Non-descript is the best way to describe Xiaoping Fandian’s storefront. Its plain-Jane décor would never make you stop and take notice – the first floor looks more like a hotel check-in than a restaurant – but walk by around any meal time, and the scrum of waiting diners speaking in rapid-fire Shanghainese will turn your head. Where there are this many speakers of the local dialect, there’s bound to be delicious local food. Upstairs, you’ll discover that Xiaoping Fandian is a multi-level home with former bedrooms and an attic space that have been converted into private dining rooms with lazy Susans. A few smaller tables are scattered in the hallway and living room for good measure.

The typical Neapolitan trattoria is a place where you go to eat like you would at home: the cook buys everything fresh in the morning, just like at home, and then spends the rest of the day in the kitchen, which he rules like a maestro. For the quintessential trattoria experience, we head to Fuorigrotta, a working-class district on the west side of Naples. There, close to the border with the seaside suburb of Bagnoli and not far from the Cavalleggeri Aosta metro stop, stands Cucina da Vittorio, a small trattoria with a few tables and a steady rotation of regular customers.

Stop into one of Spain’s best marisquerías (seafood restaurants) and on the menu you will find a dazzling display of the ocean’s bounty: big meaty clams of different shapes and colors, cockles, scallops, oysters, goose barnacles, spider crabs and lobsters. All will have their own with delectable consistency and texture and their own evocative flavors – from intense, sweet or floral to metallic or rich with umami. And most will likely have come from the waters off the craggy coast of northwest Spain’s untamed Galicia region, harvested by generations of artisan mariscadoras (seafood catchers), Galician women whose lives – and livelihoods – are intimately connected to the sea.

It’s 5:20 in the morning and while most lisboetas are still sleeping, Lurdes and Ermelinda Neves are already arriving at the Mercado da Ribeira in the Cais do Sodré neighborhood. Cooks and chefs from Lisbon’s restaurants start showing up at this central market at 6 a.m., and these two seafood sellers need to prep their stall for the day. On this April day, there are clams, both from Setúbal and the prized ones from Ria Formosa, in the Algarve; sea snails; the beloved percebes (gooseneck barnacles); mussels and canilhas (a kind of small and spiky whelk) from Peniche; and cockles and shrimp of different origins – although the best seafood usually comes from the southern shore, the western coastline also yields some excellent specimens.

Spring means a rebirth, a restart and, for Catholics, a resurrection. The sunnier weather and warmer temperatures are invigorating, allowing you to shake off the long and cold winter. It’s one of the best mood boosters out there. But the season alone doesn’t fully awaken, ahem, everything. If you’re looking to arouse your sensuality, you can always count on Naples’ notoriously stimulating, almost erotic gastronomy. Yes, we’re talking about aphrodisiacs. The concept comes from our Greek ancestors, who believed that certain foods were capable of improving sexual performance and accordingly named them after Aphrodite, the goddess of love, beauty and, perhaps most importantly, pleasure.

One day, or so the story goes, a group of tourists asked an elderly priest in Naples which churches were really worth visiting. The priest replied, “There are many churches, but have you tried the spaghetti with clams?” Even a man of God recognizes the sacred bond established between two people sharing a plate of spaghetti with clams in a Neapolitan trattoria. So we consider it our moral duty to advise you how to order your spaghetti with clams and where to eat it.