This was a topsy turvy year for Istanbul's restaurant scene, as the first six months of 2021 were marked by a series of pandemic restrictions and lockdowns that made for slow business, while a grand reopening of sorts on July 1 resulted in thousands of people flocking back to their favorite restaurants and bars, some of which had been fully closed since March 2020. During the second half of the year, a pulsating energy hummed throughout the city, establishments were packed to the gills, and it became impossible to catch a taxi home on a Saturday night. Istanbulites seemed to be going out and enjoying themselves as much as possible in the event that they might not be allowed to the next week. For our Best Bites of 2021, we each chose an Istanbul classic, a modern favorite, and an exciting new addition to the city’s culinary scene, all of which have rolled with the pandemic punches.

Much like 2020, this year was marked by the shadow of the Covid-19 pandemic, which took over the city's restaurant scene. While there were some glimpses of normalcy here and there, the fact remains that Portugal’s year started with a new lockdown that forced Porto restaurants to totally close their doors in February. It was deja vu almost a year on the dot. Some of these eateries never reopened: The recently inaugurated Esporão no Porto was one of them. The first project outside Alentejo of the renowned winery Esporão (whose restaurant of the same name just received a Michelin star) didn't even last a year in the city. The Astoria, a city landmark restaurant in the luxury Hotel InterContinental also announced its closure.

Neapolitan restaurateurs hit the restart button in the year 2021. Dining has adapted to the new rules brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic – but at least we can say, at last, that we are back to having lunch in a restaurant. I missed sharing the experience of the restaurant so much. Sitting next to a stranger and breaking bread together. Making new friends and meeting old ones. Socializing. The trattorias and cafeterias where moments like these are possible are the places I pray for each night. That they will survive another month, another possible lockdown. Watching some of these close was a very hard blow, but there is something in the air again, something starting up. Naples is once again filled with tourists and there is a need, an urge, to be social once more.

The last two years have been different in many ways. The pandemic kept restaurants, bars and cafes closed for a long period of time, depriving people of every kind of social activity. Many of us went back to cooking elaborate meals at home, and those of us who didn’t ordered food from the growing list of restaurants that were forced to adapt to a new norm. In fact, for a long period of time, the only vehicles one would see on the streets of Athens – especially at night – were food delivery bikes. Then came May. Places started reopening and the city became full of life again, with lots of new places thrown in the mix (though others were sadly permanently shut).

After a year like the one we are about to leave behind, the feeling of a good bite has a double meaning and a double feeling: it combines a great dish with the happy return of sitting down for a restaurant meal. It was a year of lockdowns, restrictions and uncertainty but, somehow, we also managed to scrounge up resilience, recovery and renewal. While some favorites shuttered for good, other neighborhood icons, like Bodega Salvat in Sants, were able to reconnect with their past and move forward. From our dinner table in Barcelona to the first post-lockdown Culinary Backstreets trip on the opposite coast of Spain, here are our greatest gastronomic moments this past year.

2021 was the second-driest year in California’s recorded history. In L.A., there was no rain in November for the first time since 1992, and the mercury settled above 80 almost every afternoon that month. Our climate is usually arid, but this is extreme. We are in a drought (despite some recent record-breaking rain), with depleted reservoirs and dusty hillsides. But there was a silver lining: 2021 was also a year of eating outdoors, in parks and on decks, standing next to open trunks or sitting on the curb, in parking lots converted into patios and parklets jutting into the street, so we needed those blue skies.

In ancient times, the murex shell, “porphyra” in Greek, was the source of a beautiful dye so rare and costly to produce that it was only used for royalty – the royal purple. Three years ago, in Athens’ northern suburb of Melissia, a restaurant calling itself Porphyra opened, preparing high-quality seafood with a creative yet accessible flair – no foam or unrecognizable frills. We have yet to taste a dish there that was less than scrumptious and because we have been following the career of owner, Christos Cjoncari, for 20 years now, we wanted to find out how he does it. When we first met, he was in his late teens, a waiter at Kali Parea, a popular fish place in Nea Erythraia.

For Queens, one culinary claim to fame has always been the variety of cuisines on offer. That was the case in 2019 and before, it held true in 2020 and continues to this day, late in 2021. The onset of the pandemic, however, meant that businesses sometimes felt as isolated as individual families. Many were cut off from the cross-pollination of ideas and intelligence – not to mention customers – that helps them grow and thrive. Survival, of course, had been the immediate business goal. But today, street vendors are going as strong as ever, and more and more restaurant owners are openly discussing plans for new dishes, new locations, new collaborations.

For the first five months of 2021, eating out in Marseille was limited to takeout due to France’s strict Covid-19 measures. Some chefs managed to make magic in to-go boxes. Others became sandwich maestros – including 3-Michelin-starred chef Alexandria Mazzia, who launched a food truck with croque-monsieurs. When we craved company, we’d bring an oh-so-Marseille anchovy pizza and a bottle of rosé to the beach for a convivial picnic. On May 19, restaurants were finally permitted to offer outdoor dining. Resuscitated, Marseille felt like one big alfresco party, with temporary terrasses sprouting in parking spaces, abandoned alleys, even staircases. After the full opening on June 9, the city exploded.

Important holidays have long been associated with large feasts and for centuries have functioned as an excuse to treat family and guests to something special. Christmas in Greece is no exception: there are many culinary traditions associated with the Christmas season, known as Dodekaimero (twelve days), which officially begins on December 24 and ends on January 6. Nowadays many Greeks associate the Christmas table with a roast stuffed turkey, a tradition that arrived in Europe from North America, particularly Mexico, around the 1820s. It gradually became fashionable in Greek cities and over time turned into a Christmas staple, with a traditional stuffing prepared mainly with chestnuts, chopped turkey liver, minced meat, pine nuts and raisins.

For the first time in 14 years, I have not left China for an entire calendar year – actually 620 days, but who’s counting? It’s a weird feeling, and one that makes me more than a little sad, so I’ve been trying to make up for it by eating delicious food as often as possible. Luckily, Shanghai was spared the brunt of the pandemic. The shutdown was never an official lockdown in China’s financial capital, although very few restaurants were given official permission to offer in-person in early 2020. Shanghai didn’t shut down in 2021 either, and while some restaurants went bankrupt, the pandemic pushed other great local spots into offering delivery services when they never had before.

With 2021 drawing to a close, we have much to be thankful for. Though Tbilisi, like all of Georgia, still faces struggles with the continuing pandemic, the harrowing days of 2020 – with its curfews and restrictions on gatherings (especially painful for Georgians, who are in the habit of meeting in large groups of friends and family) – are long gone. Restaurants, bars and cafes have been open again since February 2021, with indoor seating available since May, though opening hours would fluctuate based on spikes in Covid-19 transmission. When eateries fully reopened and the final curfew was lifted, we remember walking through Dedaena Park with friends late one night, not so long after regulations had largely relaxed; people were everywhere, some picnicking on the grass, a great many milling about, just glad to be out again amongst people.

Typically eaten at Christmastime in Spain, turrón (a type of nougat) originated centuries ago. Some historians believe it was a sweet paste with nuts eaten by athletes in ancient Rome, while others trace its origins to a more elaborate medieval Arab delicacy that combined various toasted nuts with spices and honey. First documented in Spanish by an Arab physician writing in 11th- century Andalusia, “turun” may have been introduced to the Iberian Peninsula by Arabs or Jews from North Africa during the period of al-Andalus. Either way, by the 16th century, the Spanish aristocracy was crazy about turrón, and its popularity eventually spread to all social classes and to other parts of Europe. Over time, this sweet with ancient culinary roots was further refined, becoming Spain’s most popular Christmas treat.

Despite being incredibly salty, stinky and made essentially out of rotting fish, garum, the ancient Roman sauce, was the ketchup of its day, a ubiquitous condiment found on every table and in every pantry. Prepared by fermenting whole, brined small fish for multiple months, the amber-colored umami bomb was a major part of Roman trade and widely used across a variety of dishes, from meats to salads and even in sweets. Though it was undeniably popular, garum eventually lost its place in the kitchens of the Mediterranean and other parts of the former Roman Empire. Iterations of the pungent sauce exist today, like Colatura di Alici in Italy, but its original recipe and method of production are no more than ancient relics. A rather smelly experiment at an archeological site in Portugal is trying to change that, though.

Despite being incredibly salty, stinky and made essentially out of rotting fish, garum, the ancient Roman sauce, was the ketchup of its day, a ubiquitous condiment found on every table and in every pantry. Prepared by fermenting whole, brined small fish for multiple months, the amber-colored umami bomb was a major part of Roman trade and widely used across a variety of dishes, from meats to salads and even in sweets. Though it was undeniably popular, garum eventually lost its place in the kitchens of the Mediterranean and other parts of the former Roman Empire. Iterations of the pungent sauce exist today, like Colatura di Alici in Italy, but its original recipe and method of production are no more than ancient relics. A rather smelly experiment at an archeological site in Portugal is trying to change that, though.