Long before natural wine became a fixture on Madrid wine lists, Fabio Bartolomei and Bendito Vinos y Vinilos were helping define the scene. This story traces how a small bar in Lavapiés and a maverick winemaker in Sierra de Gredos helped reshape what the city drinks.

Four chefs with roots in Peru, Argentina, the Philippines and Korea are helping define a new Madrid restaurant scene, far from the usual center-city map.

Being a street butcher in Naples is not for the faint of heart. “Rain, sun, wind, heat, cold… being on the street seven days a week means knowing how to face every type of weather,” says Gaetano Iavarone. He is part of the invincible team behind Macelleria Iavarone, a butcher shop in Naples’ Sant’Antonio Market run by Domenico (Mimmo) and his three sons, Gaetano, Lorenzo and Davide. The so-called “street butcher shop” has a huge display of meat outside with only a small cash register inside. Also inside is a larger photo of Gaetano the elder, Domenico’s father, who opened the butcher shop 60 years ago. Domenico took over the reins 30 years ago and now runs it with his close-knit team of sons.

In the song that became almost an anthem of Porto, the famous songwriter Rui Veloso describes the city where he was born in phrases like “of this beautiful and darkening light” and “seeing you abandoned like that in that brownish timbre.” Certainly, Veloso, one of the best-known artists in Portuguese music, wasn’t thinking about Porto during the springtime. Portugal’s second city is completely transformed when the season of flowers arrives: the weather and the mood gets sunny, lively, and colorful, an invitation for locals and tourists to go outdoors. Flowers bloom in parks, and tables in cafes and bars are crowded with people. It is the prelude of the effervescent life of the city taking shape. The portuenses (as the locals are called) know how to enjoy the city when the temperatures get warmer and the days get longer.

“Ο Μάρτης πότε γελά και πότε κλαίει” – Μarch sometimes laughs and sometimes cries. So the idiom goes here, as has this year. There are many phrases like this about March in the Greek language. Most of them (like in other cultures) focus on the weather’s instability during the month, and folk tradition believes that the weather gives us a glimpse of what will come in summer. This March was unstable, to say the least: one week it was snowing, then the next the spring sun was shining, and then again back to snowy winter! One of my favorite March traditions is donning a bracelet made with red and white thread. We call it “martis” or “martia” after the month’s name, and we make it on the last day of February and wear it on March 1.

A revived neighborhood bodega in Barcelona’s Guinardó district where traditional decor, Galician seafood, classic tapas and house vermouth draw a loyal local crowd.

Every spring, when the winter chill still stubbornly clings to our skin in Istanbul, we feel relentlessly pulled to the south. There, the sunshine is unambiguously warming, the wildflowers pop like strewn confetti across the fields, and the sea sparkles like a bright blue promise. And also, there is wine.

With its prodigious array of baked goods, penchant for seasonal seafood, and reputation for excellent meze and olive oil-based dishes, Izmir has much to offer the curious and hungry visitor. Skillfully cooked organ meat and other unusual butcher cuts tempt here more than anywhere else, and true to Turkish mangal (barbecue) culture, charcoal-kissed skewers of kebab and grilled meatballs abound. Proudly secular Izmir is just as proud of the flowing rakı and beer in the city’s innumerable bars and meyhanes.

A deep dive into Izmir’s layered food culture, from boyoz and gevrek to kokoreç and midye, shaped by centuries of migration along Turkey’s Aegean coast.

A look at İzmir köfte, the beloved Turkish casserole of meatballs, potatoes and peppers baked in tomato sauce, plus a home-style recipe from food writer Özlem Warren.

In Turkey’s third-largest city, food is a fierce marker of identity, one where calling a gevrek a "simit" is a minor social offense and keeping tomatoes out of your kokoreç is a local mandate. While its glam big sister, Istanbul, tends to hog the international spotlight (and the mistakenly placed lion's share of culinary acclaim), Izmir is home to its own Sephardic legacies, Balkan influences, and a certain coastal defiance.

To say that the Izmir neighborhood of Basmane is rough around the edges would be an understatement, but there are more diamonds in the rough here than we can count. Next to the central train station, Basmane is just to the east of the vast and vibrant 17th-century Kemeraltı Bazaar and the Hellenistic-era Agora of Smyrna. Yet the neighborhood has a storied history in its own right, one that is as labyrinthine as its cluttered, hazy maze of streets.

In West Hollywood, Otus Thai Kitchen offers a rare taste of Thai breakfast in Los Angeles, serving kai kata, rice porridge, fried roti and street-food favorites alongside coffee and noodles.

Founded in 1970, Fuyoungak is one of Seoul’s enduring Korean-Chinese restaurants, where handmade dumplings, fiery seafood jjamppong, and comforting bowls of jajangmyeon have been served for generations.

A beloved local tavern near Bilbao’s City Hall, Bikandi Etxea serves classic Basque stews, sauces, and a menú del día to fiercely loyal regulars.