In Greece, where the land is mostly rocky and steep and the climate hot and arid, the olive tree thrives, and for millennia, olive oil has been as essential to Greek cooking as the gnarled, silver-leaved trees have been to its landscape. Greece is the third largest producer of olive oil in the world after Spain and Italy and the greatest in consumption per capita. Used liberally as a cooking fat for all manner of ingredients and preparations, as well as in its raw state to dress or flavor dishes, olive oil also plays an influential role in Greek baking, such as in koulourakia, twisted or coiled cookies, and paximadia, the twice-baked rusks that come savory or sweet.

When we first discovered this delightful ouzeri in Neo Psychiko last May, we were thrilled to have found a place that specialized in Politiki Kouzina – not the cooking up of politics but the cuisine of Constantinople, often called simply I Poli, or The City, by Greeks even today. Ironically, mutual friends had chosen it to fete a Turkish guest, a visitor from Istanbul, which seemed a culinary version of taking coals to Newcastle. But she pronounced the fare delicious, and smacked her lips over such shared dishes as Imam Baildi, dolmades and bourekakia made with phyllo.

For 2,000 years, people have flocked to the Abanotubani baths, whose hot sulfuric waters have long been fabled to possess magical healing qualities. The Persian king Agha Mohammad Khan soaked there in 1795, hoping to reverse the effects of the castration he suffered as a child. He dried off, found his conditioned unchanged and razed Tbilisi to the ground. While people continue to espouse the curative properties of the sulfur baths, we can only vouch for their powers to relieve stress, loosen up sore muscles and help poach the hangover out of you. It is the latter attribute that inspired the local chef Tekuna Gachechiladze to open a restaurant last year that might not cure erectile disorders, but is definitely designed to nurture alcohol-stricken bodies back to life.

In Oaxaca, a state where gastronomy is almost a religion, there are some extraordinary dishes that are prepared only for special occasions because of the complexity of preparation. Mole chichilo, for example, uses more than 30 ingredients, and its preparation can take up to 3 days. But there are spectacularly tasty (and complex) dishes that can be had anytime. One of these is caldo de piedra (stone soup) from the Tuxtepec region. On our last visit to Oaxaca City, we visited a restaurant a few miles outside of the center whose rendition of this soup blew our minds.

Many people think of miso as the soup that gets tacked onto every Japanese meal. We can still remember our first experience of Japanese food in the West, when the waiter brought the soup at the end of the meal, and someone thought he’d forgotten to serve it at the beginning. Any self-respecting Japanese meal, just about anywhere in the world, will end with miso soup. The miso used in the soup is a paste that will determine the flavor of the soup. There are basically three kinds of miso: red (akamiso), white (shiromiso) and mixed (awase), which has a brownish hue and is the most common variety used in miso soup.

Although it opened four years ago, Shilabo’s has gone mostly unnoticed by many lisboetas – perhaps due to its minimal size (only 12 seats) or to the discrete nature of owner Santiago Afonso Julio. From his tiny open kitchen, he serves up just three or four daily dishes, indicated on the menu outside the door. Most are traditionally Angolan, such as the iconic national dish, moamba. The classic format is made up of stewed chicken pieces served with funge, the gelatinous porridge of cassava (or corn, in the southern part of the country), and can be prepared either with peanut butter or with palm oil. Afonso Julio’s version is a fusion of the two.

Order a plate of vindaloo in one of the many Goan restaurants around Lisbon and your local friend at the table may point out that the origin of this dish is, in fact, Portuguese. Even the name can be decoded back to the Portuguese vinho d’alhos (wine and garlic), he’ll say. But let’s be honest here, amigo, vinho d’alhos has about as much to do with Goan vindaloo as the croissant does with the cronut. Vinho d’alhos may have sailed off to Goa along with Vasco da Gama in the 15th century, but when it returned to Lisbon with Goan migrants in the 1960s and 70s, something had changed. It had gone Goan.

The afternoon was gray, drizzly and, even for a Good Friday, doleful. So the brightly colored sign in the restaurant window – had someone scooped up all the highlighters at the stationery store? – shone out all the more. "FANESCA," it announced in bold block letters. We hadn't given thought to fanesca since we read an account by writer Calvin Trillin, some years earlier, of his quest for this Easter-season soup. After all, we had no plans to follow Trillin to the cobbled streets of Cuenca, or to anywhere else in Ecuador, anytime soon. But we remembered the name fanesca, and we stepped inside the restaurant for a restorative bowl. The sign in the window was true to its word: “Deliciosa!”

To make excellent octopus broth, you must first fill a huge pot with water to the brim – at least 20 liters – bring it to a boil, add salt and pepper in industrial quantities and immerse four large octopuses. After 33 minutes (and not one more) of simmering, it’s ready: the octopus has reached the perfect consistency. Yet in Naples there’s a saying, “The octopus cooks in its own water” – a proverb that means that a person needs to get to the truth on his own and in his own time. Lello tells us that what this saying is referring to isn’t actually true, since clearly, an octopus needs much more water than what it comes with to actually cook.

On the last floor of a high building in Marquês de Pombal – Lisbon’s financial and commercial area – is the headquarters of the Associação Cabo Verde, the oldest of its kind in the capital. Its unexpected location aside, it draws many from the community who need support with issues relating to law and integration issues and acts as a central meeting point for all types, including academics. As well as organizing events focusing on post-colonial Cape Verde and its diaspora, the association also hosts regular festive lunches (almoço dancantes), with live music on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

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.

Located in the Atlantic at the same latitude as Casablanca, Madeira may be a small island, but there’s so much to see that it takes three to five days to get a real sense of it. An hour and a half by plane from Lisbon, the capital and largest city is Funchal, a historic town whose claim to fame is a more recent one: it’s where soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo was born (a statue and a museum in his honor can both be found here). Historically one of the first settlements of the golden age of Portuguese exploration, the island became an outpost for trade and ships going to Brazil or India.

The dog is in the car whining with a lusty craze at every cat and dog she sees. It’s shedding season and tufts of her hair puff off at every lurch and bounce in the back seat, the window smeared with her nose art. We park at the top of the street and walk down to school to pick up her six-year-old master, who grumbles that she’s hungry, starving even, and asks if we can go to “that bar.” The fridge is empty at home and “that bar” – the Black Dog – stands between us and the car. It is an excellent suggestion. The Tbilisi bar scene is a recent phenomenon in the scope of what is by tradition an intense dining culture.

In the southwestern part of Catalonia, in the province of Lleida, lies Les Garrigues, where the gray-green foliage of compact Arbequina olive trees stretches across some 20,000 hectares of the soft, dry landscape. This is where one of Spain’s best extra-virgin olive oils is produced. The olive tree has been cultivated in Catalonia since at least ancient Roman times, although it was probably first introduced by the Greeks in 600 BCE. Its cultivation developed alongside other typical crops that flourish in a dry climate – such as almonds, grains and grapes – until growing olives and producing olive oil became the main industry of Les Garrigues in the 19th century.

Kolonaki, or “little column” in Greek, might just be Athens’ most iconic neighborhood, forever synonymous as it is in the minds of Athenians with the wealth and idiosyncrasies of its affluent residents. Occupying the area from Syntagma square up to Lycabettus hill, it’s full of swanky boutiques, cafes and restaurants. However, one of its most famous hidden gems is actually the unfussy Philippou, a small family-run eatery that sits on a tree-dotted street away from the hustle and bustle of the main square. Founded in 1923 by Kostas Philippou, it began as a humble taverna with earthen floors and big barrels filled with home-made wine.