When Ethiopian national Mimi Alemu Desta was proposed Georgia as a temporary place of refuge by to help her escape her war-torn country in 2021, she assumed it was the state in the U.S. Little did she imagine she would end up in the South Caucasus republic she didn’t even know existed till then, let alone that she’d be the first person to introduce the spice-and flavor-infused cuisine of her home country to residents of Tbilisi.

Imagine you are Marcel Proust at the beginning of his novel In Search of Lost Time, or the feared food critic Anton Ego in Ratatouille, the Pixar masterpiece that won the 2008 Oscars for Best Animated Film. In the exact moment you taste a madeleine dipped in tea or a forkful of ratatouille, your palate is activated you are catapulted back in time, to that first Sunday morning you tried the dessert or to that time when, after falling off your bike, the dinner your mother prepared you somehow seemed to make everything better. It is this emotion, this involuntary memory flashback, that cousins Nico Virga and Angelo Fascetta had in mind when they opened their restaurant. Located on Via Cavalieri di Malta, behind the Church of San Domenico – known as the Pantheon of Sicilians – Osteria Mangia e Bevi is a charming eatery that offers not only simple home cooking from Palermo, but also a true taste of grandma's cooking. Grandma Antonietta’s, more specifically.

Folar is the generic name given to traditional Easter sweet bread in Portugal. Making it from scratch is somewhat of a long process, but being confined due to the coronavirus crisis, we seem to have a bit more time on our hands than expected. My family’s folar recipe is from my grandmother Felismina, who was from Rosmaninhal, near Mação (in the center of Portugal). As long as I can remember we would have this sweet bread around Easter. (A similar type of sweet bread is also baked around November 1, for All Saints’ Day.)

Like the Proustian madeleine, sweets can stir up all kinds of feelings in the minds of those who eat them. In Naples, struffoli (small, round doughnuts glazed with honey) and cassata (sponge cake with ricotta and candied fruit) speak of Christmas, while chiacchiere (sugar-dusted fritters) and sanguinaccio (literally “blood pudding,” but actually made of chocolate) bring to mind Carnevale. And then there’s pastiera, whose very scent and taste make us think of Easter and spring. These days, pastiera can be made all year long, not only when the wheat has just sprouted, as was the case for our ancestors. Yet, when Easter approaches, all Neapolitans dream of this tart.

Thai Town, a six-block stretch of Hollywood Boulevard between Western and Normandie, has long been a destination for food-loving Angelenos – a pilgrimage, even. This neighborhood is home to some of the city’s best Thai restaurants – most of them tucked inside strip malls that get so busy at night they need valet parking. In 1972, Bangkok Market opened on the eastern edge of Melrose Avenue. It was the first Thai market in the United States, owned by the parents of celebrity chef Jet Tila, who has appeared on various U.S. food television shows.

Right where the Urumea river meets the Cantabrian sea, the striking Kursaal Congress Centre, designed by Spanish architect Rafael Moneo in the late 1990s, faces the Bay of Biscay. It is here, at the end of the Zurreola Bridge, that Muka welcomes the curious and the hungry. Carrots served with spinach and almonds, artichokes marinated in olive escabeche, or beetroots prepared with curd and citrus are enough for chef Juan Vargas to steal some smiles at Muka, where he is determined to pave the way for vegetables in a city with a penchant for meats.

Sōsuke Hirai’s hands tilt this way and that as the machine whirrs, raining large, fine flakes of ice into a bowl. He pauses the machine, lightly pats the ice and taps the bowl on the counter, allowing the ice to sink and compress. A swirl of persimmon tea syrup is added to the ice. Then it goes back under the machine for a second ice shower. Over this, several twirls of a cinnamon-infused milk syrup, a few tea-flavored meringue cookies, two large soup spoons of rum-spiked zabaglione. More ice. His hands gently coax the shavings into an elegant dome.

In the steep hillside Kulaksız section of the Beyoğlu neighborhood, Şakir Sefer nimbly weaves dough stuffed with small piles of kıyma (ground beef) or strips of pastırma (cured, spiced beef) into the shape of a canoe before sending it into the flame-licked depths of a massive stone oven. It's after lunch rush but things are still busy at Görele Pidecisi, a classic shop that specializes in Black Sea-style pide, different configurations of baked decadence in which meat and cheese mingle as the dough cooks, only to be enriched with a dollop of yellow butter that melts quickly and a whole egg that reaches over-easy on its own in the heat of the toppings.

Those pastry shops that seem to command just about every corner in Lisbon? They’re an important institution in the city, as well as an utterly delicious way to start the day. But the truth is, these days, the range of pastries sold in Lisbon is limited and many of those sweets are produced on an industrial or semi-industrial level. Leonor Oliveira and Pedro Nunes wanted to create a pastry shop that went in the opposite direction.

Those pastry shops that seem to command just about every corner in Lisbon? They’re an important institution in the city, as well as an utterly delicious way to start the day. But the truth is, these days, the range of pastries sold in Lisbon is limited and many of those sweets are produced on an industrial or semi-industrial level. Leonor Oliveira and Pedro Nunes wanted to create a pastry shop that went in the opposite direction.

Descend the steps of Discesa del Caracciolo, leaving Via Roma behind, and you will find yourself in the heart of Palermo’s old Vucciria market, a micro-universe unto itself in which nostalgia hovers in the air and in the eyes of the locals. Typical Sicilian fatalism translates into the saying: “When the balàte of the Vucciria dry out.” The balàte are the typical stones that make up the floor on which the market stands: legend has it that – precisely because of the presence of merchants of all kinds who wash their workbenches at the end of each day – the floor of the Vucciria never fully dries.

Among the small streets and throughout the hidden corners of San Sebastian, young entrepreneurs sow courageous projects that are reshaping how wine is enjoyed in this city. Among them is José Vergarajáuregui, who opened Bodega Klandestina in 2022 in an abandoned car mechanic’s garage nestled in the folds of the Gros neighborhood. In a region tightly bound by tradition, he felt inspired to pave the way for new trends, tired as he was of seeing the same kind of wines served in most of the bars in town.

Served as a sauce, romesco is certainly striking: It has an intense dark orange color and a dense texture that saturates and blankets whatever you dip in it. Once in the mouth, you get a piquant touch of vinegar, which is soon enveloped by the nutty creaminess of ground almonds (or perhaps hazelnuts) and olive oil. Yet the sauce’s main personality (and taste) derives from the roasted tomatoes and the rehydrated nyora peppers (ñora in Spanish), both of which are also responsible for its distinctive color. A versatile and tasty picada (pounded paste), romesco works as the base of the famous cold sauce (salsa romesco) but is also used in various dishes like monkfish romesco and mussels romesco. It has come, in its many forms, to represent the culinary culture of Tarragona, a province in southern Catalonia.

In a small dining room with Italian terrazzo floors, warm lighting, and earthy, distressed walls, every table is occupied. There are regulars from the neighborhood, couples on a quiet afternoon date, a father and small son giggling over pasta, and colleagues sharing plates at a long table in the corner. We grab the only seats left at the end of a long zinc bar. Amid the hustle, we are warmly greeted by the restaurant’s owner, Benjamin Moro. Shying away from social media and publicity, Benjamin comes across as timidly confident, an unorthodox charmer.

The Vera district of Tbilisi is bursting with tempting food options, from traditional Georgian feasts to cinnamon rolls and pizza. But there is nowhere like Tamtaki in the neighborhood – or anywhere else in Tbilisi, for that matter. Founded by chef Tamta Kikaleishvili and her mother, Katya Gegia, in 2020, the origin of the name comes from the chef’s first name, Tamta, and Ki, the first two letters of her last name, Kikaleishvili. And it's not just the name of the restaurant. “There is no Georgian synonym for the word sandwich, so we decided to introduce this word,” says Katya. “Because all our dishes, the ‘tamtakis,’ are served atop bread – ingredients, sauces, ‘sides.’”