The 25 most popular culinary travel stories of 2025 included guides to cuisines, food scenes, and where to eat in foodie destinations, from markets and street food to restaurants and eat streets; reviews of cooking classes and food tours; stories on our favourite restaurants (Antiche Carampane in Venice) and dishes (cao lau in Hoi An); an ode to a taco stand, hotels for food lovers, even a guide to Asian food etiquette.
I’d love to be able to say we’ve been on holidays to explain our silence here, the pause in newsletters (apologies to our subscribers!), and the long period between our 2025 round-up posts on our 25 most popular recipes of 2025, the 25 most popular travel posts of 2025, and 25 most popular food posts of 2025, and this post on the 25 most popular culinary travel stories of 2025.
But the truth is there’s been so much disruption, it’s been impossible to stick to a schedule. If you’re not in Australia, since Christmas-New Year, we’ve experienced heatwaves with debilitatingly-high temperatures that reminded me of living in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, and nearby bushfires that ravaged farmland and vineyards and destroyed hundreds of structures, including regional broadcast transmission towers, and caused power and internet outages.
Much to the disappointment of my elderly mum who I’m caring for here in Australia, the transmission tower damage has meant no television for weeks and possibly months to come, and therefore none of the quiz shows, trivia shows and game shows she adores. As a result, I’ve had to do more entertaining and cooking to keep her occupied. Not that I mind the cooking. What that means for you are more recipes I’ll be sharing in the days ahead.
Now before you scroll down to our 25 most popular culinary travel stories of 2025, I have a favour to ask. Grantourismo is reader-supported. If you’ve enjoyed our recipes, please consider supporting Grantourismo: you could buy a handcrafted KROK, the best mortar and pestle ever; book a cooking class or a meal with locals on EatWith; or buy something on Amazon, such as these cookbooks for culinary travellers or classic cookbooks for serious cooks.
Looking for more cooking inspiration? Our archives are brimming with thousands of recipes from around the world from places we’ve lived, worked, travelled, and loved. And you can save your favourite recipes in a private account by clicking on the heart on the right of any post. Now let me tell you more about the 25 most popular culinary travel stories of 2025.
25 Most Popular Culinary Travel Stories of 2025
These were our 25 most popular culinary travel posts of 2025 – the foodie travel stories and eating guides that readers searched for and spent time on last year. We hope they provide some delicious travel inspiration if you’re planning food-focused trips for the year ahead.
Calabrian Food Guide
I was chuffed to see our Calabrian food guide topped the list of 25 most popular culinary travel stories of 2025. Every region of Italy has its own unique history, long culinary traditions, and local produce and ingredients that give something like a pasta shape a regional bent or a sausage a singular flavour. None more so than Calabria, the southernmost region of Italy, which boasts regional specialties and signature dishes that couldn’t be anything but Calabrian.
Discovering Calabrian food is a highlight of a trip to the Southern Italian region. While many dishes are ubiquitous across Italy, such as pasta and pizza, nearly every Italian specialty can be traced not only to a particular Italian region, but in some cases to a province, city, town, even a village. And no more so than in Calabria, where the produce and food is some of Italy’s most distinctive, from sweet Tropea onions to the spicy spreadable ’nduja sausage.
One of the best assignments in all our years of guidebook writing was authoring the first English-language travel guide to Calabria some years ago. Our research took us to every city and town and many a village. We got to eat all over Calabria and some of the meals were some of the most memorable ever, from a mushroom degustation with a Baron and Baroness in Camigliatello Silano to sampling homemade ‘nduja from the stalls of its makers at Diamante’s market.
All the research for this Calabrian food guide is from that guidebook trip, all undertaken in person, on the ground in Calabria. There was absolutely nothing on the internet in English on Calabrian food when we researched our guidebook, and very little in print, even in Italian. Which partly explains why we were so warmly welcomed everywhere by the Calabrian people – and fed so well! ;)
Calabrian Food Guide – What to Eat and Where to Eat in Southern Italy’s Spiciest Region
Cao Lau, the Legendary Noodles of Hoi An in Central Vietnam
In Vietnam’s historic riverside town of Hoi An, a noodle dish steeped in legend offers unique flavours and textures that only a rich culinary heritage and hours of preparation can produce. The legendary noodle dish, cao lau, is the essence of Hoi An in a bowl – so mysterious and seductive that way back in early 2012 we settled in Hoi An three months to discover its secrets.
“Cao lau! Cao lau!” cooks and noodle vendors call out continuously from the crowded markets, curbside food stalls and backstreet eateries of Central Vietnam’s UNESCO World Heritage-listed Hoi An, an atmospheric riverside town of incense-filled Chinese temples and Japanese-style timber houses, surrounded by rice paddies.
As it quickly becomes apparent soon after we arrive, cao lau is the historic town’s quintessential must-try dish, partly due to the legend surrounding its making, and partly due to the fact that the deliciously light yet complex rice noodle dish is Hoi An in a bowl.
“Cao lau! Cao lau! You try my cao lau!” The constant cries fast become as irritating as that other ubiquitous request from the tailors lining the lantern-filled streets to come in and get a suit made. It will drive you crazy – until you actually try it. Then it’s no longer an annoyance but a temptation.
In Praise of the Local Taco Stand in San Miguel de Allende
When we asked locals where to eat good, authentically local Mexican food during our two weeks in San Miguel de Allende, that is Mexican locals, not expats, we were often met with a deafening and sometimes embarrassing silence and mumbled directions to a taco stand or simple local eatery. Mexicans we met refused to offer tips for restaurants in San Miguel de Allende.
After a few days in town, we guessed it was the fact that we used the words ‘good’, ‘local’ and ‘authentic’ when asking about Mexican food in San Miguel de Allende that prompted the awkward pauses. Some people reluctantly and half-heartedly mentioned a couple of Mexican restaurants before changing the subject, but most locals avoided giving suggestions for restaurants to eat at in San Miguel.
Other contacts, including Mexican chefs such as chef Martha Ortiz who we’d met in Mexico City, refused to put any San Miguel de Allende restaurant recommendations in writing when we emailed to ask for tips, despite offering her assistance when he hugged goodbye a few nights earlier. Other Mexicans we met in the capital just shook their heads and said that while they go out for drinks in San Miguel, they mainly eat at home when in the town.
As we’d soon learn, this response was due to the large expat population of retired North American gringoes, and the many mediocre restaurants that catered to their tastes, that Mexicans didn’t rate the restaurant food in San Miguel de Allende. It was only when we raised the subject of tacos and Mexican street food in San Miguel that locals’ eyes lit up! So for the rest of our stay, it was tacos all the way. This is an ode to the local San Miguel taco stand that would become our regular dinner spot.
In Praise of the Local Taco Stand in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
No Pizza, No Lasagne, No Tourist Menu at Our Favourite Venice Restaurant
Hidden down a lane in the Venice sestiere (neighbourhood) of San Polo, Antiche Carampane’s location is such that there is little chance that overheated, foot-weary visitors to Venice will stumble upon this lovely little spot, let alone be asking for any of the three items mentioned. For those hungry lost souls who somehow end up in the dead end, the “No pizza, no lasagne, no menù turistico“ sign is sure to have them turn around and go back the way they came.
While that may not be entirely the intention, the often-repeated over-simplifications that “Venetian food is bad” or “Venice doesn’t have any decent restaurants” is pervasive enough for owners Francesco and his all-seeing mother Piera to post the declaration of war against the bland, pan-Italian slop that passes for food at some tourist-centric restaurants in the city.
Antiche Carampane is not alone in serving up superb Venetian cuisine, based on fresh seasonal produce, in an atmospheric setting. And with a characteristically Venetian attitude to hospitality that is warm and welcoming, attentive yet relaxed, and always passionate and informed. But there’s something about the way Antiche Carampane operates that best exemplifies what makes Venetian restaurants and Venetian food so special.
So when owner Francesco invited us to Rialto markets with he and his chefs, and to return to the restaurant to see how they prepare for the day ahead, we couldn’t resist. You can read all about that in the post below, which was another of our 25 most popular culinary travel stories of 2025.
No Pizza, No Lasagne, No Tourist Menu at Our Favourite Venice Restaurant
Where to Stay in Bangkok for Foodies – Bangkok Hotels for Food Lovers
Heading to Thailand to eat your way through Bangkok? We don’t blame you. We used to live in Bangkok and eating was one of our main occupations! Bangkok is home to fantastic street food, tantalising local markets, excellent cooking classes, mouthwatering food tours, and superb Thai restaurants. Bangkok is one of the world’s best eating cities and eating is a perfectly good reason to book a flight to the Thai capital.
But you need to choose where to stay in Bangkok carefully. Bangkok has Asia’s most horrendous traffic, with gridlocks the norm rather than exception, and the world’s worst taxi drivers. And there are few things more disappointing than arriving late to a restaurant you’ve had booked for months or being deposited at the wrong address. Finding yourself dumped in a dark dead-end soi, miles from where you need to be, isn’t fun.
Fortunately, Bangkok has two of Asia’s best rail systems: the brilliant above-ground BTS Skytrain and the underground MRT subway will get you to most of the foodie hot spots you’ll want to go. Our picks of the best Bangkok hotels for food lovers are hotels that are located in foodie neighbourhoods, such as Chinatown, within easy walking distance of a BTS stop or MRT station. And we’ve stayed in all our recommended hotels, some multiple times.
This is our guide to the best Bangkok hotels for culinary travellers and they range from atmospheric boutique hotel Shanghai Mansion, slap bang in the centre of Chinatown; the sleek Como Metropolitan hotel, home to Nahm, long one of Bangkok’s best Thai restaurants; and the Mandarin Oriental, home to the Oriental Thai Cooking School, one of Bangkok’s finest cooking schools and one of the world’s best cooking schools.
Where to Stay in Bangkok for Foodies – Bangkok Hotels for Food Lovers
Where to Eat in Dubai – Street Food, Eat Streets and Neighbourhoods
Where to eat in Dubai depends upon the kind of trip you’re doing as much as the food you love. If your Dubai is glam Dubai, go for fine dining. But if you want a local experience of Dubai, hit the bustling Creekside souks, neon-lit eat streets and local neighbourhoods for authentic street food and traditional fare from across this incredibly diverse region.
If enjoying a bottle of wine or beer with your meal is a must, unfortunately you’re not going to find alcohol at some of the establishments below and will need to stick to restaurants in hotels and other licensed venues. Though many of the eateries have bars and pubs close by.
If you want a local experience and to eat where Emiratis and expats eat, then hit the spots below to try Dubai street food and traditional regional specialties at laneway stalls, hole-in-the-walls, modest eateries, and family-run restaurants that can refreshingly resemble bustling cafeterias and workers canteens.
These were some of our favourite Dubai eateries during the eight years we lived in the UAE, and they’re now considered to be some of Dubai’s most iconic eating destinations. If it’s your first-time in the city, we strongly suggest doing a Dubai street food tour first for some historical background and local insights and tips. Our recommendations in the post below, which was another of our 25 most popular culinary travel stories of 2025.
Where to Eat in Dubai – Street Food, Eat Streets and Neighbourhoods
Cooking with the Countess in Venice – A Venetian Cooking Class with Enrica Rocca
“Is there anything we should know beforehand about the cooking course?” we asked our host Enrica Rocca. “Yes, you need to cancel your dinner reservation after the class!” Done. When you’re about to spend a day cooking with the Countess in Venice, you do as you’re told.
If you read our earlier post on eating out in Venice, you’d know that we’re pretty keen to disprove the view that Venice doesn’t have any good food. Someone who is also dedicated full-time to busting that myth is Enrica Rocca, otherwise known as ‘the cooking countess’.
Enrica started running cooking classes to make a living when, as she admits, she didn’t even know ten recipes. She quickly learned. Enrica now runs cooking classes from her Dorsoduro home unlike any we’ve ever done before. And that’s a compliment.
Cooking with the Countess in Venice should be at the top of your Venice to-do list. A full day spent shopping Rialto markets, doing a Veneto wine tasting, and cooking and eating in the home of Countess Enrica Rocca could just become the most memorable thing you do in Venice. Because it was definitely one of our most memorable experiences in Venice after years visiting the city.
Cooking with the Countess in Venice – A Venetian Cooking Class with Enrica Rocca
Asian Food Etiquette – How to Eat, Drink and Dine Like the Locals
This guide to Asian food etiquette was another of our 25 most popular culinary travel stories of 2025. Asian food etiquette isn’t rocket science. So why do so many travellers in Asia get it so wrong? So you don’t become one of them, here’s our guide to Asian food etiquette, whether you’re eating on the street or in a home, drinking with locals, or dining out with new friends.
We all want to be welcomed when we travel – especially around the dinner table. Nobody wants to make social blunders when it comes to eating. Should we accept another glass of tea? Is it impolite to leave food on our plate? What should I do with these chopsticks when I’m done?
We definitely see travellers behaving less offensively when it comes to eating than they do with how they dress, but we cover so much food here that we thought we’d share some advice from the experts when it comes to Asian food etiquette and how to conduct yourself when eating, drinking and dining in the region.
I consulted food experts from across Asia – from chefs to food tour guides – on how travellers should behave when it comes to eating in Asia, from visiting an Asian home to dining out in Asian restaurants. You can read advice from some of the same experts on greetings, gestures, and good manners in my post on Asian travel etiquette.
Asian Food Etiquette – How to Eat, Drink and Dine Like the Locals
Thai Cooking Class at the Mandarin Oriental Bangkok
Add a Thai cooking class at the Mandarin Oriental Cooking School in Bangkok to your Thailand itinerary if you’re like us and believe that discovering the food of a destination is a way into the heart of a place and learning to cook the cuisine is the route into its soul – via the stomach! That’s why getting Thai cooking lessons at the Oriental Thai Cooking School was high on Terence’s agenda after we settled into the Thai capital.
In the 18 months prior to our Thailand move, a year of which was spent on the global grand tour that launched Grantourismo, Terence did countless cooking courses around the world. He learnt the art of macaron making in Paris and how to cook traditional Mexican in San Miguel de Allende. In Cape Town he learnt how to make Cape Malay cuisine and in Venice we cooked with a Countess. In Austin we participated in a country music cooking class, and in Rio de Janeiro learnt to cook Carioca style.
While we’ve always signed up for cooking classes when we’ve travelled, other travellers increasingly seem to be agreeing with us that they’re great things to do. That macaron-making class Terence did in Paris turned out to be one of the most popular things to do in Paris for a while there, according to Trip Advisor – even more popular than visiting the Eiffel Tower!
These days, one of the most popular activities in Bangkok is a Thai cooking class and Cooking with Poo at the Helping Hands Cooking School is one of the most popular for food lovers new to Thai food. If you’re been cooking Thai cuisine for a while and want to hone your skills, then Thai cooking lessons at Bangkok’s Mandarin Oriental Cooking School are best for you.
Thai Cooking Class at the Mandarin Oriental Cooking School Bangkok
Guide to the Best Siem Reap Markets – When to Go and What to Buy
Our guide to the best Siem Reap markets covers the liveliest local markets in the Northern Cambodia city of Siem Reap, gateway to Angkor Wat and Angkor Archaeological Park, and our home for 13 years. Rise at dawn to join the locals to buy the freshest produce, purchase edible souvenirs (Kampot pepper!), savour the tastiest market breakfasts, and absorb the bustling early morning atmosphere.
Daily fresh produce markets are sprinkled all over Siem Reap, from Old Market in the heart of the historic city centre dating to the French colonial period to the big bustling market that is Psar Leu, and the sleepy little neighbourhood markets in the outer villages. Hire a guide to translate and you can also get your fortune told or get a manicure.
Siem Reap also has several artsy crafts markets for Cambodian souvenirs, the best known of which are the excellent Made in Cambodia market, and the okay Art Market, which doesn’t sell a whole lot of art. There are also Night Markets selling generic souvenirs, mostly made in factories in Thailand, Vietnam and China, that can be found at markets all over Southeast Asia.
But as responsible travel advocates it’s hard to recommend some of these markets and their products, which have dubious origins, some made in factories that may or may not employ under-age and/or enslaved workers. See our guide to sustainable souvenir shopping in Southeast Asia. It’s safer to stick to the fresh markets and their fantastic food. Don’t miss the fried bananas!
Our Guide to the Best Siem Reap Markets – When to Go and What to Buy
Tsukiji Outer Market, Tokyo – A Food Lover’s Idea of Food Shopping Paradise
Tokyo’s tantalising Tsukiji Outer Market is a must-visit for food lovers and cooks, both professional chefs and home cooks alike. The legendary Tsukiji Fish Market, where we tasted the most sublime tuna of our lives with Tokyo food and sake expert, Etsuko Nakamura, closed and moved in October 2018. However, Tsukiji Outer Market is still operating and busy and is a brilliant destination for food lovers, for the shopping as much as the eating.
Specialist shops sell everything from Japanese handmade knives and kitchen supplies to Japanese ingredients and products from across Japan and each shop specialises in a particular product or type of produce from a particular region or town. For example, four or five shops at the Outer Market only sell Tamago-Yaki or Japanese omelette, in different versions, from sweet to salty, plain, with seaweed or vegetables.
There are shops that are tofu specialists selling every conceivable form of tofu – even tofu ice-cream. Countless shops sell nori (seaweed) and nothing else – the seaweed with wasabi that they were giving away samples of on the day we visited was pretty wild! One shop stocks only the finest quality beef from Yoshizawa, another trades in seafood and the colossal summer rock oysters from Ivakaki that we’ve been enjoying while we’ve been in Tokyo.
“For me, Tsukiji Outer Market is just as interesting, if not more interesting in some ways than visiting the fish market, and definitely more interesting than the tuna auction!” Etsuko told us as she led us on a tour of what would turn out to be a paradise for food lovers and cooks, professional chefs and home cooks alike. We’re assured that a meander through the market is as mouthwatering as ever. To learn more, read about our experience below.
Tsukiji Outer Market, Tokyo – A Food Lover’s Idea of Food Shopping Paradise
Breakfast in Singapore on Kaya Toast and Kopi for a Quintessential Local Experience
A breakfast in Singapore of kaya toast and kopi must be one of the most quintessential Singaporean experiences and it’s hard to resist an opportunity to participate in a local morning ritual that involves sipping, dunking and crunching. We’ve long loved a good strong kopi (coffee) since we first sipped the inky brew on our inaugural trip to Malaysia many years ago. But we were ambivalent about kaya toast, coconut jam slathered on toasted white bread with a slab of butter.
We first tried it on a trip to Malaysian Borneo and the sickly-sweet kaya we sampled in Sabah did not make an impression at the time. That was soon set to change after a breakfast in Singapore of kaya toast and kopi and soft-boiled eggs with white pepper and soy sauce, where the savoury and salty offset the sweetness. Little did I realise, I’d quickly become addicted to what would become a quintessential Singaporean experience for us: breakfast of kopi, kaya toast and eggs.
Once back home in Siem Reap, we were making the kaya coconut jam spread and Terence was experimenting with soft-boiled eggs and developing his own recipe for the half-boiled eggs served in the traditional kopitiams in Singapore and Malaysia. This is our guide to kaya toast and kopi Singapore-style, how to order kopi, and the best Singapore kopitiams for trying kopi and kaya toast, and it was another of our 25 most popular culinary travel stories of 2025.
Breakfast in Singapore on Kaya Toast and Kopi for a Quintessential Local Experience
Best Phuket Thai Cooking Classes Teaching Phuket Dishes
The best Phuket cooking classes range from hands-on Thai cooking lessons in state-of-the-art purpose-built cooking schools with dedicated Thai cooking instructors to hotel chefs giving demonstration-style classes in the resort restaurant in between service. You can learn popular Thai dishes that you’ll find all over Thailand or you can ask chefs and cooking instructors to teach you Phuket specialties. We recommend doing the latter. You’ll thank us later!
We’re pleased to see that taking cooking classes are replacing spa treatments as one of the most popular off-beach holiday activities around Southeast Asia and Phuket is no exception. The southern Thailand island is home to some of the best Thai cooking schools and Phuket cooking classes. We lost count of the number of Thai cooking classes we tested out during a month on Phuket researching Phuket cuisine for a story for Australia’s Delicious magazine.
Whether you’re a serious cook or you just want to do something fun to give you a break from the sun, Phuket boasts some of the best Thai cooking classes we’ve done. Even better, Phuket chefs and cooking instructors are all willing to teach Phuket specialties if you’re interested in learning more about Phuket food – as long as you ask nicely and give some advance notice.
Most Thai cooking classes on Phuket offer the standard Thai dishes from Central Thai cuisine with which most people are more familiar – satay skewers, Thai curries, mango and sticky rice. However, in our experience on this trip, if you are serious about learning to cook Thai food, you just have to ask the cooking school or hotel and they’ll be happy to teach Phuket specialties. Just give them as much notice as possible and book a private class, and they should be happy to oblige.
Best Siem Reap Cambodian Restaurants for Authentic Cambodian Food
The best Siem Reap Cambodian restaurants for authentic Cambodian food include everything from home-style Cambodian cooking served in a traditional wooden house to contemporary experiments in Cambodian-European fusion cuisine. They’re not on Pub Street and most aren’t on Trip Advisor’s top ten, but here’s where you’ll sample the best Cambodian food in Siem Reap. This was another of our 25 most popular culinary travel stories of 2025.
In Cambodia’s ‘Temple Town’ of Siem Reap, where there are thousands of hotels, including many five-star resorts and boutique hotels, it’s surprising that there aren’t more outstanding traditional Cambodian restaurants. Sadly, like any city, especially tourist cities, there are scores of mediocre eateries, and it can be very hard to have a truly great meal of authentic Cambodian food if you don’t know where to go.
That abundance of mediocrity can partly be blamed on tourism, on tourists’ lack of knowledge of Cambodian cuisine and an expectation that it should taste like a mild form of Thai food (see our story on Dispelling Cambodian Cuisine Myths for more on that subject), along with chefs’ willingness to adapt Cambodian dishes to meet tourists’ expectations rather than educate diners about Cambodian food. See our story on Ruining Amok, Cambodia’s National Dish for more on that.
On the other hand, there are some outstanding Siem Reap Cambodian restaurants where chefs, Cambodian and foreign, are cooking incredibly delicious traditional Cambodian food, as well as experimenting with creative Cambodian cuisine. These especially warrant a meal, after you’ve acquainted yourself with traditional Cambodian cooking, to get a taste of the future of Cambodian food and I’ve called that movement New Cambodian cuisine.
Best Siem Reap Cambodian Restaurants for Authentic Cambodian Food
Cooking in Cape Town Cape Malay Style on a Cape Malay Cooking Class in Bo-Kaap
Getting cooking lessons in Cape Town‘s Cape Malay cuisine in a Cape Malay Cooking Class in Bo-Kaap was high on our to-do list when we settled into the South African city for two weeks. Cape Town’s Bo-Kaap neighbourhood is beloved for its picture-postcard streetscapes with their candy coloured terrace houses, cobblestones and quaint mosques. However, the real allure for us were the aromas that wafted from its kitchens and spice shops, the fresh local ingredients, and the chance to do some cooking with locals in Cape Town – Cape Malay style
The locals of Cape Town’s historic quarter of Bo-Kaap have stuck firmly to their Cape Malay culinary traditions. And while anodyne versions of signature dishes such as the Cape Malay curry are available in restaurants in Cape Town, we were determined to sample the spicy sensations the best way possible – by doing some cooking in a local cook’s home in Bo-Kaap, the home of cooking instructor, Faldela Tolker.
We signed up for some lessons in cooking the local cuisine of Cape Town that is Cape Malay food by joining a Cape Malay Cooking Safari, hoping to learn a dish or two that we could cook in the kitchen of our home away from home in Cape Town, at Camps Bay. We were lucky that the latest holiday rental on our yearlong global grand tour was well-equipped with every conceivable kind of pot and pan, along with a library of cookbooks.
The Cape Malay Cooking Safari included a visit to Bo-Kaap Museum, to provide some context, background and history of the Bo-Kaap neighbourhood and Cape Malay community, followed by a stroll around the charming neighbourhood, before we began our hands-on Cape Malay cooking class in a local home. We met our tour guide Sabelo at the museum where he briefed us on Cape Town’s ‘Malay’ history as we wandered around the excellent little museum.
Cooking in Cape Town Cape Malay Style on a Cape Malay Cooking Class in Bo-Kaap
Omoide Yokocho in Shinjuku – A Mouthwatering Walk Down Memory Lane
Omoide Yokocho or Memory Lane in Shinjuku, Tokyo, is also called Shonben Yokocho or ‘Piss Alley’ due to the lack of toilets here for many years. Home to dozens of smoky yakitori and motsuyaki joints, boisturous izakayas, and cheap and cheerful noodle bars, the atmospheric alleyways of Omoide Yokocho are a popular post-work stop for Japanese salarymen looking for cheap food and drink. After spending an evening in the tiny retro quarter, we understood why.
Many people think of Japan’s capital Tokyo as a high-tech, high-rise metropolis, and while that is true to a certain extent, it’s not the complete picture. Tokyo is also home to many charming, low-rise, traditional local neighbourhoods, such as Yanaka and Asakusa, the areas where we like to spend our time.
But more surprisingly there are atmospheric ramshackle quarters hidden right beneath the neon-lit towers of modern parts of the city, like futuristic Shinjuku, such as retro Omoide Yokocho or Memory Lane, tucked beside the railway line. A black market area after World War II, Omoide Yokocho oozes history, and conveys a sense of the past increasingly lost in the largely modern metropolis, hence the name.
Its skinny alleys, lined with rickety buildings are home to dozens of smoke-filled yakitori and motsuyaki joints, simple noodle bars, and boozy izakayas that are beloved by locals for their grilled chicken skewers, big bowls of soups, and wok-fried noodles cooked over open fires. After one night here, having made local friends, we found ourselves returning again and again.
Omoide Yokocho in Shinjuku – A Mouthwatering Walk Down Memory Lane
Anything Better than Chocolate? Melted Chocolate or Xocolata in Barcelona
When you think of Barcelona, after Gaudi, Picasso, La Rambla, and cava, you probably think of chocolate – or xocolata as it’s called in Catalan. It’s so beloved by Barcelona’s locals they even have a museum dedicated to chocolate, Museo de La Xocolata, and Barcelona’s most beloved beverage after cava is hot melted chocolate or drinking chocolate.
Most people have a vague idea that it was the Spanish returning from their ‘expeditions’ to the New World who brought cacao to Europe. In fact, it was Hernando Cortez who brought the brown gold back with him from Mexico in 1519 and started the first cacao plantation, presenting the first chocolate to the King of Spain in 1528 apparently.
It was in Barcelona where the first chocolate was made by machine, but, somewhat ironically, Barcelona now produces some of the finest handmade artisanal chocolate in the world, renowned for daring use of flavours in chocolate, from wasabi to red peppercorn.
Xocoa is our favourite producer of wild bean-to-bar chocolate; see my Barcelona take-homes post on where to buy Barcelona’s best artisanal chocolate for details. In this post we looking at the tradition of drinking melted chocolate or xocolata in Barcelona, the Catalan take on hot chocolate, and we try one of the oldest cafes serving Catalan style hot chocoate, Granja Viader. This was another of our 25 most popular culinary travel stories of 2025.
Anything Better than Chocolate? Melted Chocolate or Xocolata in Barcelona
New Cambodian Cuisine – The Cambodian Chefs Redefining Cambodian Food
New Cambodian Cuisine is the name I gave to the inventive Cambodian food being created by a handful of young Cambodian chefs helming some of Siem Reap’s best Cambodian restaurants. Together they kickstarted an exciting new grassroots Cambodian food movement that deserves your attention. Skip the Pub Street bars and eateries and book tables at these restaurants before you leave home.
I rarely share our published work here, but I was so excited about our 11-page feature story Cambodia’s New Crop, published in DestinAsian travel magazine about the “clutch of restaurants run by young homegrown chefs raising the profile of Siem Reap as a bona fide food destination – and preserving Cambodia’s culinary traditions in the process.”
While we spent ten days working on this story, including many hours of interviews with the young Cambodian chefs and five restaurant shoots – and I have to say love Terence’s photography for this piece – it’s a story I had been researching and pitching to magazines for years. We’d been watching several of the chefs and their New Cambodian Cuisine evolve since we first moved to Siem Reap in 2013.
You’ll find the published story on the DestinAsian site, but I wanted to give our readers a taste of New Cambodian Cuisine, the Cambodian chefs behind it, and their restaurants where you can sample this deliciously creative yet distinctly Cambodian food. What I shared here was content from my interviews not used in the final story.
New Cambodian Cuisine – The Cambodian Chefs Redefining Cambodian Food
Where to Eat in Sapa – Best Sapa Restaurants, Local Eateries and Noodle Shops
Our guide to where to eat in Sapa, Northern Vietnam’s favourite mountain town, was another of our 25 most popular culinary travel stories of 2025. It covers everything from the best Sapa restaurants, local eateries and noodle shops, Vietnamese street food and market eats, the food of the ethnic minorities such as the Hmong and Red Dao peoples, and French to Italian food in Sapa.
Our first meal in Sapa on our first trip to Northern Vietnam way back in 2012 was as memorable as meals get. It was breakfast and we slurped steaming bowls of Sapa-style phở gà – Vietnam’s famous chicken noodle soup – from rustic Phở Khuyên noodle house, pictured in the post below.
It was unforgettable for the soup itself – the sweet intense flavour of the meat of the local ‘trekking chickens’ (free-range hens) and fragrance and clarity of the herb-filled broth – as much as for the secret location (tucked down a lane off old Sapa market), cosy interior, floor strewn with paper serviettes (a good sign: they’d been busy), boisterous atmosphere (packed with chatty locals catching up over breakfast), and the fact we’d had to fight with our guide to get there.
We’d only arrived in Sapa an hour or so earlier, after a breathtaking albeit occasionally hair-raising bus ride from Lao Cai railway station, where we’d arrived on the overnight sleeper train from Hanoi. We’d checked into our Alpine-like hotel, The Victoria Sapa Resort, where a fireplace blazed in the toasty lobby, freshened up, and skipped the hotel buffet breakfast in favour of eating local, only to learn that our guide intended taking us to a French café – for croissants.
It took some persuasion to convince the guide that not only did we not want croissants and café lattes for breakfast in Sapa, but that we were not only able to eat a local breakfast, we infinitely preferred eating Vietnamese food to European. That said more about the guide’s usual clients than the guide. And of course we’d forgotten at the time that Sapa had once been a French hill station, so a pastry was sort of ‘local’. But that’s how we found ourselves at Pho Khuyen.
Where to Eat in Sapa – Best Sapa Restaurants, Local Eateries and Noodle Shops
Our Guide to Eating and Drinking in Battambang – Street Food, Cafes, Bars, Restaurants
Cambodia’s provincial city of Battambang, set in an agriculturally-rich region, is renowned for growing Cambodia’s most delicious produce and is one of the best places in Cambodia to try authentic renditions of traditional Cambodian dishes, both Khmer food and Cambodian-Chinese food. Trust us on this: we’ve been travelling to Battambang for 15 years and began researching Battambang’s food scene way back in 2013 for a story for Delicious magazine.
In late 2023, Battambang was named a Unesco City of Gastronomy for its outstanding produce, traditional fare and its rich culinary culture, and you can read my story in The Guardian on that link on how the sleepy regional city without a single fine dining restaurant gained such global recognition. (If it’s Cambodian fine dining restaurants you want, you need to go to Siem Reap for those.)
In Battambang, you can sample the city’s lip-smacking Cambodian specialties at roadside stalls, local markets, modest eateries, night markets, buzzy restaurants, and boutique hotels. Our guide to eating and drinking in Battambang covers some of the tantalising opportunities to taste Cambodian food that we’ve enjoyed over the years.
Cambodian cuisine is one of Asia’s most misunderstood cuisines, often mistakenly described as “mild Thai”. That lack of understanding isn’t helped by tourist restaurants passing off Thai dishes as Cambodian. Why? Because they know diners are more familiar with the spicier Thai food than the gentler Cambodian curries and often more confronting sour, bitter and pungent notes of some Cambodian dishes.
What complicates things in Battambang is that the city and surrounding province was under Thai occupation for a period of time, and some of the local food in Battambang reflects this influence, just as you’ll find Khmer influences in Thai food in Thailand, both in Central Thailand and Northeastern Thailand, where much of the population has Khmer heritage.Eat with an open mind and try not to compare the cuisines.
Our Guide to Eating and Drinking in Battambang – Street Food, Cafes, Bars, Restaurants
Eating Out in Jerez – The Best Jerez Tapas Bars and Restaurants
Eating out in Jerez de la Frontera in Southern Spain, one of our favourites stop on the yearlong global grand tour that launched Grantourismo, was a real delight. Whether you’re tapas bar hopping or sitting down to tuck into plates of comfort food, the food in Jerez is some of the best food in Spain.
Dining out in Jerez is all about grazing on Spanish tapas and grazing on Spanish tapas is what you should do. Even when the locals sit down to eat in a restaurant, in contrast to snacking while standing up at the bar, which seems more popular in cities such as Seville and Granada, they order a few small plates, then order another round when they’re done, and maybe later order a couple of mains. So do as the locals do in Jerez and leisurely graze.
This guide to eating out in Jerez covers our favourite meals from two weeks of eating out in Jerez, from grazing at tapas bars to digging into hearty traditional dishes in local restaurants. We ate at every place once, and, er, some even twice, and we’d do it all again in a heartbeat. This was another of our 25 most popular culinary travel stories of 2025.
Eating Out in Jerez – The Best Jerez Tapas Bars and Restaurants
Most Sustainable Bangkok Restaurants – From Farm-to-Table to Nose-to-Tail
Another of our 25 most popular culinary travel stories of 2025, this round-up of Bangkok’s most sustainable restaurants was the result of a ten-day trip in the Thai capital some years ago to research a Bangkok restaurant story for DestinAsian magazine, similar in format to our piece on Siem Reap’s best restaurants. A few of those restaurants, Haoma, 100 Mahaseth and 80/20, also happened to be some of the most eco-friendly Bangkok restaurants.
If you’ve been reading Grantourismo since we launched wa back in 2010 with our yearlong ‘slow, local and experiential’ trip around the world, you’ll know we did so with a mission to inspire people to travel more slowly and sustainably, more locally and more experientially, and to give back in some way to the places they travel.
The most sustainable Bangkok restaurants do everything from grow their own produce in their kitchen gardens and reduce plastic-use and kitchen waste, and include restaurants such as farm-to-table eatery Haoma, serving vegetable-driven cuisine created from just-picked greens grown in their garden to casual nose-to-tail joint 100 Mahaseth, offering Isaan-style food that makes use of every bit of the animal.
Most Sustainable Bangkok Restaurants – From Farm-to-Table to Nose-to-Tail
Best George Town Penang Restaurants for Modern Malaysian Cuisine
The best George Town Penang restaurants for modern Malaysian cuisine range from atmospheric Kebaya, serving elevated Peranakan and Indochine classics in a sumptuous dining room to chef Johnson Wong’s gēn 根, where he presents contemporary Malaysian cuisine based on local produce.
When it comes to eating, the city of George Town on Malaysia‘s island of Penang is best regarded as a street food destination and its reputation is legendary. Most foodies are in George Town to forage the city’s markets, track down food stalls and old school eateries, graze their way through street food streets, and compare signature street food dishes like char kuay teow, curry mee, Assam laksa, murtabak, and more.
Culinary travellers return from a Penang trip raving about its nasi kandar, mee goreng and dim sum yet rarely mention its restaurants. However, George Town is also home to outstanding fine diners and casual contemporary restaurants that are elevating Malaysian food, including street food specialties.
I was reminded how good George Town’s restaurants are when we dined at 80/20 restaurant in Bangkok, where Penang chef Johnson Wong and his team from gēn 根 were doing a pop-up. It was enough to make me want to return to the city, and not necessarily for its street food, but to seek out more modern Malaysian restaurants.
Best George Town, Penang Restaurants for Modern Malaysian Cuisine
World’s Best Food Destinations According to the World’s Best Chefs
Way back in 2017, as the World’s 50 Best Restaurants awards were approaching, and we were preparing to head to home to Australia for the event in Melbourne – as well as to attend the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival again – I shared this post on the world’s best food destinations according to the world’s best chefs. I have to say that I’m surprised it was one of our 25 most popular culinary travel stories of 2025, but there you go!
The post was actually a re-organised and significantly expanded version of a story I’d written a few years earlier for CNN Travel, which the site had taken down after a re-design, presumably because there’d been other annual lists announced and it was out of date. I thought it a shame, as it still contained loads of great tips by chefs for culinary travellers.
I’d also gone to a lot of trouble to pull the piece together. It literally took weeks! I approached all 100* chefs helming the kitchens of the finest dining establishments on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list that year to find out what their favourite food experiences were. (*The 50 best list actually runs to 100 restaurants, as there is a 1-50 list and a separate 51-100 list.)
I had so much material left from the original story that I thought seeing CNN no longer wanted it, that it might be useful to our readers if I re-arranged it to focus on the food destinations rather than the chefs. So many chefs had named the same places as the locations of their most memorable food experiences. So I did the math and identified the world’s best food destinations according to the world’s best chefs.
World’s Best Food Destinations According to the World’s Best Chefs
Local Markets Should Be On Your Travel Itinerary and Here’s Why
We’ve been exploring local markets on our travels since Terence and I first ventured overseas in the 1990s. Shopping for local produce and local products was also a priority on our 2010 yearlong global grand tour that launched our Grantourismo project dedicated to making travel more meaningful and memorable by travelling more slowly, locally and experientially.
Years before that trip, Mexico City’s markets were the first markets we salivated our way through, gawking at exotic ingredients, perching on stools to devour delicious food – from cocteles de mariscos (seafood cocktails) to cochinita pibil (slow roasted pork) – and buy as much folk art and crafts I could squeeze into our backpacks. We sought out local markets all over Mexico on that six-week backpacking adventure, from Mexico City to Puebla, Merida to Oaxaca.
Ever since, we’ve made a habit of shopping, drinking and eating our way through markets around the world, savouring fresh tuna at Tokyo’s Tsukiji markets, scoffing down open seafood sandwiches at Scandinavian market halls, sipping frothy micheladas at Mexico City’s markets, hugging warming mugs of glühwein at Europe’s Christmas Markets, buying aromatic spices in Istanbul’s Egyptian Market and local coffee and tea at Dalat’s markets in central Vietnam.
And you should seek out local markets when you travel, too, from Asian wet markets to farmers markets and fish markets. But as much as the main appeal of visiting local markets is the mouthwatering food and drinks, there are lots of other reasons to discover markets when you travel, but let’s start with the food…
Local Markets Should Be On Your Travel Itinerary and Here’s Why
Best Vienna Chocolate Shops for Edible Souvenirs from Austria’s Capital
Vienna’s chocolate history is long and rich and the Austrian capital produces some of Europe’s finest chocolate, making a souvenir of chocolate a must for those of you who prefer to take home mementoes of the edible kind instead of fridge magnets and snow domes.
Chocolate travelled from Madrid to Vienna in 1711 when Emperor Charles VI moved his court to Austria, while the Sachertorte, the city’s famous chocolate cake, was invented in Vienna in 1832 by Franz Sacher. They’re just two good reasons why you can’t leave the city without taking home some chocolate.
The best Vienna chocolate shops in Austria’s capital range from Demel, the former royal court confectioner, loved by Viennese for its decadent chocolates as much as its Sachertorte to Austria’s more innovative, smaller, boutique chocolatiers, such as Tiroler Edl, available at enormous gourmet emporium of Julius Meinl. This is our guide to the best Vienna chocolate shops and it was another of our 25 most popular culinary travel stories of 2025.
Best Vienna Chocolate Shops for Edible Souvenirs from Austria’s Capital
Please let us know in the comments below if you’ve been to any of these foodie destinations or savoured any of these culinary travel experiences in this compilation of 25 most popular culinary travel stories of 2025 on Grantourismo. We love to hear from readers.
