This year, our Lisbon team was busy exploring place both near and far. Correspondent Austin Bush, who moved to the city almost two years ago, has been able to go deeper – and farther – in his pursuit of food as his Portuguese improves. As a result, the dishes, ingredients and drinks that most excited him this year included those outside of Lisbon, or were things that he wasn't previously aware of, or that took a bit more work to find, and as a result, they were that much more rewarding. Lisbon bureau chief and lead guide Célia Pedroso, meanwhile, managed to explore the world without leaving the Portuguese capital, savoring flavors from Angola and Goa, while also returning to some local classic Portuguese spots that, year after year, continue to provide her with unforgettable culinary memories.

2023 was such an incredibly busy and exciting year for the Mexico City food scene. It felt like every single week, two or three new restaurants or bars were opening their doors. Sometimes, we admit, it even felt like a challenge to keep track – which is a happy problem, to be sure. At the same time, our favorite haunts and timeless classics beckoned, reminding us that, despite the inevitable change, quality will always stand the test of time. As a testament to that statement, we pay tribute to the always creative and delicious Expendio de Maíz, where corn-based surprises lead the culinary journey, as well as the ever-comforting Caldos de Gallina Luis, which brought us back to life more than once during the year.

After this 2023’s surge of tourists across Sicily (fueled, in many ways, by the international success of locally shot series like White Lotus and upcoming Gattopardo), the New Year promises to be a busy one, as more curious travelers are drawn by the stunning landscapes, impressive architecture, and, of course, the delectable cuisine. While some of Palermo’s streets have transformed into tourist hubs with souvenir shops and eateries, it can be tricky to pick out the most authentic spots. However, within the vast expanse of the city, a little exploration and attention can lead to high-quality, tranquil places that truly honor Sicilian food and ingredients, even on the busiest streets.

In New Orleans, the calendar revolves around food as much as it does around Mardi Gras, Festivals and Football Season. From the ripe Creole tomatoes of midsummer to the smokey gumbos of the fall, from oysters to crawfish, we mark our days by degustation as much as celebration. And while we are always down for a good meal and a good time, certain bites from throughout the year linger in our memories. Bites that transport us to other places, to different times in our lives, and that make us smile. Like Popeyes fried chicken at a Mardi Gras parade, or a cauldron of jambalaya at a tailgate, bites that bring joy and comfort and maybe even a surprise or two. So while we’ve eaten too many things to count this year, these are the bites that stood out to us.

This year was one of tragedy and tumult for Turkey, as the devastating earthquakes of February 6 ripped through the southeast of the country, leaving more than 50,000 dead and displacing millions. If that weren't enough, the focus then shifted to highly-polarizing general and presidential elections held at the end of spring, with the economy spiraling ever downward and unofficial inflation rates soaring past three digits. The Turkish lira continued losing value and the prices of so many consumer goods increased every couple of days. The word “expensive” lost all meaning. Having established that gloomy context, the Istanbul food world nevertheless remained resilient. There’s still excitement to be found in the form of excellent spots that further confirm our belief that we could never run out of intriguing places in this sprawling city.

Sometimes Tokyo feels like a simulacrum, a pixel-generated city restlessly tearing itself down and rebuilding itself in the latest image of a megacity. The Shibuya skyline morphed over the past decade, punctuated by mega malls. This year has brought the opening of Azabudai Hills, a mega complex that features offices, residences, and even an international school, the latest articulation of developer Mori Building’s vision to raise the “international competitiveness” of Tokyo. Yet, for many, the city’s appeal lies not in the tower blocks of the wealthy, but at the microscale, in pockets of past decades, in the spaces where a miso shop might be wedged among apartments, where the best bar of the night might be ten stories up or two stories down, and where the evening hangout might only have five seats.

After two years marked by significant changes and challenges, 2023 has emerged as a year of stability and consolidation for Tbilisi's dining scene. While there may not be any groundbreaking revolutions, the city, true to its dynamic nature, has still experienced a noteworthy turnover of venues, with new establishments opening as others closing. In the heart of the Sololaki district, the cherished Ezo sadly closed its doors in late October. Translating to "courtyard" in Georgian, Ezo was more than just a restaurant; it was a sanctuary where patrons sought solace while indulging in delicious dishes. Since its establishment in 2015, Ezo had been a trailblazer, introducing a fresh perspective to the local food scene.

It’s hard to choose among all of Sicily’s justifiably famous foods, but if we had to pick one as the most the most iconic and beloved it would have to be arancine. These small rice balls, filled with enticing ingredients, coated in a crispy breading and deep fried, are a true culinary masterpiece that embodies the passion and creativity of Sicilian cuisine. Traditionally, arancine were prepared in two flavors: meat and “butter.” Meat arancine are stuffed with meat sauce and peas. Butter arancine, despite the name, are actually filled with mozzarella cheese, cooked ham and béchamel sauce. Over the years, however, local rosticceria – fry shops selling the treat – have added different variations: today, you can find spots offering arancine stuffed with everything from sausage to swordfish, spinach, “alla norma” (with fried eggplant and tomato sauce) and even Nutella – a far cry from the historic roots of this famous dish.

Porto witnessed a considerable increase in its tourism in 2023 – a new record, with over 1.5 million overnight stays, was registered in the first four months of the year in the city. With the arrival of summer, the flow of visitors increased even more, which had an impact on the local culinary scene. While Porto has not yet reached widespread peaks of gentrification like other European cities (even though some neighborhoods, such as Baixa and Ribeira, are already seeing notable class and ethnoracial changes), we’ve seen an interesting effect of new openings in town. Upscale businesses and renowned chefs (such as the award-winning Nuno Mendes) are coming to Porto to open branches and test new concepts.

Eating in the city of Angels is always exciting, with new restaurants and pop-ups continuously appearing and long-time restaurants still holding their own. Cliché as it may sound, Los Angeles is a true melting pot of cuisines where you can find food from pretty much every corner of the globe, as well as a new generation of third-culture chefs creating dishes inspired by their experiences growing up in a global city like L.A. It was no easy task to narrow our choices down, but these are the memorable meals that made it onto our Los Angeles Best Bites list for 2023.

Though Paris is littered with brasseries boasting classic French cuisine, Marseille lacks restaurants that solely specialize in our traditional fare – a mix of Provençal garlic, tomatoes, and olive oil and the freshly caught delights of the Mediterranean. When we lamented this at a dinner party the other night, a woman chimed in, “What about Paule et Kopa?” We had never heard of it despite its central locale. She raved that the supions à la provencale (garlic, parsley squid) were the best in the city. Then continued, “but I rarely share that for fear it will lose its simple charm.”

In the grab-and-go section of Katsu Sando’s second L.A. location hangs a T-shirt that reads: “Krispy and thicc sandos bruh.” That’s not a typo. The extra “c” in “thicc” refers not only to the audibly loud crunch you get from the casual Japanese restaurant’s panko-crusted pork and chicken cutlets, but to the generous fillings and fat slices of honey-milk bread that make up its eponymous dish, the katsu sando. Katsu is a fried cutlet, an iconic element of Japanese cooking. But sando is not just a shorter way to say sandwich. It is the translation of a Japanese interpretation of a “Western-inspired sandwich” – a fitting star dish for this L.A. spot. The bread itself (shokupan), made with milk and honey, is meant to be an elevated version of fluffy American sandwich loaves like Wonder Bread.

Matosinhos, it could be said, has seen better times. In its heyday, the semi-industrial-feeling port city just north of Porto was once home to 54 fish canneries. Today, only two remain. Along the city’s wide, empty-feeling streets, some of the city’s former factories and their graceful Art Nouveau facades have been reappropriated as other businesses – we saw more than one startup – while in many cases, they have simply been abandoned. But at Pinhais, one of those remaining canneries, it feels like little has changed. As it’s done since 1920, having weathered both good and bad times in Matosinhos, the company is producing some of the best tinned seafood in Portugal. Before World War II, there were 152 fish canneries in Portugal. But in the 1960s, advances in refrigeration led to a crash in tinned seafood production (for more on the history of Iberian tinned seafood, see our previous article about conservas in Galicia, Spain).

Ergenekon Avenue, the busy, one-way street that separates the Istanbul quarters of Kurtuluş and Pangaltı, is particularly bustling at the Osmanbey metro exit. For years now, the heavy foot traffic has outgrown its narrow sidewalks, peaking into an insurmountable throng at evening rush hour. On one side is an expansive walled Levantine Catholic cemetery, while the other side of the avenue marks the beginning of Kurtuluş, with its dead-straight residential backstreets running in parallels. These have quickly become home to an array of bars, cafes, restaurants and meyhanes that have popped up within the past several years and seem to keep multiplying. But nestled into a small storefront on the crowded Ergenekon is Pangaltı Sandviç, a tiny delicatessen that has been selling sandwiches made with top-notch ingredients since 1996, long before any of these newcomers.

Tanini Agapi Mou may be one of the most ambitious wine bars in Athens’s growing wine scene. But nothing about it feels pretentious.   Plants hang from the ceiling and windows, growing wildly and draping the store in green. The furniture is simple, with tables crafted by independent producers out of highly-sustainable birchwood. The music that fills the room is a mix that spans genres, but is a pleasant background sound to the clinking of glasses. The employees don’t wear uniforms, and when they talk about the menu, their enthusiasm is real.