Restaurante Nicos got its start back in 1957, when María Elena Lugo Zermeño opened a small cafeteria in the middle-class Colonia Clavería neighborhood offering family recipes passed down through the generations. Over the years, the cafeteria evolved into a full-scale – and well-known – restaurant, one that pulls in customers from across the city with its excellent dishes and warm, inviting atmosphere.

Located on busy Carrer de l’Escorial on the edge of Gràcia, Vermuteria Loú is a tiny, cozy venue that is exactly what we look for in a neighborhood place. The little terrace out front, with just four tables and a bar that opens to the street, encourages patrons to sit and take refreshment while observing the local street life. Inside, the scene might consist of individual drinkers slowly savoring a glass of cava at the bar while a group of men sit at the tables in the back, talking and eating one dish brought out from the kitchen after another.

As a child, Manel Palou spent hours playing in the kitchen of Andorra, his parents’ restaurant in Barcelona’s Barrio El Born. Later, as a teenager, he helped out behind the counter while his brother Miki cooked in the kitchen. Originally bought by his grandfather in 1952, the small restaurant had been around for as long as anyone could remember; even the old-timers in the neighborhood can’t remember where the name comes from or who the previous owners were. Then in 2004, Manel’s parents decided to sell Andorra and retire. Within six years, the restaurant went from being a neighborhood favorite to a mediocre Italian joint with few clients and little charm.

With its high walls lined top-to-bottom with a colorful array of bottles, the tiny Quimet & Quimet, a charming tapas bar in El Poble Sec, could easily be mistaken for just another wine shop. But step inside this culinary cabinet of wonders, one of the most famous and beautiful bodegas de tapas in Barcelona, and you will be magically whisked into another world of edible and drinkable delights.

Though it may seem bewildering or even exotic to outsiders, Istanbul’s commercial life is actually organized according to a very old, guildlike system that assigns different neighborhoods to the sale and sometimes manufacture of different types of products. If you bottom out in a pothole and need a rot balans, you head up to the Oto Sanayi area. For kitchen and bathroom accessories, the Çağlayan neighborhood is the answer. And when Istanbulites hanker for grilled sweetbreads, or uykuluk, the only suitable place to go is Sütlüce, down where the slaughterhouses used to operate on the Golden Horn.

In 2008, Shanghai’s noodle scene was dealt a mighty blow. A Niang, a granny from the ancient seaport of Ningbo who was famous among local foodies for her seafood noodles, was forced to close her streetside shop after being diagnosed with kidney disease. Over the past few decades, she’d gained a loyal following; her friendly, wrinkled face was a common sight in the dining room, as she often wandered through the hordes of hungry diners to say hello to regulars or wipe up a splash of spilled soup.

Considering Athens’ position as a top tourist destination, it may come as a surprise that it is only recently that local museums have decided to up their game when it comes to their dining offerings. Worldwide, a good restaurant and café are now considered part of the whole museum-going experience, but it took a little time for Athenian museums to catch on to that, though catch on they have.

On the diner intimidation scale, Shanghai’s Chenghuang Miao Tese Xiaochi – which can be loosely translated as “City God Temple Snack Shop” – ranks pretty high, with aggressive lunchtime crowds and nothing but Chinese character-laden menus for guidance. But the payoff, a baptism by fire in authentic Chinese eating, is worth it. The hungry masses that congregate here have discovered a simple truth: the food here is quick, tasty and cheap – a gastronaut’s holy trinity.

Dear Culinary Backstreets, We will be visiting Barcelona with our children. Do you have any good recommendations of places in the city to eat with kids?

While the Princes’ Islands make for a great escape from the city, it used to be hard to think of them as a culinary destination. That is, until Heyamola Ada Lokantası opened. The restaurant is a perfect storm of inspired food, chill ambiance and small-label Turkish wines, all at ridiculously low prices.

Kadınlar Pazarı – a pleasant, pedestrian-only square in Istanbul’s Fatih neighborhood – is the closest thing the city has to a “Little Kurdistan.” The area is populated by migrants from Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast region, and small market stalls and butcher shops selling honey, cheeses, spices and other goodies from the region surround the square. Visiting the atmospheric area is a great way to get a taste of Southeast Turkey without having to leave Istanbul.

At first glance, Restaurant Roma doesn’t appear to be anything out of the ordinary. The nondescript brown tiles covering the floors, the dark wood bar, the vaguely Mediterranean-inspired wall décor and the rectangular paper Ikea lamps are similar to those at hundreds of other midrange restaurants throughout Barcelona. Situated on a quiet street in residential Sant Gervasi, Roma isn’t somewhere you’d be likely to come across accidentally, nor is it the kind of place you’d happen to hear about, unless you (or your aunt, or coworker or a friend of a friend) lived nearby. And that would be a shame because the food at Roma is good – ridiculously delicious, in fact.

Lahmacun is one of those mysterious foods where a lot is created with so little. It checks all of the boxes of a perfect savory snack: crispy, oven-fired crust, light and spicy meat spread, a fresh green garnish and a tangy spray from a lemon. It’s like an artisanal pizza with a Middle Eastern topping wrapped around a side salad – for the cost of a shoeshine.

One of our favorite markets in Mexico City, Mercado Jamaica is a fantastic destination any time of the year, offering everything from festive Christmas decorations to a large selection of fruits and vegetables. After the markets of Xochimilco, Jamaica is also one of the city’s best flower markets, with block-long aisles filled with freshly cut flowers and plants of almost every imaginable color and type. But as much as we love getting lost in the sweet scents of these green alleyways, what keeps us coming back to Jamaica is El Profe, an excellent eatery inside the market that specializes in barbacoa. El Profe ("The Prof") looks less like your typical market food stand and more like a mini restaurant, with small brass chandeliers hanging from the ceiling that provide more in the way of ambiance than actual light. Waiters and cooks in matching blue uniforms hustle and bustle around the customers, who come and go from the counter at a steady pace.

One of the big downsides to Istanbul’s otherwise great food scene is the lack of a credible Mexican option. We’re not asking for anything special, just a place that serves simple, tasty tacos or burritos. But when the craving for Mexican gets strong, we don’t despair; we just head down to the waterside neighborhood of Karaköy, home to Beşaltı Kirvem Tantuni, a hole-in-the-wall (literally) spot whose food and atmosphere remind us of the tiny taquerías in Mexico and the United States that we miss so much.