From the street, Café Lamas looks almost intentionally nondescript. A fluorescent-lit bar with a glass case of snacks and a few metal chairs would make it identical to any other lanchonete (snack bar) across the city, if it weren’t for the shadowy doorway behind the bar’s aisle. Behind that door awaits a blast from the past. Café Lamas is Rio de Janeiro’s oldest restaurant – a respectable 138 years old in a city that is rapidly putting on a new face as it buzzes with Olympic, hotel and condominium construction – and the place radiates a sense of history and tradition. Bow-tied waiters politely bend as guests enter the dining room, which is dimly illuminated by lamps on ornate cast-iron mounts.

When longtime locals discuss contenders for “best all-around po’boy shop in all of New Orleans,” R&O’s is usually an integral part of the conversation. Fans of the stalwart seafood house located a literal stone’s throw from Lake Pontchartrain will wax poetic about a wide variety of the menu’s delectable standouts – Italian salads studded with tangy chopped giardiniera, oversized stuffed artichokes, seasonal boiled seafoods – before they even start talking po’boys. However, once the conversation turns to the city’s signature long-sandwich, the accolades come in fast and strong. Want a classic shrimp, oyster or soft-shell crab po’boy? They’ll arrive overstuffed, crunchy and fried to juicy perfection.

In a city with no shortage of postcard views, Bar Urca’s may get the title for most picturesque in Rio. The eponymous residential neighborhood where the bar is located faces Guanabara Bay, where a colorwheel of boats and yachts bobble on the slow waves leading up to the seawall. Across the bay, the iconic Christ statue watches over everyone from atop Corcovado peak behind the neighborhood of Botafogo.

For a city whose natural beauty is what often sweeps visitors off their feet, Rio’s historical gems often look a little like urban ugly ducklings next to the bikini crowds and chic bars on sandy Ipanema beach. That’s a shame, because Rio Antigo has a great story to tell. Old Rio runs along the Guanabara Bay rather than the open Atlantic, and it was the former that gave the city its name – River of January – when Portuguese explorers came upon it in the first month of 1502.

The eyes of Tacacá do Norte’s harried staff widen as yet another customer arrives during the lunchtime rush. The bedroom-sized snack bar can barely hold one line of chairs around its bar but they have somehow managed to squeeze in two. Impatient regulars shake hands and whistle “psst” to the young men staffing the establishment, who gingerly hand steaming pots of shrimp soup and freshly puréed juices over the packed bar.

One of the staples of Mexican cuisine (and of bar menus everywhere), the quesadilla can be found on almost every street corner and in every neighborhood market in Mexico City. Those served at Mercado San Cosme in Colonia San Rafael, however, redefine the quesadilla. Indeed, while this neighborhood market is far from being the city’s largest or most famous, it’s worth visiting just for a chance to eat at Quekas, an eatery housed in the market that makes some of the best quesadillas we’ve had in the city.

Oaxaca’s street food scene has surprises for us every day of the week. From breakfast to lunch, we can find plenty of stalls with a plethora of options: eggs, tamales, tortas, tacos, hot drinks, juices and more. However, when sunset bathes the streets of the historic center, most of these stalls are disassembled into heaps of tarps, letting esquites, burger and hot dog stands take over the night shift. Fortunately, this is not the case for Empanadas del Carmen Alto, a classic among locals for serving up daytime dishes until midnight. The menu at Empanadas del Carmen Alto is succinct: memelas (thick corn tortillas topped with various ingredients), the famous empanadas de amarillo (calzone-like corn tortillas filled with chicken and mole amarillo) and squash blossom or mushroom quesadillas.

Caldos de Gallina Luis – which a friend had been raving about to us for months before we finally made it there – is essentially a street food stand that has been trussed up to look more like a sidewalk café. Just a short walk from the Insurgentes metro stop, the venue is located on a side street next to a parking lot and opposite a sex shop, the glowing neon of the shop’s sign casting its pink light over pedestrians walking by.

We were surprised to learn that Jack Dempsey’s restaurant was named after Richard “Jack” Dempsey, a straw hat wearing, cigar chomping former police reporter for the defunct States-Item newspaper, and not after the professional boxer Jack Dempsey, famously known as the Manassa Mauler. Dempsey’s, which occupies a white, converted double shotgun house across from the now deserted F. Edward Hebert Defense Complex, is a throwback to a different era of New Orleans, when neighborhood restaurants dominated the landscape, and you never had to walk too far to get a good meal.

Editor’s note: Alfonso Cuarón’s film “Roma,” set in Mexico City between 1970 and 1971, is expected to win big at the Oscars this weekend – it’s up for ten awards. To celebrate the movie’s success, we’re republishing our 2013 review of La Casa del Pavo, where the main character, Cleo, goes to have a sandwich with her co-worker on their day off and meet up with their boyfriends. Not only is this spot one of the few from the film that is still in business, it is almost completely unchanged. The bird that holds pride of place at the Thanksgiving table has just as important a role south of the border. Turkey has actually been a fundamental part of Mexican cooking for centuries: The Aztecs had domesticated the fowl before they had even laid eyes on a chicken.

Le Mistral, as the strong northwesterly wind is known here in Marseille, returned on a recent September day for the first time in a long while. It is an indicator of the change of seasons and that autumn is upon us. A driving wind that blows directly down the Rhone Valley to the Mediterranean, it averages 30-50 miles per hour. Le Mistral is so celebrated that for 30 years, Marseille has held La Fête du Vent (The Wind Festival) and ironically, it coincides today with its return. It is also the reason that we enjoy 300 days per year of luminous, sunny skies. The wind is said to bring good health, and one reason for good wine, because it clears the vines and dries the soil.

Le République may be one of the most beautiful restaurants in Marseille. A historic space that once housed Café Parisen (from 1905, with its boulodrome for games of pétanque on the lower floor), it has been elegantly renovated and was reopened at the beginning of 2022 as a restaurant gastronomique solidaire—a gourmet “solidarity restaurant” and unique community project that embraces both guests and workers. But, without reading about it, diners would never guess this. Instead, they would take a table in the luminous space (1200 square meters!) with minimalist aesthetics, lofty ceilings, cornices, and great, dried flower-and-leaf chandeliers. There, they would discover Michelin-star chef Sébastien Richard and his team’s delightful creations, refined and simple, kindly served. Unknowingly, these guests participate directly in Le République social project.

We were surprised to learn that Jack Dempsey’s restaurant was named after Richard “Jack” Dempsey, a straw hat wearing, cigar chomping former police reporter for the defunct States-Item newspaper, and not after the professional boxer Jack Dempsey, famously known as the Manassa Mauler. Dempsey’s, which occupies a white, converted double shotgun house across from the now deserted F. Edward Hebert Defense Complex, is a throwback to a different era of New Orleans, when neighborhood restaurants dominated the landscape, and you never had to walk too far to get a good meal.

In 2015, a ramen store in Tokyo made waves by becoming the first ever to receive a Michelin star. Tucked down a street in a slightly shabby area near Sugamo Station to Tokyo’s north, the store, Tsuta, was flooded with hordes of noodle worshippers and subsequently issued a timed-entry ticketing system to manage the crowds (reportedly to spare the clientele of the love hotel across the street from embarrassment). Locals maintain, however, that the best ramen in the area is not found at Tsuta, which has since moved to a more upmarket location, but rather at Menya Imamura, housed one street over from the original Tsuta store.

Naples’s Quartieri Spagnoli, the "Spanish Quarters,” are a part of the city with a long and tumultuous history. Founded in 1500, the Quartieri Spagnoli were created by Don Pedro De Toledo to accommodate the Spanish soldiers who were residing or passing through Naples. With the arrival of the soldiers, the network of narrow streets became a hotbed for illegal economic activities, from cigarette smuggling to drug dealing to prostitution, earning the district a bad reputation that stuck for centuries – even Neapolitans from other neighborhoods were afraid of entering the Quartieri Spagnoli. In recent decades, however, the atmospheric district has become one of the city’s tourist attractions, recognized as one of the centers of Neapolitan gastronomy as well as a place of craftsmanship, cultural and anthropological initiatives.