Considering that Brazilians form the largest foreign community in Lisbon, it’s disappointing there aren’t more “green and yellow” restaurants in the city. Outside of a rodízio (all-you-can-eat grilled meat restaurants) boom that came and went in the 80s, there’s not much in the way of interesting Brazilian spots in the city (with a few exceptions, of course). So we got our hopes up when a new Brazilian place opened in the riverside district of Cais do Sodré. Located on the riverfront, in the warehouse where for many years the traditional restaurant Pescaria served its fish specialties, Boteco da Dri is smack in the middle of a busy nightlife area – its neighbor is B.Leza, Lisbon’s legendary African music club.

Black ice cream is not an easy sell, but Jose Luis Cervantes, AKA Joe Gelato, is a persuasive guy. It’s not just his million-dollar smile or easygoing nature, but also the passion that he clearly feels for his gelato. “Before I went to Italy, I knew about the concept of gelato,” says Jose, “but I had no idea how good it would be. I had only tasted what was available in Mexico at time. I went there and felt the fat in my mouth, the sugars, I can’t explain it – I love it. I love the whole culture around gelato.”

El Racó de l’Agüir (“Agüir’s Corner”), a restaurant in Barcelona’s Sant Antoni neighborhood, has been a long time in the making: it represents the life’s work of the Agüir family, the culmination of their talent and experience. Two generations can be found here – parents Roser and Ferran, who have managed four different restaurants over the course of their careers, and their sons, Iván and Ferran, both of whom are now in their 40s and grew up working with their parents. Mom and dad opened El Racó de l’Agüir in 1990, but after two years their progeny took over the reins.

On our special five-day culinary adventure in Mexico City, we eat one of our meals on board a traditional flat-bottomed boat along Xochimilco’s Aztec-era canals that have been in use for more than 2,000 years and are now a UNESCO World Heritage site. The meal is prepared by locals using products from the chinampas, the area’s famous “floating gardens.”

Enslaved Africans first stepped onto North American soil in 1619, unloaded by the Dutch West Indian Company in Jamestown, Virginia. Colonists first auctioned enslaved Africans in New Amsterdam (now New York City), New York, in 1626. According to the New York Historical Society, during the colonial period, 41 percent of the city's households had enslaved peoples, compared to 6 percent in Philadelphia and 2 percent in Boston. Only Charleston, South Carolina, rivaled New York in the degree to which slavery entered everyday life. By 1756, enslaved Africans made up about 25 percent of the populations of Kings, Queens, Richmond, New York and Westchester counties, says historian Douglas Harper. Because of a longer and colder winter, the lives of Queens County and Long Island slaves differed from those of their southern counterparts.

Elena Ferrante’s much-loved novel My Brilliant Friend and its sequels seduced the literary world. And now a new television adaption, which recently debuted on HBO, is bringing this coming-of-age story set in Naples to an even broader audience. Over the course of what many call the Neapolitan novels, the two main characters, friends Lila and Elena, traverse the city. We decided to follow in their (fictional) footsteps, albeit with a focus on all things food.

Before the tourists discovered Tbilisi, Kote Apkhazi Street was Leselidze Street, an unassuming cobblestone ribbon connecting Old Town’s bath district, Abanotubani, with Freedom Square. Home to the Georgian Synagogue, the Armenian Holy Church of Nazareth, and Father of The Cross Church, no other street represents the capital’s multi-ethnic and multi-denominational heritage better. Other than these houses of God, Leselidze hosted several religious shops, a couple of unremarkable restaurants, second-hand clothes shops and mom-and-pop groceries. No one foresaw the flocks of visitors that would invade the Old Town with their selfie sticks, but people understood the location had a future.

It’s 9 o’clock in the morning and the narrow streets that fringe Inokashira Park are largely empty. This part of Kichijoji, a lively neighborhood in west Tokyo, has yet to wake up. Storefront shutters are yet to be lifted; staff inside cafés can be glimpsed preparing for the day. Yet, on one corner, a couple of girls duck into an enclosed alleyway and reappear five minutes later. Next, a solo lady strides inside, emerging after a minute or two. People drift in and out, marking an unusual pattern of activity. This is the entrance to Kooriya Peace, a renowned kakigori (shaved ice) store that’s so popular customers secure their dessert hours in advance – although for early birds it might become their breakfast.

A customer haggles with a vendor selling freshly plucked village chickens and turkeys in Tbilisi’s Dezerter’s Bazaar. This raw, disorganized, 2,000-square-meter warren of unprocessed agrarian goods is the city’s largest open-air market and the focal point of our culinary walk in the city.

Getting ready for a recent New Year’s in Harlem, the Hungarian side of the family was craving a traditional pot of lentils that needed a hunk of smoked pork knuckle. Where to find one with the right flavor in New York City? After some calls and searching, we headed out to Muncan Food Corporation. The address brought us to a storefront along a strip of low-rise brick buildings in Astoria, Queens. Inside the front door we were blasted with smokehouse aromas. To the left: racks of sausages, pâtés, cold cuts – all kinds of dried and cured delicacies dangling from hooks overhead.

We said it last year, and we’ll say it again: we’re often not impressed with traditional holiday gift guides. They’re either littered with undisclosed affiliate links or seemingly endless lists (much like our holiday to-dos) that make us want to turn off the computer and hibernate until the end of January. With that in mind, we’ve brought back our gift guide, a highly-selective (and relatively short) list of products, some serious, others frivolous, that our correspondents and guides eat and use, made by people they know.

Damis Pithis has led a global life. He left his home on the island of Chios at the age of 17 to move to London. There, over the years, he built a successful career in the shipping industry. But at the age of 48, he felt like it was time for a change. Leaving behind his life in London, Pithis moved back to Greece with a dream: to build a farm. This decision didn’t come completely out of the blue. Damis has long been an avid hunter, and through this hobby he was able to visit several farms while in England, which in turn helped shape his vision. He dreamed of building a beautiful farm that was in tune with nature and respected the local landscape, where he could rear healthy, happy animals, including cow breeds that were new to Greece.

Most European capital cities have a Chinatown, and Lisbon is no different. In the 1980s many immigrants from the Zhejiang province, on China’s eastern coast, made downtown Mouraria their home; the wave of newcomers remained steady and eventually peaked in the 2000s. As the first generation grows up, their family businesses are leaving indelible marks on the wider city, joined now by entrepreneurs from Macau – Portugal’s last colony – and those benefiting from the country’s Golden Visa scheme, which allows people who invest a certain amount or buy property in Portugal to move here. This means a boom in Chinese food right in the heart of the city.

Turkish wine is something of a paradox. Despite being one of the oldest winemaking countries on earth, Turkey is by no means a big wine-drinking country. Go to any bar or meyhane in Istanbul and you’re more likely to see people guzzling large pints of frothy beer or swirling delicate glasses containing cloudy rakı. Yet there are over a hundred wineries operating across the country, roughly half of which are small producers making less than 250,000 bottles a year. Many of these wineries, big and small, are producing award-winning vino. The struggle lies in finding these high-quality wines out in the wilds of Istanbul.

In Beijing, it’s not uncommon for a waiter to ask “有忌口吗?” before you start ordering. It translates as “Anything you don’t eat?” With a large Hui Muslim minority population, Beijing is more accustomed to diners with dietary restrictions than southern cities like Shanghai. In the Paris of the Orient, it’s not uncommon to explain that a diner is vegetarian and still have their tofu or vegetable dishes come out of the kitchen sprinkled with minced pork. The common retort when pointing out the meat is “It’s just a little bit – for flavor!” But Spring Trees takes that northern dietary accommodation a step further, offering meat-free renditions of classic Sichuan dishes alongside the pork-laden options. It’s perhaps the best option in Beijing for diners looking for a pork-free (or fully veg) restaurant.