Osteria Mangia e Bevi

Imagine you are Marcel Proust at the beginning of his novel In Search of Lost Time, or the feared food critic Anton Ego in Ratatouille, the Pixar masterpiece that won the 2008 Oscars for Best Animated Film. In the exact moment you taste a madeleine dipped in tea or a forkful of ratatouille, your palate is activated you are catapulted back in time, to that first Sunday morning you tried the dessert or to that time when, after falling off your bike, the dinner your mother prepared you somehow seemed to make everything better. It is this emotion, this involuntary memory flashback, that cousins Nico Virga and Angelo Fascetta had in mind when they opened their restaurant. Located on Via Cavalieri di Malta, behind the Church of San Domenico – known as the Pantheon of Sicilians – Osteria Mangia e Bevi is a charming eatery that offers not only simple home cooking from Palermo, but also a true taste of grandma's cooking. Grandma Antonietta’s, more specifically.

Casa São Miguel

Those pastry shops that seem to command just about every corner in Lisbon? They’re an important institution in the city, as well as an utterly delicious way to start the day. But the truth is, these days, the range of pastries sold in Lisbon is limited and many of those sweets are produced on an industrial or semi-industrial level. Leonor Oliveira and Pedro Nunes wanted to create a pastry shop that went in the opposite direction.

Pictograma

For a dish so ubiquitous, one would be forgiven to think there’s little to debate about Georgia’s national dumpling, the khinkali. But just as tastes vary, every Georgian has their own khinkali preferences and opinions. That’s certainly the case for chef Gela Arabuli, who believes khinkali has been gentrified and mass produced to a point where most people have forgotten the dumplings’ origins in the mountains and how they should really taste. “Real khinkali is from the high mountains. And there are no pigs in the mountains,” insists Gela, referring to the most popular and common filling of minced beef and pork in equal parts as kalakuri, or “city style,” khinkali.

Pad Thai and Beyond

The vast majority of the food in Bangkok is, without a doubt, Thai. But peek under the hood and you’ll find ingredients, cooking techniques, and dishes that can be traced back to places far beyond Thailand. Influences brought by Chinese immigrants – namely Hokkien, Hakka, and Teochew people – have done the most to shape food in Bangkok. Immigration from the Muslim world has also had a massive impact on the city’s cuisine. And even contact with Europeans has come to shape Thai food. The result of all this is the fascinating, delicious jumble of ingredients, cooking techniques, dishes, and influences that today we recognize as Thai food.

Marseille State of the Stomach

On the Rue d’Aubagne, Tunisian men dunk bread into bowls of leblebi – a garlicky chickpea soup – as scooters dash by. A dashiki-clad Togolese woman plucks cassava from the Vietnamese-run market to fry up for lunch. A boy buys Algerian flatbread, kesra, to snack on after school as Maghrebi teens in track pants sell single “Marl-bo-ros.”

Best Bites 2023: Barcelona

These days, we can feel a change in Barcelona’s food scene. On one hand, the local cuisine is continually enriched with intercultural dialogue, blended recipes, fusion ingredients or crossroads dishes. Frequently, Catalan restaurant owners pair with partners and team members from around the world, fostering the kind of creativity and collaboration that we love to see. On the other hand, Barcelona’s culinary traditions are being reclaimed by a whole generation of trained chefs who glorify their grandmother’s cooking and local recipes, seeking to elevate and share them. Innovation is supported by tradition, and the culinary experience here continues to grow with the addition of sophisticated techniques, an eye toward sustainable and local ingredients and historical concepts.

Best Bites 2023: Oaxaca

Culinarily speaking, 2023 was irreverent and loud. It tasted like salty melted cheese, fried beef, hot sauces, sour lime-flavored water, tropical fruits, and beer – lots of hoppy beer. While Oaxaca’s top restaurants kept it classy and stylish, the groovy craft beer bars, as well as the buzzing market and street food stalls told a frantic story of crowded seats, euphoric clients and scrumptious food and drinks. This year’s Best Bites include recipes, dishes or drinks that proved to us there are no limits or assigned spaces for gastronomic evolution. In the realm of food, true culinary art knows no distinction and no matter where they come from, flavors will be flavors.