Tbilisi

Azarphesha: A Sanctuary for the Living Arts

Up above Freedom Square where the Sololaki and Mtatsminda neighborhoods blend together, there is a 100-year-old building with an apartment five steps below the sidewalk. It’s a warm, intimate space, part living room, part museum. A massive collection of wine glasses hang from the ceiling, 19th-century framed portraits of Georgians decorate one wall above a piano, while opposite are glass cases displaying antique ceramic pitchers and elegant, polished drinking horns called kantsi. There are also two vintage silver vessels – exquisite ashtray-sized pans with long stylized handles used in days of old for drinking wine to special toasts. This cup is called an azarphesha, and this entire collection (and the walls containing it) belong to Luarsab Togonidze, a folklorist, author, entrepreneur and co-owner of this welcoming restaurant, also called Azarphesha.

Oaxaca

Memelas de San Agustín: Curbside Service

In Oaxaca, having a proper, hearty breakfast and also being on the go are not necessarily contradictory things. Memelas de San Agustín, an easy-going spot that has been feeding hungry Oaxacans for at least 15 years, is living proof. This small stall doesn’t have an official name – people just started referring to it this way since it’s located right behind the Iglesia de San Agustín on Fiallo Street. But it’s become a beloved destination for delicious versions of its namesake dish – essentially thick corn tortillas that are pinched around the edges and in the middle, making the texture slightly uneven so that their toppings (and their juices) stay in place.

Athens

Kissos: Circle of Life

This is a story that starts and ends with the land. First there was the father, Spyros Vracha, a farmer who owned fields nearby Chalandri, now a middle-class suburb around 8 km north of downtown Athens. His crops supplied the kitchens of the tavernas in the area, which until the 1980s was dotted with villas, rather than the apartment blocks of today. Before it closed down almost 30 years ago, Ta Marmara (“The Marbles,” so called because of Chalandri’s many marble suppliers and workshops) was one of the tavernas that Spyros supplied. It was owned by Stavros and Athena, Spyros’ neighbors.

Oaxaca

Oaxaca: State of the Stomach 2020

Editor’s note: We are very happy to be able to add Oaxaca to the growing list of cities CB is covering. Our coverage of that city’s deep and fascinating culinary scene begins today, with our report on Oaxaca’s State of the Stomach. Every Sunday, a vendor named Domitila heads out from a village called Etla and makes the hour-long journey to Oaxaca, where she sets up a small stand at a market on the north side of town and sells tamales filled with her homemade stews and moles. The many ingredients for these stews and moles cook slowly, for hours, after which Domitila combines them with spices, chile, chicken or cheese and mixes them into a cornmeal dough spread inside a cornhusk and then steamed – the quintessential Oaxacan snack, one that combines all of the area’s agricultural and culinary richness in one package.

Queens

La Estancia de la Espiga: Barbacoa Pioneer

When Tomás Gonzalez brought his family to New York City from Acapulco in 1985, they settled first in the South Bronx. His new home had little in common with his old home, a port city and the tourist heart of Mexico’s Guerrero State on the Pacific Coast. But one constant remained: his desire to cook. Sr. Gonzalez spent much of his life in and around the restaurant his family ran in Acapulco, a faraway paradise that most people in the States knew only from prize holiday packages on The Price is Right. He first tried selling churros on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx, but quickly realized that there were not enough Mexicans to buy them.

Tokyo

Building Blocks: Tofu, Japan’s White Gold

On the forested Mt. Oyama, only one and a half hours away from Tokyo, the sleepy atmosphere is broken by a cheering crowd. It’s mid-March and women are sitting in a row on a stage, shoveling cups of tofu into their mouths as fast as they can. It is messy, distinctly inelegant and a whole lot of mad fun. These women are challengers in the Wanko Tofu speed eating competition, which also sees men and children compete in respective rounds. All this, along with a gigantic four-meter pot of boiling tofu and several other street food snacks, is part of the annual Oyama Tofu Festival, which celebrates the area’s long history of producing especially delicious tofu and marks its 30th anniversary this year.

Athens

Manitarion Gefseis: Fungus Funhouse

Despite the image that Greece wants to sell the world as a holiday destination of eternal summer with beautiful beaches and clear water, the fact remains that it is a very mountainous country – almost a third of Greek land consists of hills and mountains. Most are forested, hosting a great diversity of ecosystems that offer fertile ground for mushrooms in particular. That said, mushrooms don’t feature prominently in traditional Greek dishes, and many people avoid them altogether, even the common cultivated varieties, from fear of getting sick. For many, meanwhile, mushrooms don’t evoke the best memories: During the 70s and 80s, the tinned variety was mainly used in cooking, as fresh cultivated mushrooms were rare and expensive.