Porto

The Essentials: Where We Eat in Porto, Portugal

Porto is a city that wears its heart on its sleeve, and nowhere is this more evident than the best of its restaurant food. From the ever-popular Ribeira district to the tiled streets of Miragaia, francesinhas, bifanas, and tripe stews beckon – but not all are created equal. For every perfectly balanced francesinha, there’s a soggy, sauce-drowned imposter. And while Porto’s charm lies in its unpretentiousness, it’s easy to fall into tourist traps masquerading as authentic experiences. The Tripeiros (tripe-eaters, or people from Porto), however, know best. There are still many spots with longstanding local clientele, favorite spots guarded like family secrets or francesinha sauce recipes, passed down through generations. In this guide to the best restaurants in Porto, we cover what that really means: places where the food is not just sustenance but a reflection of the city’s energy – hearty, uncomplicated, and deeply satisfying.

Bilbao

Introducing Bilbao: Through the Eyes of Our Local Team

Since 2010, Paula has led the Culinary Backstreets Barcelona team as a writer and photographer, experience designer, and culinary walk leader. Born in Vigo, Spain, she left the world of advertising to become a writer, focusing on gastronomy and culture. Her work has been featured in USA Today and other major publications, as well as National Geographic’s show Top Tables, Top Cities. Paula is our go-to for all things Spain and helped us design our newest culinary walk in Bilbao, a city close to her heart. Born and raised in Getxo (Bizkaia), a coastal town near Bilbao, Gonzalo moved to San Sebastian in 2020 to get his master’s degree in gastronomic tourism at the Basque Culinary Center. As a tour guide focusing on food and wine in San Sebastian and Bilbao, he loves to help his guests come to love the Basque country and its gastronomy. As a self-described “craft beer geek and wine lover,” he also loves to show visitors the unique way Bilbao relates to its culinary culture and the city’s historical richness.

Bilbao Reborn: Feasting in the Basque Comeback City

Europe’s greatest comeback city, Bilbao is a place reborn. Until a few decades ago a postindustrial metropolis plagued by pollution and economic decline, Bilbao today is a buzzing cultural and culinary capital.

Guadalajara

Introducing Guadalajara: Through the Eyes of Our Local Team

Editor’s Note: To properly introduce Guadalajara, CB’s newest location, we turned to Eliza Osher, the local guide who helped design our culinary walk there. Born and raised in Los Angeles, where she studied pastry and breadmaking at Le Cordon Bleu, Eliza first came to Mexico to work at a boutique hotel on the Pacific coast of Jalisco state in 2005 and has been living in the country since. She moved to Guadalajara in 2006 after meeting her husband, an artist who grew up in the city. Deeply involved in the city’s arts scene, Eliza works as a language coach and also runs a lending library that she opened in 2015.

Tokyo

The Essentials: Where We Eat in Tokyo, Japan

Images of neon-lit bar streets, serene temples, and clouds of cherry blossoms have long enticed travelers to Japan. But the last couple of years have seen the country’s popularity rise to unseen heights, with a record 37 million foreign tourists visiting in 2024. While last month we launched in Osaka (a culinary powerhouse in its own right) and have published dispatches from Kyoto, we’ve been writing about the food scene in Tokyo for a decade, watching the city evolve with each passing year. We know that, for all its allure, Tokyo can feel overwhelming to navigate, especially when it comes to food. Countless izakayas, sushi bars, noodle joints, and cafes are tucked into every corner – where do you even begin?

Osaka

First Stop: Bjorn Heiberg’s Osaka

Let me first say that Japan hit me very hard when I first arrived because I did not speak the language. I was not a pork eater at the time (I grew up on a farm and pigs were my pets, not dinner) but after my first two weeks in Japan all I was eating was basically breaded pork chops, because that's the only thing I knew how to order in Japanese. You eat or you starve. And when it gets to that point, it's just being able to order that’s the first barrier.

Viva Guadalajara: Exploring Mexico’s Culinary Frontier

On this full day tour in Guadalajara, we’ll explore the delicious contradictions that make this historic yet dynamic Mexican city such a singular culinary destination.