While Bolhão’s century-old original structure is being restored, the vegetables, fruits, fish and flowers of the market have been brought to a decidedly less striking indoor location with no windows. The place is new, strange to many, but the usual faces are there. We know their names, their smiles. The only thing we’re uncertain about is the setting. “It looks really beautiful,” says Rosa, “I thought it was going to be a mess, as it was something to remedy, but it’s beautiful.” Rosa tells us that she hasn’t been to Bolhão for at least a year, which is about how long the original location has been shuttered for renovation. As we walk with Fernando and Rosa, a chorus of “good days” rings out from all directions. We pass through corridors of fruit, nibble on some chorizo, smell the flowers. “Excuse me, where’s the herbalist Augusto Coutinho?”

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.

Surrounded by construction sites, Salı Pazarı – literally “Tuesday Market” – is a huge open-air bazaar in Kadıköy, a district on the Asian side. This sprawling market, held on Tuesdays and Fridays, is a snapshot of life in Istanbul: old ladies plow through crowds, their trolleys overflowing with groceries; vendors scream at the top of their lungs; and cars rocket down the highway along the front side of the market. In addition to being a litmus test of Turkey’s economic state and the general mood of the people, the market and the produce showcased on its stands reflect the changes in the seasons. In fact, as spring has been struggling to assert itself this year, only a few stands are stocked with the typical spring products on the sunny but cold April morning that we visit.

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.

Nine Inch Nails. Metallica. Tool. Rage Against the Machine. The driving beats, shredding guitar solos and iconic howls are attention grabbing to say the least as you meander through the colorful labyrinth that is Mercado de Coyoacán. From its famous tostadas and comida corridas to spiritual cleansings using Santa Muerte magic and all things Frida (it’s located just three blocks from Kahlo’s Casa Azul, arguably the most visited site in Mexico City), the Coyoacán Market is always abuzz with diners and shoppers, as many locals as tourists. In this case, the music is coming somewhat incongruously from behind an array of fresh-cut flowers: lilies, sunflowers, hydrangea, roses, carnations.

A tomato is a tomato, or that’s what it might seem like to grocery shoppers in Barcelona. But Karim, who currently oversees two hectares of organic gardens in Campíns, an area northeast of Barcelona located at the foot of the Montseny mountain range, knows otherwise. “We don’t know what we eat,” he tells us. “I used to work at other places dedicated to industrial farming, and they added a powder to tomatoes to force them to mature in a couple of days. There was a storeroom where we had to put on a special protection suit before entering [the greenhouses] because the tomatoes were sprayed with harmful products that could go directly to our bones.”

Pa de Sant Jordi, bread striped with the bright yellow and red of the Catalan flag to celebrate La Diada de Sant Jordi, may be the new-kid-on-the-block of culinary traditions in Barcelona, but it’s been accepted by nearly everyone as a genuine part of the holiday. The patriotically colored bread is now a ubiquitous presence in bakeries throughout the city come April 23.

Mark Twain once famously remarked, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” Perhaps Tokyo’s beloved and historic Tsukiji Market can say the same. Several years ago the Metropolitan government declared that Tokyo’s Tusikiji fish market needed to be relocated to a more efficient and workable location. Construction was begun on a new state-of-the-art site 2.3 kilometers away in the Toyosu area of Tokyo, strategically located facing Tokyo Bay.

Lisbon’s indie culture scene has gone through various iterations over the years. In the 80s, influenced by the London indie scene, the city was animated by independent record shops, music clubs and bars, mostly in Bairro Alto. And in the 90s, the newspaper O Independente emerged and won over Lisboetas with its irreverent style. Although the indie scene has stagnated somewhat recently, one woman is working to reinvigorate it by adding a new sector: food and wine. And despite the fact that Rita Santos only opened her shop, Comida Independente, in March of this year, it has already won a legion of fans.

While most artisanal markets and mom-and-pop groceries throughout Japan have given way to large supermarket chains and convenience stores, Kyoto still boasts one of the last markets selling local delicacies along with fresh foods and housewares. Often called “Kyoto’s Kitchen,” Nishiki Market is not like traditional huge bazaars with stalls selling fresh vegetables, fruits and meat. The market’s roots date back almost five centuries, to the fish market that grew up around an underground stream that remains freezing cold throughout the year and historically provided a way to keep fish fresh in a city far from the sea.

For Josué Barona, the Mercado San Juan has always been part of his life: his mother and father both have stalls there, just around the corner from each other, and he has been working among the bustling food stands from a young age. While the stand that the now 35-year-old works at doesn’t really have a name – it is simply number 259 – many know it as Rosse Gourmet, the name he has given to the side of his business that sells edible flowers and micro greens. “We have been selling edible flowers for the last ten years,” he tells us as he counts colorful pansies into plastic containers ready for a big order he was preparing to send out. “Before that, the flowers didn’t exist [for sale] like this in Mexico.”

“Now we finally have light!” a vendor excitedly tells a customer, one of many similar exclamations we overhear while wandering around the new temporary digs of the Mercat de L’Abaceria Central. Formerly housed in a historic building on Travessera de Gràcia in the Gràcia neighborhood, the market and its 56 food vendors, 43 food stalls, 13 clothing and kitchenware merchants and two cafeterias recently shifted to a nearby location as renovation work begins on the original structure.

The vast country of China has just one time zone, so Shanghai’s East Coast location means darkness comes early and most residents usually eat by nightfall, with restaurants often closing their kitchens around 9 p.m. But for those who keep late hours, there are a few late night supper spots around town. Aggressive government crackdowns on hawker stalls have driven many of the late night street vendors indoors, and our top five list goes beyond these roving vendors to feature a mix of restaurants that stay open late and small family-run gems that cater exclusively to the night-owl crowd.

“I still don’t know where the siphon bottles for the vermut are,” says an employee of Marina, a small bar in the newly renovated Mercat de Sant Antoni. It’s clear as we’re walking around that the staff of the market’s few bars and its many vendors are still settling in and adapting to their brand new spots. At the same time, hundreds of visitors have been exploring the revamped market each day since its opening last week asking, “Where can we eat or drink something?” So far, that seems to be the question on everyone’s mind, particularly locals. But this is not another food hall, this is a proper neighborhood market focused on selling quality fresh produce and other food product

Barcelona’s urban sprawl makes it easy to forget that the city is adjacent to two fertile regions to the north and south, El Maresme and El Baix Llobregat, which provide numerous hyperlocal culinary treasures throughout the year. In spring as in other seasons, these treasures appear at markets and restaurants, their origins proudly displayed, sometimes even with the names of the specific villages that they come from. The coast and gently sloping mountains of El Maresme are home to numerous villages, three natural parks and beaches. Unsurprisingly, there’s an abundance of seafood here, including gamba de Arenys (Arenys prawns), scampi (escamarlans in Catalan, cigalas in Spanish) and little Mediterranean sand eels (sonsos in Catalan).