus walk, we popped into a baklava and börek shop for a mid-morning snack. Our eyes lit up at the glittering trays of baklava and sheets of golden-brown pastry that filled the window. Unable to decide between sweet and savory, we had a little bit of both.

Queens

Satisfying a Sweet Tooth in Queens

While on a Queens walk, we stopped into a bakery specializing in baked goods and pastries popular in Ecuador. At this time of year, you’ll likely find t’anta wawa, a type of sweet roll shaped and decorated in the form of a small child or infant that is traditionally eaten on Día de los Difuntos, All Souls’ Day (November 2), in Ecuador.

Tbilisi

CB Book Club: Tiko Tuskadze’s “Supra”

Tiko Tuskadze, chef-owner of London’s celebrated Little Georgia restaurants, with one branch in Islington and one in Hackney, shares her love for the food of Georgia, her home country, in her first book, “Supra: A Feast of Georgian Cooking.” The book, which was published in the U.K. in summer 2017 and in the U.S. and Canada in summer 2018, features the recipes and stories that have been passed down through her family for generations. We recently had the chance to chat with Tuskadze and hear more about her career trajectory, the work that went into creating Supra and the role that food played in her childhood in Georgia.

Porto

Market Nostalgia in Porto

Porto’s very old and emblematic Bolhão Market has been under renovation since May. Now working in a temporary building, the market vendors are feeling a mix of enthusiasm and apprehension about the new structure – they are mostly concerned with how different it will be and how much tradition will be lost.

Tbilisi

Pomegranate Season in Tbilisi

It’s that time of year in Tbilisi when market stalls in the Deserter’s Bazaar are overflowing with pomegranates. Usually, a vendor will cut open at least one pomegranate to display the jewel-like seeds.

Tokyo

Fishmongers in Kichijoji

On our Tokyo culinary walk, we rub elbows with locals in the Kichijoji neighborhood as they shop for daily needs along the shoten gai shopping street as well as local vendors, like these two fishmongers at a small neighborhood market.

Barcelona

Catalan Snails in Gràcia

Low in fat and calories and rich in minerals and proteins, the snail is an old staple with a newfound popularity – while perhaps not as obsessed as the Romans were, Catalans are rediscovering all the benefits of snails: they’re nutritious, tasty and easy to raise. We sample some on our Made in Catalonia walk in Barcelona.

Mexico City

Wild Mushrooms in Mexico City

Spurred on by rain and humidity, wild mushrooms hit the markets of Mexico City this time of year. An extraordinary variety of mushrooms are available, mostly culled from the wilds of the states of Mexico, Hidalgo, Morelos and Puebla, and chefs stop by the market every day to see what new goodies will appear.

Barcelona

Dreaming of Jamón

We’re counting down the days until September, which is when many of our favorite bodegas in Barcelona will open their doors once again and we can settle in for a vermut and some of this delicious jamón ibérico.

Mexico City

Pre-Columbian Dishes in Xochimilco

After a boat ride through the canals that connect the chinampas in Mexico City’s Xochimilco district, we head over to the colorful market, where we try different pre-Columbian dishes like the tlacoyos pictured above (oval-shaped corn-meal patties filled with fava beans, cheese, refried beans, spinach, potatoes and more).

Tokyo

Sightly Seafood at a Tokyo Fish Market

Wonderful spreads of the freshest catches are among the swirling array of visual delights witnessed on our Tokyo walk. Oh, did we mention there’s lots of eating involved as well?

Istanbul

Kalpazankaya Restaurant: Paradise Found

Editor’s note: It’s Beat the Heat Week at Culinary Backstreets, and in this week’s stories, we’re sharing some of our favorite spots to visit when the summer temperatures soar. One of the great joys of spring and summertime in Istanbul is the chance to get away for a day to one of the Princes’ Islands, the car-free and forested archipelago that is a short ferry ride away from the city. The only downside to an island hop is actually getting there: as soon as spring makes its first appearance in Istanbul, the hordes descend on the mainland’s ferry terminal, filling the boats to beyond capacity (at least on the weekends).

Naples

CB Book Club: Elizabeth Minchilli’s “Eating My Way Through Italy”

We recently spoke to author Elizabeth Minchilli about her new book, “Eating My Way Through Italy” (St. Martin’s Griffin; May 2018). After a lifetime of living and eating in Rome, Minchilli is an expert on the city’s cuisine, as evidenced by her popular blog, her Eat Italy app and her book “Eating Rome: Living the Good Life in the Eternal City” (2015). In her most recent title she writes about the dishes, customs and recipes that she’s discovered during her travels across Italy. Rather than an encyclopedic guide to the country, the book is a spirited and intimate look into Minchilli’s own experiences and the meals that have led her off the beaten track.

Athens

Breakfast On the Go in Athens

Our go-to breakfast to fuel up for a day of walking around the backstreets in Athens is fresh-baked koulouri, an iconic street food, paired here with cheese and olives. But we don’t go overboard, as there are many more Greek delicacies to follow!

Istanbul

CB Book Club: Priscilla Mary Işın’s “Bountiful Empire”

We recently spoke to food historian and researcher Priscilla Mary Işın about her new book, “Bountiful Empire: A History of Ottoman Cuisine” (Reaktion Books; May 2018). She has previously published edited transcriptions of texts relating to Ottoman food culture and “Sherbet and Spice: The Complete Story of Turkish Sweets and Desserts” (2008), a social history of Ottoman sweets and puddings.

Istanbul

Fresh Fish in Istanbul

A fish vendor on our Born on the Bosphorus walk splashes water on his wares to keep them looking fresh. The neighborhoods that line the strait are all connected by the waterway but each is a world unto itself, like this multicultural fishing village.

Tbilisi

CB Film Club: Emily Railsback’s “Our Blood Is Wine”

Georgia’s winemaking tradition has been making headlines since scientists announced, after 8,000-year-old jars bearing images of grape clusters and a man dancing were excavated in a dig south of Tbilisi, that the country is home to the world’s oldest wine. But long before this discovery was made public, filmmaker Emily Railsback and award-winning sommelier Jeremy Quinn were traversing Georgia to research the rebirth of these ancient winemaking traditions, which were almost lost during the period of Soviet rule. Railsback chronicled their deep dive into the world of family vintners and grape sleuths in the documentary Our Blood Is Wine, an official selection of the 2018 Berlinale International Film Festival.

Tbilisi

A Monster Catfish In Tbilisi

On our Tbilisi Market walk we stumbled – literally – upon the biggest catfish we’ve ever seen. The fishmonger said it was caught in Poti, on the Black Sea shore, likely from the Rioni River.

Barcelona

Faithful Horchata Drinkers in Barcelona

Horchata, a unique and deliciously refreshing concoction made from chufas (tigernuts), water and sugar and served chilled, is beloved across Spain. In Barcelona, there’s really only one place to try the stuff: Horchatería Sirvent. The faithful line up here in droves during the summer months, waiting with ticket in hand to sip the best horchata in town.

Istanbul

Seaside Simit

The best part of waking up in Istanbul is catching sight of the Bosphorus, followed closely by a breakfast of simit, the popular sesame-encrusted bagel-like Turkish bread. We spotted this simit seller in Üsküdar while on our Born on the Bosphorus walk.

Barcelona

Pour One Out from the Porrón

We practice using the porrón, a glass jug originally intended to hold bulk wine, on our Made in Catalonia walk. Pouring the wine directly into your mouth while holding the spout some distance away is no easy feat, but it is a skill worth mastering.

Queens

Fluffy Espumillas in Queens

It may look like ice cream at first glance, but this street vendor in Queens is selling a different kind of sweet treat: espumilla. The Ecuadorean dessert is an unbaked meringue normally sweetened with guava puree and served in cones topped with a tart berry syrup, , a nice contrast to the extra sweet meringue.

Istanbul

Crispy Lahmacun on Istanbul’s Asian Side

Lahmacun is the perfect savory snack: crispy, oven-fired crust, light and spicy meat spread, a fresh green garnish and a tangy spray from a lemon. We sample some of the best in the city on our Two Markets, Two Continents walk.

Istanbul

Hot Ticket to Hatay: Q&A with Author Robyn Eckhardt

In the years of research for their new cookbook, Istanbul & Beyond, author Robyn Eckhardt and photographer David Hagerman became well acquainted with Anatolia and the distinct cultural identities, landscapes and, of course, cuisines that can be found on this vast plateau. So we are pleased to be working with Robyn and Dave on the first unique culinary adventure in a series inspired by Istanbul & Beyond that will lead us across Turkey’s diverse regions, bite by bite. This seven-day culinary experience (with an optional two-day photography workshop led by Dave), scheduled for May 2018, will be split between Istanbul and the Hatay region, an area that plays an important role in Robyn and Dave’s book and in the cuisine of Turkey.

Going Deep: Neighborhoods to Visit in 2018

As the calendar year turns over, we’ve grown accustomed to the barrage of lists telling us where to travel during the next 12 months. Oftentimes these places are a country or even a whole region – you could spend an entire year exploring just one of the locations listed and still barely make a dent. We like to travel on a smaller scale. Forget countries and cities, for us the neighborhood is the ideal unit of exploration. Celebrating neighborhood life and businesses is, of course, essential to what we do as Culinary Backstreets. Since our founding in 2012, we’ve been dedicated to publishing the stories of unsung local culinary heroes and visiting them on our food walks, particularly in neighborhoods that are off the beaten path.

Going Deep: Neighborhoods to Visit in 2018

As the calendar year turns over, we’ve grown accustomed to the barrage of lists telling us where to travel during the next 12 months. Oftentimes these places are a country or even a whole region – you could spend an entire year exploring just one of the locations listed and still barely make a dent. We like to travel on a smaller scale. Forget countries and cities, for us the neighborhood is the ideal unit of exploration. Celebrating neighborhood life and businesses is, of course, essential to what we do as Culinary Backstreets. Since our founding in 2012, we’ve been dedicated to publishing the stories of unsung local culinary heroes and visiting them on our food walks, particularly in neighborhoods that are off the beaten path.

Going Deep: Neighborhoods to Visit in 2018

As the calendar year turns over, we’ve grown accustomed to the barrage of lists telling us where to travel during the next 12 months. Oftentimes these places are a country or even a whole region – you could spend an entire year exploring just one of the locations listed and still barely make a dent. We like to travel on a smaller scale. Forget countries and cities, for us the neighborhood is the ideal unit of exploration. Celebrating neighborhood life and businesses is, of course, essential to what we do as Culinary Backstreets. Since our founding in 2012, we’ve been dedicated to publishing the stories of unsung local culinary heroes and visiting them on our food walks, particularly in neighborhoods that are off the beaten path.

Going Deep: Neighborhoods to Visit in 2018

As the calendar year turns over, we’ve grown accustomed to the barrage of lists telling us where to travel during the next 12 months. Oftentimes these places are a country or even a whole region – you could spend an entire year exploring just one of the locations listed and still barely make a dent. We like to travel on a smaller scale. Forget countries and cities, for us the neighborhood is the ideal unit of exploration. Celebrating neighborhood life and businesses is, of course, essential to what we do as Culinary Backstreets. Since our founding in 2012, we’ve been dedicated to publishing the stories of unsung local culinary heroes and visiting them on our food walks, particularly in neighborhoods that are off the beaten path.

Going Deep: Neighborhoods to Visit in 2018

As the calendar year turns over, we’ve grown accustomed to the barrage of lists telling us where to travel during the next 12 months. Oftentimes these places are a country or even a whole region – you could spend an entire year exploring just one of the locations listed and still barely make a dent. We like to travel on a smaller scale. Forget countries and cities, for us the neighborhood is the ideal unit of exploration. Celebrating neighborhood life and businesses is, of course, essential to what we do as Culinary Backstreets. Since our founding in 2012, we’ve been dedicated to publishing the stories of unsung local culinary heroes and visiting them on our food walks, particularly in neighborhoods that are off the beaten path.

Going Deep: Neighborhoods to Visit in 2018

As the calendar year turns over, we’ve grown accustomed to the barrage of lists telling us where to travel during the next 12 months. Oftentimes these places are a country or even a whole region – you could spend an entire year exploring just one of the locations listed and still barely make a dent. We like to travel on a smaller scale. Forget countries and cities, for us the neighborhood is the ideal unit of exploration. Celebrating neighborhood life and businesses is, of course, essential to what we do as Culinary Backstreets. Since our founding in 2012, we’ve been dedicated to publishing the stories of unsung local culinary heroes and visiting them on our food walks, particularly in neighborhoods that are off the beaten path.

Going Deep: Neighborhoods to Visit in 2018

As the calendar year turns over, we’ve grown accustomed to the barrage of lists telling us where to travel during the next 12 months. Oftentimes these places are a country or even a whole region – you could spend an entire year exploring just one of the locations listed and still barely make a dent. We like to travel on a smaller scale. Forget countries and cities, for us the neighborhood is the ideal unit of exploration. Celebrating neighborhood life and businesses is, of course, essential to what we do as Culinary Backstreets. Since our founding in 2012, we’ve been dedicated to publishing the stories of unsung local culinary heroes and visiting them on our food walks, particularly in neighborhoods that are off the beaten path.

Going Deep: Neighborhoods to Visit in 2018

As the calendar year turns over, we’ve grown accustomed to the barrage of lists telling us where to travel during the next 12 months. Oftentimes these places are a country or even a whole region – you could spend an entire year exploring just one of the locations listed and still barely make a dent. We like to travel on a smaller scale. Forget countries and cities, for us the neighborhood is the ideal unit of exploration. Celebrating neighborhood life and businesses is, of course, essential to what we do as Culinary Backstreets. Since our founding in 2012, we’ve been dedicated to publishing the stories of unsung local culinary heroes and visiting them on our food walks, particularly in neighborhoods that are off the beaten path.

Going Deep: Neighborhoods to Visit in 2018

As the calendar year turns over, we’ve grown accustomed to the barrage of lists telling us where to travel during the next 12 months. Oftentimes these places are a country or even a whole region – you could spend an entire year exploring just one of the locations listed and still barely make a dent. We like to travel on a smaller scale. Forget countries and cities, for us the neighborhood is the ideal unit of exploration. Celebrating neighborhood life and businesses is, of course, essential to what we do as Culinary Backstreets. Since our founding in 2012, we’ve been dedicated to publishing the stories of unsung local culinary heroes and visiting them on our food walks, particularly in neighborhoods that are off the beaten path.

Going Deep: Neighborhoods to Visit in 2018

As the calendar year turns over, we’ve grown accustomed to the barrage of lists telling us where to travel during the next 12 months. Oftentimes these places are a country or even a whole region – you could spend an entire year exploring just one of the locations listed and still barely make a dent. We like to travel on a smaller scale. Forget countries and cities, for us the neighborhood is the ideal unit of exploration. Celebrating neighborhood life and businesses is, of course, essential to what we do as Culinary Backstreets. Since our founding in 2012, we’ve been dedicated to publishing the stories of unsung local culinary heroes and visiting them on our food walks, particularly in neighborhoods that are off the beaten path.

Tokyo

Going Deep: Neighborhoods to Visit in 2018

As the calendar year turns over, we’ve grown accustomed to the barrage of lists telling us where to travel during the next 12 months. Oftentimes these places are a country or even a whole region – you could spend an entire year exploring just one of the locations listed and still barely make a dent. We like to travel on a smaller scale. Forget countries and cities, for us the neighborhood is the ideal unit of exploration. Celebrating neighborhood life and businesses is, of course, essential to what we do as Culinary Backstreets. Since our founding in 2012, we’ve been dedicated to publishing the stories of unsung local culinary heroes and visiting them on our food walks, particularly in neighborhoods that are off the beaten path.

Tbilisi

Going Deep: Neighborhoods to Visit in 2018

As the calendar year turns over, we’ve grown accustomed to the barrage of lists telling us where to travel during the next 12 months. Oftentimes these places are a country or even a whole region – you could spend an entire year exploring just one of the locations listed and still barely make a dent. We like to travel on a smaller scale. Forget countries and cities, for us the neighborhood is the ideal unit of exploration. Celebrating neighborhood life and businesses is, of course, essential to what we do as Culinary Backstreets. Since our founding in 2012, we’ve been dedicated to publishing the stories of unsung local culinary heroes and visiting them on our food walks, particularly in neighborhoods that are off the beaten path.

The CB Gift Guide 2017

Truth be told, we’re often not impressed with traditional holiday gift guides. They’re either littered with undisclosed affiliate links or seemingly endless lists (much like our holiday to-dos) that make us want to turn off the computer and hibernate until the end of January. So, what makes our gift guide different? It’s a highly-selective (and relatively short) list of products that our correspondents and guides eat and use. Many of them are featured in stories that we’ve published, and we worked our hardest to connect you directly with producers – while we weren’t always successful, we did manage to avoid Amazon entirely (and no affiliate links in sight).

Athens

A Feast for the Eyes at the Fishmongers’ Market in Downtown Athens

Not only do the fishmongers at the Athens fish market offer the freshest seafood, but they also know how to create an artful display to catch a customer’s eye. We passed this beautiful arrangement of sliced salmon on our Downtown Athens walk.

Tbilisi

CB Book Club: Carla Capalbo’s “Tasting Georgia”

The author of 14 books, Carla Capalbo is best known for her food- and wine-centric travelogues exploring the lesser-known regions and culinary traditions of Italy. Her last book, “Collio: Fine Wines and Foods from Italy’s Northeast,” took readers on a gustatory journey through a tiny region that few outside Italy – or even inside Italy, for that matter – know much about. Several years ago, Capalbo – who was born in New York, raised in Paris and spent some 20 years living in Italy – became intrigued by Georgia and its cuisine. For her newest book, “Tasting Georgia: A Food and Wine Journey in the Caucasus” (Interlink Books), Capalbo traversed the country’s culinary backroads, collecting stories and recipes along the way.

Tokyo

Taking Root: The Rise of Winemaking in Japan (Yes, Japan)

When we think of wine hotspots (or even coldspots), Japan is not the first place to come to mind. But the story of wine production in the country is a surprising and fascinating one, with roots in the modernization efforts of the 19th century. As a follow-up to our recent Harvest Week, we spoke to Chuanfei Wang, an expert on Japan’s wine culture (and one of CB’s Tokyo culinary walks guides), to learn more about winemaking in the country. Wang received her PhD in Global Studies from Sophia University Japan in 2017; her dissertation explored how Japanese wine producers, consumers and cultural intermediaries incorporated Japan into the global wine world from a sociological perspective.

Istanbul

CB Book Club: Robyn Eckhardt and David Hagerman’s “Istanbul & Beyond”

Photographer David Hagerman is one half of the duo behind the new cookbook Istanbul & Beyond: Exploring the Diverse Cuisines of Turkey, which will be published by Rux Martin Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (USA) on October 10. Together with Robyn Eckhardt, his journalist wife and the author of Istanbul & Beyond, he has crisscrossed Turkey countless times in order to document farm-to-table food culture and discover the country’s best dishes. The resulting book is a stunning culinary journey through Turkey, one told as much through the recipes collected as through Hagerman’s arresting photos. We spoke with David about his approach to shooting the images for the book, culinary culture in Turkey and some of his favorite spots in the country.

Naples

Capturing Naples

Earlier this year we launched our dedicated Naples section, a decision inspired by the city’s divine culinary heritage. Although many Italian cities are celebrated for their cuisine, Naples is one of the few to resist the global invasion of chain supermarkets and restaurants. The city’s cobbled and narrow streets revolve around civic life – the late filmmaker Pasolini accurately described it as “the last great village in Italy.” We recently asked Gianni Cipriano and Sara Smarrazzo, photographers who regularly shoot for CB, to go along the route of our Naples walk and document what they saw.

Tbilisi

CB Book Club: Miquel Hudin's "Georgia: A Guide to the Cradle of Wine"

We recently spoke with the wine writer Miquel Hudin about his new Vinologue guidebook, Georgia: A Guide to the Cradle of Wine. Hudin was the 2016 recipient of the Geoffrey Roberts Award, an international wine prize, and was named the Best Drink Writer of 2017 by Fortnum & Mason Awards. He has also published a number of guidebooks on other wine regions. Your most extensive previous wine coverage has been about Spain. How come you decided to write a book about Georgia and its wine? Georgia has simply been a point of fascination for years. But it was frustrating to see the same handful of wines pop up time and again so I made the trip over and dived in deep, aided a great deal by winning the Geoffrey Roberts Award.

Queens

Capturing Queens

Starting with our Queens Migrant Kitchens project – whose creator, Sarah Khan, was recently featured on Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown – and continuing with the introduction of our dedicated Queens section, we’ve been increasingly drawn deeper into the rich world of New York’s most diverse borough. The food in Queens, representing communities that speak over 150 languages, is of course a major draw. But it’s the human element, particularly the stories of the immigrants who call Queens home, that we have found so compelling – particularly during these unsettled political times.

Lisbon

Cutting Loose at the Mouraria Street Party

A snapshot from our Mouraria Street Party, which was held earlier this month in conjunction with Obscura Day. As one might guess, lots of fun was had by all!

Queens

Mapping Queens' Roosevelt Avenue, Bite by Bite

Queens may be home to diverse communities representing almost every country in the world, but if there’s thing that unites many of these immigrants it’s Roosevelt Avenue, a 5.8-mile corridor that runs east/west underneath the elevated tracks of the 7 subway line. Running through neighborhoods with some of the highest concentrations of immigrants in the borough, Roosevelt Avenue might be one of the most culturally – and culinarily – diverse commercial thoroughfares in the United States. In 2015, Noah Allison, a PhD candidate in Urban Policy at The New School, had the brilliant idea of walking the length of Roosevelt Avenue in order to map all of its restaurants. We recently caught up with him to talk about the project and his findings.