Lahori Darbar

South Asian transplants say the best desi food is always served at home, not in restaurants. But Mohammad Yunus, the manager of Lahori Darbar in Istanbul’s Kumkapı neighborhood, thinks otherwise. “The taste here is better than what you get at home,” he said in front of his no-frills joint Lahori Darbar, located a stone’s throw from the grand Armenian Patriarchate, one of the area’s landmarks. On our visit, South Asian tourists and businessmen chatted, snacking on chana dal and chapati at the corner spot, amid a sea of blue-and-white meyhanes. Kumkapı– a stretch along the Marmara Sea – was once the center of Istanbul’s Armenian community, but a shifting kaleidoscope of immigrant groups have moved through the area, opening and closing shops and restaurants in a flash.

Piccolo Napoli

In Italy, family is everything. And in Palermo, every family has a fisherman. These concepts are present on Trattoria Piccolo Napoli’s red, blue and white sign, which sports a caricature of a perplexed sea bass and a promise of home cooking. Open the wooden doors to find a three-generation seafood restaurant a stone’s throw from the city’s old harbor with a fantastic fresh fish display, with part of a swordfish sitting high on the icy altar, below a bowl of lemons.