When Leyla Kılıç Karakaynak opened up a tiny restaurant on Kallavi Street in Istanbul's Beyoğlu district in 1996, she couldn't have predicted that she would end up practically running the whole street. That small restaurant, Fıccın, is now spread across six buildings on the same block-long pedestrian-only street and has become an Istanbul institution. The restaurant shares its name with its signature dish, a meat-filled savory pastry that is among the Circassian specialties on the menu. Karakaynak's family hails from North Ossetia, and while Fıccın serves up a number of classic Turkish staples, it's the regional dishes that you can't miss, including Çerkez tavuğu, a simple yet sumptous paste of shredded chicken and walnuts, and Çerkes mantısı, comforting, pillowy dumplings served under yogurt.

On the left bank of Tbilisi’s Mtkvari River in the Plekhanov district is David Aghmashenebeli Avenue, a thoroughfare long associated with wallet-friendly Turkish restaurants and discount clothing boutiques. Some 15 years ago, the crumbling 19th-century buildings and huge eucalyptus trees that lined the street were crowded with people hawking everything from wooden utensils to costume jewelry, fresh produce and coffee beans labeled “Nescafé.” It was a congested, lively sidewalk bazaar of sorts that exemplified the Asiatic spirit of Tbilisi. However, a massive urban renewal project in 2011 put an end to the colorful disorder. Today, most of Aghmashenebeli is a sensible European-looking boulevard that the former President of Georgia likened to Paris, although the Turkish restaurants are still there serving up tasty Anatolian specialties.

Istanbul's Kurtuluş neighborhood is home to a number of slow-burners, establishments that may be hidden in plain view due to their plainness but that end up becoming some of our favorites. Gimmicks don’t fly in down-to-earth Kurtuluş, where neighborly ties are strong and home-cooked meals are preferred. Tucked on a side street in the middle of the quarter is a small eatery that exemplifies this tried-and-true character. Behind windows that fog up quickly in the winter sit a handful of tables facing an open kitchen in what might be Istanbul's coziest restaurant, Ben-u Sen, which showcases the divine ev yemekleri (home cooking) of the delightful Nuray Güzel.

Cariocas don’t give much love to Niterói, joking that the only reason to go to this city across Guanabara Bay is for its spectacular view of Rio de Janeiro. But while less busy and far less popular than Rio, Niterói is full of lovely beaches, great museums, excellent restaurants and hundreds of bars. Among the many reasons to visit is Salve Simpatia, a botequim – or small, family-run bar serving snacks to go with drinks – where traditional bar gastronomy mixes perfectly with delicious artisanal burgers, specialty beers and remarkably good music, especially samba. Salve Simpatia (which means something like “Hello, my brother” in Portuguese) opened in 2012 and was known only to locals in the Icaraí area for a while.

Jordi Piquer opened his popular restaurant in 1968 on an auspicious day: April 23, a holiday that honors his namesake saint. Saint Jordi must have been looking down on Piquer and his dedicated customers when the restaurateur decided to sell his establishment in 1986: three trusted employees banded together to buy it, keeping the Sant Gervasi neighborhood institution in business. A fine example of a classic 20th-century Barcelona restaurant, Casa Jordi is decorated in the old masía (traditional Catalan farmhouse) style over two floors but adapted to urban dimensions, meaning that there are fewer intimate corners but larger, more flexible rooms with tables for groups.

Convincing someone to accompany you to Istanbul’s Pendik district is no small feat. The Asian-side suburb is located in the far eastern reaches of the city, a trip of at least an hour and a half from the city center requiring no less than three metros and a cab. We've been met with moans and groans upon mentioning the name, as the district is synonymous to many with the wildfire-like urban sprawl that has engulfed Istanbul over the years. Those up for the journey, however, are rewarded handsomely at Lipa, a meyhane serving Bosnian specialties. The neighborhood of Sapan Bağları is home to a large population of natives from Sandzak, a predominantly Bosnian Muslim region now split across modern-day Serbia and Montenegro.

Julian Ramirez started out at the age of 14 as a shop boy at a busy bakery in Colonia Guerrero in 1959, then a bustling blue-collar neighborhood, easily connected to downtown by streetcar. Back then, at La Antigua del Guerrero, he learned the business: wiping windows, sweeping up and eventually making deliveries on his bike. One nibble at a time, he picked up the art of cake- and bread-making from the shop’s master bakers. Those trade secrets would serve him over the next 63 years and beyond as they pass on to his kids and theirs. Many of Mexico’s classic bakeries like the Guerrero operation fell one by one with the introduction of mass-produced bread, tearing at a staple of communities across the capital.

The oldest city in Western Europe, once the hub of a trading empire that connected Macau in the east to Rio de Janeiro in the west, Lisbon today feels staunchly Old World European, a sleepy town of nostalgic storefronts and scenic churches. But that’s only its façade.

In Rio, only specialty beer bars usually have a touch of sophistication, and generally, the beer there is much more expensive (mainly because of the high tariff on imported hops), the regulars are more demanding and the food is made by a “chef.” This in contrast to the humble botequim, the traditional family-run bars that serve simple snacks. But Hocus Pocus DNA strikes a balance between the two: it’s a brand-new bar with a botequim soul that slings craft beers and thoughtfully conceived appetizers to go with them. It’s also the name of an acclaimed artisanal brewery – one of the best local breweries in town, in fact, operating in Rio since 2014 – whose products are sold only in specialty stores and bars.

Barcelona’s food shops and colmados offer culinary treasures all year long, but the holidays are a particularly exciting time for browsing their wares. The festive window displays show magnificent gift baskets overflowing with tasty treats – with many Spanish and Catalan specialties among them. Perhaps the most desirable items in holiday gift baskets here are the seasonal sweets, which previous generations would amass in quantities that would serve as “emergency” treats for unexpected guests the rest of the new year. (Thankfully, one can now find these year-round, so there’s no need to hoard them.) We’ve written previously about artisanal turrón, which continues to be handmade by a few family-run companies.

One of our most exciting discoveries this year was Yılmaz Tandır Evi in Istanbul's Feriköy neighborhood, where many people from the eastern Anatolian province of Erzincan have settled over the years. Yılmaz İngeç, a native of Erzincan's İliç district, serves only the finest ingredients from his hometown, including fresh honey, kavurma and tulum peynir, a salty, crumbly cheese aged in goatskin. A simple serving of fried eggs topped with tulum was a match made in heaven, perhaps our favorite breakfast this year. We were thrilled to stumble upon a secluded slice of the Black Sea province of Trabzon right here on the Asian side of Istanbul earlier this fall.

With shops closing, pensions and salaries shrinking, and more and more Greeks feeling the pinch, it never ceases to amaze us that good food in the capital and elsewhere is still appreciated and faithful customers still abound. The restaurants below are just a few among the many wonderful, lively places that are managing to keep their standards despite enormous financial pressures. Their prices are affordable, their quality outstanding. Sea Satin Nino, Korthi Bay, Andros This is one of those restaurants that a Michelin Guide would rate not merely as “worth the trip” but “worth the detour.” Although it may take an hour’s drive from the port and half an hour from Hora, any meal at Sea Satin Nino is cause for celebration.

Rio’s bar culture is crazy for chicken. It’s common to see at bars dozens of the cooked birds laying within heated glass cases, awaiting hungry customers. The more popular the botequim, the more parts of the chicken are available. In the fancy bars of Ipanema and Leblon you can only find voluptuous breasts and legs, accompanied by salads and risottos. But in more humble botequins in the North Zone or further out in the suburbs, you’ll find gizzards, feet, beaks, and even rear ends. Yes, cu de galinha is a rare delicacy in Rio... Not only is every part of the chicken appreciated, but also all ages of the bird.

Behind a discreet entrance on one of Lisbon’s principal avenues, a sophisticated environment with a minimal interior houses a loyal Luanda-Lisboa jetset crowd who is here for the great food – and great music. Poemas do Semba, its walls decorated with black-and-white photographs, is an unlikely find in this neighborhood. Santos is the former stomping ground of the Portuguese nobility; today some of their former palaces have been turned into embassies or luxury hotels. Students and a design-y crowd have taken over as well, thanks to the nearby college. This exclusive African restaurant was opened in 2014 by the famous Angolan singer Paulo Flores, a semba exemplar who has numerous albums to his name.

Despite the 1970s-era sign outside that says Granja (farm) and the red letters spelling “Bar” inside, you can’t really tell what this place is until you open the menu: a temple of “neighborhood haute-cuisine.” The food at Granja Elena sounds simple but tastes rich and complex. The restaurant is a family business, now run by the third generation – Borja, Patricia and Guillermo Sierra Calvo – in the same barrio in which it was founded in 1974, La Marina del Port. This modern neighborhood is part residential and part industrial, a bit far from Barcelona’s center, located near the merchant port behind Montjuic and on the way to the airport.