Food
Where to eat well, from local institutions to the place worth the detour, each with a last-verified date.
10 Days in Bali · fine-dining
Locavore NXT
The relocated flagship of one of Bali’s best-known fine-dining kitchens, built on Indonesian ingredients and fermentation. Book well ahead.
10 Days in Bali · casual
Motel Mexicola
A loud, colourful Mexican party spot near Petitenget; more scene than temple of gastronomy, but a Seminyak fixture.
10 Days in Bali · sunset-venue
Potato Head Beach Club
The grass-amphitheatre beach club on Petitenget Beach; a cover charge applies in the sunset window and is redeemable against drinks.
10 Days in Thailand · institution
Thipsamai
A pad thai specialist running since the 1960s, known for the prawn-wrapped omelette version and recognized by the Michelin Guide.
10 Days in Thailand · market
Chiang Mai Sunday Walking Street
A Sunday-evening market that closes the main Old City street to traffic, with food stalls, crafts and music. If your Chiang Mai nights include a Sunday, eat here.
10 Days in Thailand · street-food
Chinatown (Yaowarat) street food
Bangkok’s Chinatown main street lights up after dark with wok stalls, seafood grills and dessert carts; go hungry and share plates.
10 Days in Vietnam · institution
Bun Cha Huong Lien
The bun cha spot where Barack Obama and Anthony Bourdain ate in 2016; the table is now preserved and the restaurant is Michelin Guide listed.
10 Days in Vietnam · institution
Banh Mi Phuong
The Hoi An banh mi shop made internationally famous after Anthony Bourdain featured it; expect a queue.
10 Days in Vietnam · market
Ben Thanh street food stalls
The stalls in and around Ben Thanh Market are an easy first taste of southern street food; the night market outside is livelier.
Abu Dhabi · fine-dining
Erth
One Michelin star in the 2026 Michelin Guide Abu Dhabi and the only starred restaurant serving Emirati food anywhere: camel, local fish and date-sweetened classics rebuilt with technique and served in a serene garden pavilion. Book several days ahead; ask for the tasting menu the first time.
Abu Dhabi · casual
Al Mrzab
The city's standing answer to "where do we actually eat Emirati food": a bright, unfussy restaurant with a Michelin Bib Gourmand, majlis-style floor seating if you want it, and machboos, harees and luqaimat done the way homes do them. Portions are built for sharing; come hungry and under-order anyway.
Abu Dhabi · modern
Beirut Sur Mer
Bib Gourmand Lebanese on the Saadiyat beachfront strip, ten minutes from the Louvre, which makes it the natural landing after a museum morning: proper mezze, charcoal grills and a terrace facing the water. Book ahead for winter sunset tables.
Abu Dhabi · market
Mina Fish Market
The revamped fish market at the old port: buy hammour, sheri or local prawns off the ice at market stalls, carry them to a grill house in the same hall, and pay by weight to have them spiced and cooked to order. Loud, bright, cheap for what it is, and the most fun dinner format in the city. Evenings are the show.
Abu Dhabi · fine-dining
Talea by Antonio Guida
One Michelin star in the 2026 guide, inside Emirates Palace: refined Italian from the Seta (Milan) lineage under gilded ceilings. Dinner here doubles as the cheapest legitimate way to spend an evening inside the palace. Jackets not required, shorts a mistake.
Abu Dhabi · street-food
The Hamdan Street cafeterias
Abu Dhabi's street food lives in its cafeterias: hatch-service counters along Hamdan Street and the parallel Electra (Zayed the First) strip turning out shawarma, chapati rolls, fresh juices and karak until the small hours for a few dirhams each. No reservations, no menus in some, no wrong choices. Follow the taxi drivers.
Algarve · institution
Casa do Polvo Tasquinha
The octopus specialist of the octopus village: a tiled dining room opposite the moored fleet, serving polvo grilled, in rice, in salad and in versions the menu explains, from animals caught in the clay pots offshore. Book in summer; the village is small and the reputation is not.
Algarve · casual
Estamine
The only building on the Ria Formosa's only uninhabited barrier island: a solar-powered dining room in the dunes at the end of the Animaris boat from Faro, serving fish and shellfish to people who arrived by sea and have nowhere better to be. It is a production number, and it is also, genuinely, lunch on a desert island. Boat and table are best booked together.
Algarve · fine-dining
Alameda
Chef Rui Sequeira's contemporary dining room won Faro its first Michelin star in the 2026 guide, cooking tasting menus built on Algarve fish, shellfish and vegetables. The interesting move is what it represents: the region's fine dining leaving the resorts and moving into the capital's streets. Book well ahead for weekend tables.
Algarve · fine-dining
Ocean
Hans Neuner's dining room above the sea at Vila Vita Parc holds two Michelin stars, one of only two Algarve restaurants at that level alongside Vila Joya, and its menus tour Portugal's coasts and former trade routes course by course. This is the region's special-occasion table; plan it, dress for it, and book it before you fly.
Amalfi Coast · institution
Da Vincenzo
Opened by grandfather Vincenzo in 1958 and now run by his grandson.
Amalfi Coast · institution
Ristorante Marina Grande
Began as a seaside bar in 1918 and sits directly on Amalfi’s main beach, specializing in fish-based dishes.
Andalusia Road Trip · institution
El Rinconcillo
Open since 1670, with the bill chalked on the bar, hams on hooks and waiters who have been there for decades. Order the espinacas, the bacalao and a fino, stand at the counter, and do not expect a table. Traditional Andalusian cooking in the dining rooms upstairs if you want to sit.
Andalusia Road Trip · fine-dining
Cañabota
A fish restaurant with one Michelin star in the 2026 guide, at Orfila 1, built around whatever the Cadiz boats landed, cooked over coals at a counter. Its sister, La Barra de Cañabota at number 5, does the same fish in tapas form without the tasting-menu commitment. Gift vouchers and menus on its site; book well ahead for either.
Andalusia Road Trip · institution
Bodegas Campos
The Cordoba institution at Lineros 32, a warren of patios and barrel-lined rooms east of the Mezquita, serving the local canon, salmorejo, flamenquin, oxtail, since the early 20th century, with a taberna at the front for tapas and the restaurant behind. Its site now leads with weddings and its other venues, which confused us for a moment; the Cordoba restaurant is very much open.
Andalusia Road Trip · fine-dining
Noor
Paco Morales’s restaurant in the suburb where he grew up, at Pablo Ruiz Picasso 6, holds three Michelin stars in the 2026 guide and cooks each season around a century of Andalusi history, with no ingredients the Moors did not have. Menus change by season and it closes between them; book weeks ahead and take a taxi, it is outside the old town.
Andalusia Road Trip · casual
Los Diamantes
Granada’s fried-fish bar since 1942, now several branches, of which the original on Calle Navas and the one on Plaza Nueva are the ones to use. A caña comes with a tapa; the plates of boquerones, puntillitas and berenjenas con miel are shared at the bar. No bookings, elbows out, and a queue at two o’clock on Saturdays.
Andalusia Road Trip · modern
Carmen Mirador de Aixa
A restaurant in a carmen, one of the walled Albaicin garden houses, with a terrace that looks straight across the valley at the Alhambra and the Sierra Nevada behind it. Granada cooking with some ambition; the view is what you book for, so book a terrace table for the hour before sunset and expect to pay for it.
Andalusia Road Trip · fine-dining
Bardal
Benito Gomez’s restaurant in the new town holds two Michelin stars in the 2026 guide, and cooks the Serrania: goat, game, mountain herbs and the Ronda wines that the bodegas around the town have made respectable. Tasting menus only; it closes for holidays and on some weekdays, so check the calendar on its site and book weeks out.
Andalusia Road Trip · institution
Bar Juanito
On Calle Pescaderia Vieja since 1943, the tapas bar of Jerez, famous for its artichokes and for a sherry list that runs from fino to the old olorosos. Tuesday to Saturday 13:00 to 16:30 and 20:00 to 23:30, Monday evenings only from 20:00, and closed on Sundays, which is the day to be in Cadiz instead.
Andalusia Road Trip · institution
El Faro de Cadiz
The Cordoba family’s restaurant on Calle San Felix in the fishermen’s quarter of La Viña, a few streets from La Caleta: a tiled bar for tapas at the front and a serious fish restaurant behind. Open every day, 13:30 to 16:30 and 20:30 to 23:00. Order the tortillitas, whatever the market fish is, and a manzanilla.
Andalusia Road Trip · bar
El Pimpi
The bodega in an 18th-century house on Calle Granada, opened in 1971, whose barrels are signed by everyone from Picasso’s family to Antonio Banderas, who part-owns it. Sunday to Thursday 12:00 to midnight with the kitchen running all day, Friday and Saturday to 00:30, and a terrace on Calle Alcazabilla facing the Roman theatre. Touristy, and still the right place for a glass of Malaga dulce.
Argentina: Buenos Aires and Mendoza Wine Country · institution
Don Julio
The Palermo corner parrilla that holds a Michelin star and ranked No. 10 on the World’s 50 Best list in 2025. Book weeks to months ahead, or join the walk-in queue near opening with the sparkling wine and empanadas the house hands out.
Argentina: Buenos Aires and Mendoza Wine Country · institution
El Preferido de Palermo
A century-old pink-corner bodegón revived by the Don Julio team: house charcuterie, milanesas and vermouth. Easier to book than its big sibling and arguably the more porteño meal.
Argentina: Buenos Aires and Mendoza Wine Country · cafe
Café Tortoni
The city’s most famous cafe, serving since 1858 under stained glass and marble. There is often a line and the kitchen is ordinary; you go for the room, the churros and the ghosts of Borges and Gardel.
Argentina: Buenos Aires and Mendoza Wine Country · institution
Pizzería Güerrín
The 1932 Corrientes institution for thick fugazzeta and muzzarella eaten standing at the marble counter. The essential stop before or after a Corrientes theatre night.
Argentina: Buenos Aires and Mendoza Wine Country · fine-dining
Piedra Infinita Cocina (Zuccardi)
Zuccardi’s Michelin-recognized restaurant above the vines: multi-course paired menus of Andean produce with the mountains filling the windows. Lunch daily; book two to three weeks ahead and let it anchor your Uco day.
Argentina: Buenos Aires and Mendoza Wine Country · fine-dining
Casa Vigil (El Enemigo)
Alejandro Vigil’s Michelin-starred house-winery in Maipú, its cellar painted with Divine Comedy murals. Tasting menus with El Enemigo wines; lunch Wednesday to Sunday, dinner Friday and Saturday, and tables go fast.
Athens · institution
Platanos Taverna
Operating in Plaka since 1932, under its namesake plane tree; moussaka, dolmades and roast lamb done the traditional way.
Athens · casual
Karamanlidika tou Fani
Part delicatessen, part restaurant, built around the Karamanlides cuisine of Greeks from Asia Minor: cured meats, aged cheeses and meze plates.
Athens · street-food
O Thanasis
Grilling kebab and souvlaki beside Monastiraki Square since 1967, and still a cheap, fast meal.
Australia East Coast Road Trip: Sydney to Cairns · institution
Harry's Cafe de Wheels
The pie cart on the wharf since 1945, open from morning to the small hours. Order the Tiger (pie, mashed peas, mash and gravy) and eat it on the kerb; a V-TIMES road trip starts here.
Australia East Coast Road Trip: Sydney to Cairns · market
Coffs Harbour Fishermen's Co-op
A working co-op on Marina Drive with a takeaway window, open from 11am (to 3pm Monday and Tuesday, 5pm the rest of the week). Carry it to the breakwater and walk it off on Muttonbird Island.
Australia East Coast Road Trip: Sydney to Cairns · modern
Three Blue Ducks at The Farm
A restaurant and produce store on a working farm on the edge of Byron, open from 7am daily and into the evening Friday to Sunday. Book for weekends; the Sunday roast fills.
Australia East Coast Road Trip: Sydney to Cairns · modern
Rick Shores
Modern Asian cooking with the sand under the deck at Burleigh Beach, open from 11:30am most of the year. The bug roll is the order; book, because the room is small and the view is not a secret.
Australia East Coast Road Trip: Sydney to Cairns · bar
Felons Brewing Co
The brewery on the river under the Story Bridge, open from 11am daily with a cafe from 6am; walk-ins for the outdoor tables, a 10 percent surcharge on Sundays and 15 percent on public holidays.
Australia East Coast Road Trip: Sydney to Cairns · sunset-venue
Noosa Boathouse
Three levels on the Noosa River at Gympie Terrace: a fish-and-chip window downstairs, a restaurant above and a sunset bar on top, open from 6am. The river faces west, which Hastings Street does not.
Australia East Coast Road Trip: Sydney to Cairns · casual
Fish D'vine and the Rum Bar
Seafood on the Airlie Esplanade with more than 500 rums behind the bar, open from 11:30am. The place to land after the cane-country haul, before the early Whitehaven boat.
Australia East Coast Road Trip: Sydney to Cairns · casual
Prawn Star
Four former trawlers tied up at the Marlin Marina serving prawns, bugs and mud crab on deck, daily from 11am to 9pm. No bookings; go early on the night you come back from the reef.
Australia East Coast Road Trip: Sydney to Cairns · fine-dining
Nautilus
Port Douglas's first restaurant, open-air under the palms since 1954, with drinks from 6pm and the first tables at 6:30. Book ahead in the dry season; it is the celebration dinner of the route.
Australia East Coast Road Trip: Sydney to Cairns · cafe
Daintree Ice Cream Company
An orchard north of the ferry serving a four-scoop cup (AUD 7.50) of whatever is ripe, 9am to 5pm daily except Christmas Day. The flavours change by the day; ask what the black sapote is.
Banff and Lake Louise · modern
The Bison Restaurant & Terrace
Regional and seasonal Canadian cooking from farm suppliers, on an upstairs terrace looking at the mountains: bison tartare at 32 dollars and braised bison short rib at 72 on the menu we read, with a vegetarian gnocchi. Book the terrace for a clear evening.
Banff and Lake Louise · casual
Park Distillery Restaurant + Bar
A working distillery and restaurant on Banff Avenue, cooking over wood and on the spit, with spirits made on site from glacier water. Open Monday to Friday 11:30 am to 9 pm and weekends 11 am to 9:30 pm; it books tables and keeps room for walk-ins.
Banff and Lake Louise · bar
Three Bears Brewery & Restaurant
A brewery and restaurant built around a pine tree, with a beer garden, patios and a retractable roof that opens to the sky, and food made to go with the beer. Its real site is threebearsbanff.com; the more obvious brewery domain does not exist.
Banff and Lake Louise · institution
The Grizzly House
Open since 1967, with a telephone on every table and fondues of cheese, meat and game, including a hot rock you cook on yourself: cheese fondue for two at 36.95 and four-course fondue dinners from 59.95 a person on its menu. A cheese or vegetable fondue works for vegetarians.
Banff and Lake Louise · sunset-venue
Sky Bistro
The restaurant at the top of the Banff Gondola, relaunched with window sightlines at every table, though a window seat is not guaranteed. From 8 September to 16 November it serves 11 am to 7:30 pm with the last seating at 6:30, so in autumn it is an early dinner before sunset rather than a table for it, and there is no dinner service on 17, 20, 22 and 23 September 2026 because of private events. Book the gondola separately.
Banff and Lake Louise · modern
The Juniper Bistro
A plant-rich kitchen in a small hotel on the slope above town, with panoramic views over Banff and menus marked for vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free diets. Brunch to 1 pm on weekdays and 2 pm at weekends, dinner daily 5:30 to 8:30 pm.
Banff and Lake Louise · fine-dining
Fairview Bar & Restaurant
The Chateau’s fine-dining room, named for the peak above the lake, with floor-to-ceiling windows on Victoria Glacier and Art Deco styling. Dinner daily 5:30 to 9:30 pm and the bar from 4 pm; book through the hotel.
Banff and Lake Louise · fine-dining
The Dining Room at Post Hotel
The Post Hotel’s dining room, with a cellar of more than 25,000 bottles and 3,800 selections. Dinner seatings from 5:30 to 6:30 pm and from 8 to 8:45 pm; long trousers and closed shoes for men, no shorts or athletic wear. The hotel’s Michelin Key is a hotel award, not a restaurant star.
Banff and Lake Louise · cafe
Lake Agnes Tea House
A hut at 2,135 metres beside Lake Agnes, serving tea since 1905 with no electricity and everything made by hand: a pot of tea at 16 dollars and sandwiches at 12 on its menu. First come, first served, no drinking water on site, and bring cash. Its hours on the site are still labelled 2025, 8 am to 4 pm to the first week of October.
Banff and Lake Louise · casual
Truffle Pigs Bistro
The bistro in the railway village of Field since 2000, now in the old Kicking Horse Lodge, with a British Columbia wine list and open year-round. First come, first served from June to September, reservations in winter; busiest from 7 to 8:30 pm. Its site gives two opening times, 11 am and noon, and the kitchen closes between 3:30 and 4:45.
Banff and Lake Louise · modern
Crazyweed
Started in 1997 as a small market on Main Street and now run by the founders’ children, with a seasonal, globally inspired menu, halloumi and Alberta beef tartare among the starters. Open Wednesday to Sunday from 2 to 10 pm, so not on a Monday or Tuesday.
Banff and Lake Louise · casual
Rocky Mountain Flatbread Co.
The first of a small chain, born in Canmore, with a wood-fired oven, local and organic produce, vegan and gluten-friendly choices and a nut-free kitchen. Open daily from 11:30 am to 9 pm, 10 pm on Fridays and Saturdays.
Banff and Lake Louise · bar
Jasper Brewing Co.
The brewpub on Jasper’s main street, open seven days from 11:30 am with the full menu until 10 pm and a late menu to midnight. It takes no reservations, so arrive before the dinner rush.
Banff and Lake Louise · modern
Evil Dave’s Grill
A Jasper favourite since 2006, open daily 5 to 9 pm with the last reservation at 8:45 and walk-ins until 9. It survived the 2024 fire; reservations are recommended in season.
Bangkok · street-food
Jay Fai
A single-Michelin-starred street food stall known for its crab omelette and drunken noodles; expect a long wait and prices well above typical street food.
Bangkok · institution
Thipsamai
Bangkok’s best-known pad thai specialist since the 1960s, famous for the prawn-wrapped omelette version; several newer branches exist around the city.
Bangkok · sunset-venue
Sky Bar by lebua
A 63rd-floor open-air rooftop bar over the Chao Phraya, made famous by "The Hangover Part II"; smart dress code enforced.
Barcelona · market
Mercat de la Boqueria
The big covered market off Las Ramblas, with tapas counters behind the produce stalls; arrive before noon, after which the tour groups make the aisles hard work.
Barcelona · institution
Els Quatre Gats
The turn-of-the-century café where a young Picasso held his first exhibition; now a traditional restaurant trading on that history.
Barcelona · bar
Vermuteria del Tano
A small, unpretentious Gràcia vermouth bar, standing room mostly, for the pre-lunch local ritual.
Bora Bora · institution
Snack Matira
The beachfront snack (Polynesia's word for a casual eatery) on Matira's curve: generous poisson cru, grilled fish and chow mein at a fraction of resort prices, eaten at plastic tables a few steps from the water. Expect a wait at peak beach hours and bring cash.
Bora Bora · institution
The roulottes of Vaitape
Several food trucks gather around the quay area in the evening: grilled fish, steak-frites, chow mein, poisson cru and crepes, cooked to order and eaten at folding tables. The island's best value by a wide margin and its most local evening; cash only, and the good ones sell out.
Bora Bora · fine-dining
Le St James
Refined French-Polynesian cooking on a terrace over the lagoon in Vaitape: fresh local fish with French technique, a serious wine list by island standards, and sunset over To'opua from the good tables. Book ahead in season; it is the main island's dress-up dinner.
Rio de Janeiro · institution
Confeitaria Colombo
The 1894 tearoom with Belgian mirrors, Portuguese tiles and a stained-glass ceiling, the city's grandest surviving cafe. Pastries, savoury pastels and a lunch buffet upstairs; open Monday to Saturday 11am to 6pm and closed Sunday. Its Cafe do Forte branch inside the Copacabana Fort opens Tuesday to Sunday 10am to 7pm with the bay for a backdrop.
Rio de Janeiro · institution
Bar do Mineiro
The corner boteco of the hill since 1992, with cachaca bottles up the wall and Minas Gerais food: feijoada on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays in full or light versions, feijao tropeiro, the feijoada pastel as the house snack. Open Tuesday to Saturday 11am to 11pm and Sunday to 10pm; arrive before one on a Saturday or queue.
Rio de Janeiro · modern
Aprazivel
Chef Ana Castilho's treehouse restaurant on the Santa Teresa hillside, tables scattered through gardens and wooden pavilions over the city, with a Michelin Guide listing three years running. Palm-heart dishes, fish from the coast, the Minas and Bahia repertoire done with care, and a cachaca list to match. Book, and ask for a terrace table before sunset.
Rio de Janeiro · fine-dining
Oro
Felipe Bronze's two-Michelin-star room, retained in the 2026 guide, where avant-garde Brazilian cooking is built around live fire. Two tasting formats, the long Criatividade and the shorter Afetividade; open Tuesday to Friday 7 to 11pm and Saturday for lunch 1 to 3pm as well as dinner. Reservations required.
Rio de Janeiro · fine-dining
Lasai
Rafa Costa e Silva's counter restaurant in Humaita, two Michelin stars in the 2026 guide, cooking from the restaurant's own farms with seafood and meat in supporting roles. Dinner only, Tuesday to Friday at 8pm and two Saturday seatings at 7pm and 10.30pm; reservations are mandatory and open online, and the tables go fast.
Rio de Janeiro · fine-dining
Oteque
Alberto Landgraf's Rio restaurant in a converted Botafogo house, one Michelin star in 2025 and 2026 after two in earlier years, with a fish-and-vegetable tasting menu of real precision. Tuesday to Saturday 7 to 11.30pm, prepaid bookings only through the site, with strict cancellation terms.
Rio de Janeiro · bar
Bar Urca
The 1939 bar where the city buys a cold beer and a pastel at the counter and sits on the mureta, the sea wall across the road, to watch the boats in Botafogo bay and the sun drop behind the Christ. The upstairs restaurant does proper Portuguese-Brazilian seafood; the wall is the reason to come. The counter opens in the morning and the restaurant at lunchtime, but check the day's hours before making the trip.
Rio de Janeiro · institution
Braseiro da Gavea
The corner grill on the Gavea square that has fed the neighborhood since the 1970s: picanha sliced at the table, galeto (spring chicken) with polenta, farofa and cold chopp, and tables that spill across the pavement into the student bar crowd of Baixo Gavea. Open from 11am until well past midnight, later on Fridays and Saturdays. No frills, usually full.
Rio de Janeiro · casual
Cervantes
The Copacabana corner that has been serving sandwiches since 1955 and made the roast pork with pineapple its signature; it closed in the pandemic and reopened in November 2022 to citywide relief, and the city listed it as carioca cultural heritage in 2013. Stand at the counter, order the pernil com abacaxi and a chopp, and expect a queue after midnight on weekends.
Rio de Janeiro · bar
Jobi
The Leblon bar that has poured the neighborhood's draft beer since 1956, with a tiny room, waiters who have been there for decades and a menu of boteco classics, the bolinho de bacalhau above all. Open daily from 11am to 3am, to 4am on Fridays and Saturdays, which makes it the last stop of most Leblon evenings.
Rio de Janeiro · bar
Adega Perola
A 1957 Portuguese-Spanish tavern lined with jars of pickled everything, where you point at the counter (sardines, octopus, salt cod, olives, quail eggs) and drink beer or vinho verde at a marble table. Listed as city cultural heritage in 2013, and a reminder that Copacabana was a village of Iberian immigrants before it was a beach resort.
Rio de Janeiro · modern
Sud, o Passaro Verde
Roberta Sudbrack's relaxed cafe-restaurant on a leafy Jardim Botanico street, a Michelin Guide listing and a short, produce-driven menu that changes with the market. No reservations: arrive early for lunch, especially at weekends, and combine it with Parque Lage or the botanical garden next door.
Budapest · casual
Getto Gulyas
The Jewish Quarter's standard-bearer for traditional Hungarian cooking at honest prices: goulash from a kettle, paprikash with hand-pinched nokedli, stuffed cabbage, duck leg with red cabbage, all in a wood-and-brick room that fills nightly. Book a day or two ahead; walk-ins queue from 7pm. Mains sit well under downtown hotel-restaurant prices.
Budapest · fine-dining
Stand
Budapest's only two-Michelin-star restaurant, where Tamas Szell and Szabina Szullo rebuild Hungarian classics, goulash included, with two-star technique. The tasting menu runs around 89,500 HUF, a fraction of the equivalent room in Paris, and books out weeks ahead. This is the meal that makes the case for modern Hungarian cuisine; come with the appetite the menu deserves.
Budapest · fine-dining
Borkonyha Winekitchen
A Michelin star held for over a decade and worn lightly: a bistro-toned room where the a la carte changes with the market, foie gras and mangalica pork are house signatures, and the wine list runs some 200 Hungarian bottles with the staff fluent in all of them. The approachable end of Budapest fine dining, and the one we would book first.
Budapest · institution
New York Cafe
The 1894 coffee house of the New York Palace, gilded, frescoed and chandeliered to the edge of parody, routinely billed as the most beautiful cafe in the world and priced accordingly. Writers once ran up tabs here for decades; today you queue or book online, pay triple the going rate for coffee and cake, and get an interior no museum ticket in the city can match. Go at opening or mid-afternoon; skip the full meals and order the Dobos.
Budapest · institution
Gerbeaud
The grande dame of Vorosmarty square since 1858, marble-tabled and brass-railed, where the Gerbeaud slice (walnut, apricot jam, chocolate) and the Dobos are the benchmark orders. More restrained and more local than the New York, with terrace seats facing the square that become front-row Christmas market seats in December. The attached confectionery counter solves every edible-souvenir question.
Budapest · street-food
Karavan street food yard
A fairy-lit gravel yard of food trucks next door to Szimpla Kert: langos in its modern mutations, goulash in bread bowls, Hungarian sausages, vegan counters and craft beer, eaten at shared picnic tables as the quarter warms up for the night. Nothing here is refined and everything hits after a bar or before one; it runs afternoon to late, busiest from 8pm.
California Coast Road Trip: Highway 1, San Francisco to Los Angeles · institution
Nepenthe
Open since 24 April 1949 on a cliff over the south coast; California and Mediterranean plates, best timed for the terrace. Lunch 11:30 to 16:30 and dinner 17:00 to 22:00 daily, with Cafe Kevah below it from 09:00. Its own site is phoenixshopbigsur.com, the family’s combined page, which also carries its road and fire notices; nepenthe.com and nepenthebigsur.com both redirect there. Expect a wait midday.
California Coast Road Trip: Highway 1, San Francisco to Los Angeles · modern
The Lark
In a former fish market in the Funk Zone, with a Santa Barbara County-forward wine list and seasonal small plates. Book ahead.
California Coast Road Trip: Highway 1, San Francisco to Los Angeles · casual
Flaherty’s Seafood Grill & Oyster Bar
A long-running Carmel seafood spot for oysters and local fish, a reliable stop before heading south into Big Sur.
Cape Town & the Winelands · fine-dining
La Colombe
A long-running fine-dining room on the Silvermist estate at Constantia Nek, on the pass between Constantia and Hout Bay; the restaurant gives its own address as Hout Bay. It closes for a winter break most years, so check dates before booking.
Cape Town & the Winelands · casual
Protégé (Le Quartier Français)
The more casual of Le Quartier Français’s two restaurants, in the centre of the village; a good option after a morning of wine tasting. The smaller Épice next door is the fine-dining room.
Cappadocia · casual
Seten Restaurant
Seten Anatolian Restaurant sits on the hill above Göreme town rather than in Uçhisar, opened in May 2010 and was included in the Michelin Guide 2026 selection. Regional cooking, testi kebabı among it, and a terrace over the town and valleys; first come first served, so arrive before sunset.
Cappadocia · casual
Topdeck Cave Restaurant
A family-run restaurant in the ground-floor cave of the family house at Hafız Abdullah Efendi Sokak 15, once a stable, popular for the pottery-kebab breaking ritual. It has no working website of its own that we could find in September 2026; book by phone, listed as +90 384 271 2474, or through its Instagram, and expect a queue in season.
Cappadocia · modern
Ziggy’s Cafe & Restaurant
Ziggy Cafe and Restaurant on Tevfik Fikret Caddesi in Ürgüp’s Esbelli quarter, run by a couple who moved from Istanbul, with a menu of traditional and contemporary Turkish dishes and a local wine list. Its site answers only over plain http, which is worth knowing before you conclude from a browser warning that it has closed.
Chiang Mai · institution
Khao Soi Khun Yai
A garden shack behind a temple serving what many consider the city's best khao soi for around 50 baht. Open roughly 10am to 2pm, closed Sundays, and it sells out; go before 1pm.
Chiang Mai · casual
Khao Soi Mae Sai
A no-frills neighbourhood shop holding a Bib Gourmand in the 2026 Michelin Guide Thailand, serving khao soi and khanom chin nam ngiao. Lunchtime hours; arrive before the office crowd at noon.
Chiang Mai · institution
Huen Phen
The Old City's long-standing northern kitchen: a canteen-style lunch operation in front and an antiques-crammed dining house at dinner. Order the hang lay curry, sai ua and nam phrik num and share everything.
Chiang Mai · fine-dining
Baan Landai Fine Thai Cuisine
A family-run fine Thai kitchen that has appeared in the Michelin Guide Thailand since 2020, in a converted house in the northern Old City. Book a day or two ahead in high season.
Chiang Mai · casual
The Riverside Bar & Restaurant
The riverside institution since 1984: Thai and Western menus, terraces over the Ping and live bands from mid-evening. Not the city's most refined kitchen, and it does not need to be; book a water-side table at sunset.
Corfu · fine-dining
Venetian Well
A romantic courtyard around a Venetian wellhead; changing, ambitious menu. Book ahead.
Corfu · institution
Rex
A long-running institution just behind the Liston, and a reliable place to try the island classics.
Corfu · institution
Taverna Agni (Agni Bay)
One of three tavernas on a tiny northeast cove; the classic long seaside lunch. Many arrive by small boat.
Corfu · institution
O Foros
The taverna on the old square of Corfu’s oldest village, run by Thomas and Vaso Siriotis, and reason enough on its own to drive an hour up the mountain instead of eating by the sea. Two shots of raki landed on the table before we had ordered anything. Then dolmades and zucchini balls, moussaka under a proper lid of bechamel, lamb chops grilled over coals and priced by the kilo, and a karydopita heavy with syrup and walnuts, made with honey from the family’s own bees. Rick Stein filmed here in 2007 and the place has not been ruined by it: the tables are still oilcloth and gingham on gravel, under a fig vine, in a village square that was a Venetian forum. We ate here in July 2026 and it was the best meal of the trip.
Costa Rica: Arenal, Monteverde & Manuel Antonio · modern
Don Rufino
Family-owned since 2005 on a corner in the centre of La Fortuna, open daily from noon to 9:30pm. The Huetar Norte five-course menu is the one to order; the grandmother's chicken is the dish regulars return for. Reserve on weekends.
Costa Rica: Arenal, Monteverde & Manuel Antonio · budget
Soda D' Mi Tierra
A proper soda a short walk from the church: casados and fish plates at USD 10 to 25 a head, big portions, no fuss. The kind of place that makes the hotel breakfast look expensive.
Costa Rica: Arenal, Monteverde & Manuel Antonio · casual
Tree House Restaurante & Café
Built around a huge ficus in the centre of Santa Elena, opposite the Catholic church, open daily 11:30am to 10pm with live music from 7pm and a happy hour at 4pm. Pizzas, steaks and fish; the tree is the point.
Costa Rica: Arenal, Monteverde & Manuel Antonio · cafe
Café Caburé
An Argentine-owned restaurant and chocolate maker on the balcony of the Paseo de Stella centre on the road to the reserve, grinding Costa Rican cacao into truffles on site and running a short chocolate tour. Open from noon; closed one day a week, so check the day before you walk up.
Costa Rica: Arenal, Monteverde & Manuel Antonio · institution
Sabor Tico
A family-run Tico restaurant of 20-plus years in the Plaza Monteverde centre at the edge of Santa Elena, with a balcony that faces the sunset. Casados, tamales, chifrijo and olla de carne at local prices; the place to eat Costa Rican food in Monteverde rather than pizza.
Costa Rica: Arenal, Monteverde & Manuel Antonio · sunset-venue
El Avión
A bar and restaurant built around a Fairchild C-123 cargo plane from the Iran-Contra affair, 150 m above the sea on the hill road, part of the Costa Verde group. Seafood and cocktails; the two-level deck faces west and the sunset is the reason to book early.
Costa Rica: Arenal, Monteverde & Manuel Antonio · cafe
Emilio's Café
An eclectic café just before Hotel Mariposa on the road to Punta Quepos, with ocean and jungle views and a serious bakery: eggs Benedict, brioche French toast, sandwiches. Best at breakfast and lunch; music some nights.
Costa Rica: Arenal, Monteverde & Manuel Antonio · sunset-venue
Ronny's Place
Ronny Alpízar's open-air restaurant since 2003 on the highest point of a 36-hectare farm, 800 m down a track opposite the Amigos del Río building. Open daily 11:15am to 9:30pm; a west-facing sunset every evening of the year, the restaurant says, weather permitting. Book the 5:30pm table.
Costa Rica: Arenal, Monteverde & Manuel Antonio · budget
Soda Sánchez
One block up from the Quepos bus station, across from the BCR bank: a no-frills soda where a casado costs what it should. The antidote to hill-road prices.
Crete · institution
Tamam
Housed in a building by the old harbour that the restaurant says the Venetians built as a public bath around 1400 and the Ottomans later ran as a hammam; open since 1982; Cretan dishes alongside Ottoman-influenced sharing plates.
Crete · fine-dining
Peskesi
Set in a restored historic mansion in central Heraklion, sourcing much of its produce from its own organic farm; built around forgotten Cretan recipes and ingredients.
Crete · fine-dining
Veneto Restaurant
The on-site restaurant of the Veneto Boutique Hotel, in a former 15th-century monastery building; runs seasonally, roughly May to October.
Crete · institution
Nikos Fish Tavern
A family fish taverna on Elounda’s village square, running since 1972, sourcing daily catch from local boats.
Cyclades Island Hopping: How to Plan the Route · casual
Taverna Axiotissa
A family-run taverna on the road south to Kastraki, cooking with local vegetables and cheeses, organic flour and pulses, and Naxos honey. Rabbit with oregano, island cheeses and vegetable dishes rather than a standard tourist menu. Closed on Tuesdays.
Cyclades Island Hopping: How to Plan the Route · fine-dining
Siparos Seaside Restaurant
A seasonal seaside restaurant a few kilometres east of Naoussa, open since 2009, built around local fish and Cycladic produce. The season runs April to October, daily from 1pm to 11pm.
Cyclades Island Hopping: How to Plan the Route · modern
Omega3
A small fish and wine bar on Platis Gialos beach run by chef George Samoilis, serving ceviche, sashimi and creative small plates rather than standard grilled fish. Very small, and reservations are effectively mandatory.
Cyclades Island Hopping: How to Plan the Route · institution
O! Hamos!
A family taverna near Papikinou beach, about a fifteen-minute walk from the centre of Adamas, cooking meat and cheese from the family farm. Handwritten menu, clay plates, no reservations, and a queue in August.
Dubai · casual
Arabian Tea House
A courtyard cafe inside a restored heritage house serving Emirati breakfasts and karak chai; a good stop between the souks.
Dubai · institution
Ravi Restaurant
A long-running, famously cheap Pakistani restaurant popular with Dubai residents of all backgrounds; grilled meats, curries and fresh naan.
Dubrovnik · fine-dining
Restaurant 360
The city’s only Michelin star in the 2026 guide, and the highest Gault&Millau score we found on this coast at 18 out of 20. It sits on the walls themselves, looking down into the old harbour, and it opens Tuesday to Sunday 18:00 to midnight, closed Monday, with an elegant dress code. Dinner only, so it never competes with a day plan.
Dubrovnik · institution
Taj Mahal
Despite the name it is a Bosnian kitchen, and it is the city’s only Bib Gourmand in the 2026 Michelin selection, which in Michelin’s own language means good quality and good value cooking and in practice means the best-value serious meal inside the walls. Ćevapi, pastries, slow-cooked lamb, its own butchery. Two locations, and the Old Town one is the listed one. It publishes no opening hours, so book through its own site.
Dubrovnik · fine-dining
Stara Loza
In the Michelin selection every year since 2017 and again in 2026, with the only fine-dining rooftop on Prijeko. Two things to know before you plan it: the rooftop is fourteen seats, dinner only, two seatings a night, minimum two and maximum six guests, priced per person by season at 110 euros from March to May and in October and 125 from June to September; and the street-level terrace does brunch from 08:00, with dinner service 18:00 to 22:00. Its own pages disagree on whether brunch ends at 13:00 or 15:00, so confirm when you book.
Dubrovnik · fine-dining
Pjerin
Villa Dubrovnik’s restaurant, in the Michelin Guide’s 2026 Dubrovnik selection, named after an unfinished play by the sixteenth-century Dubrovnik playwright Marin Držić, with Robert Račić as executive chef. It serves in three windows, 07:00 to 11:00, 13:00 to 16:00 and 18:30 to 23:30, which makes the 13:00 seating the best-value way into the hotel. A taxi each way unless you are staying there.
Dubrovnik · institution
Nautika
The city’s formal address for fifty years, on the terrace between the Pile gate and Lovrijenac, in the Michelin selection for 2026 and scored 16.5 by Gault&Millau. Open every day 18:00 to midnight. One warning: its own page still carries a leftover line saying it is closed for the 2025 season next to the current hours, so trust the hours and not the notice. The same group runs the more casual Dubravka 1836 next door and Gradska Kavana Arsenal on Luža square.
Dubrovnik · institution
Restaurant Dubrovnik
A five or nine course chef’s choice menu in a hidden Old Town courtyard, in the Michelin selection for 2026 and scored 15 by Gault&Millau. It closes for the winter, from November until April on its own statement, with the exact dates varying year to year, so it is a season-dependent booking. Beware the domain: restaurantdubrovnik.com is a parked lander, and the real site is restorandubrovnik.com.
Dubrovnik · institution
Proto Fish
Founded in 1886 and the oldest restaurant inside the walls, in the Michelin selection for 2026, with a street terrace on Široka, an interior room and an upper terrace. Order whatever is whole and grilled and priced by the kilo, and ask to see it before it is cooked, which here is normal practice rather than an insult. Its own website renders almost nothing, so book by phone.
Dubrovnik · fine-dining
Vapor
The Bellevue’s restaurant, in the Michelin Guide’s 2026 Dubrovnik selection and scored 14 by Gault&Millau, on the west-facing cliff above Miramare bay, which is the right side of the city for evening light. No hours are published anywhere on the group’s site and the booking widget on its page still defaults to 2019, so reserve by phone or email and confirm the time.
Dubrovnik · modern
Pantarul
The modern Dalmatian bistro in Lapad that Dubrovnik’s own residents name first, built on produce from farmers around the city, scored 14.5 by Gault&Millau and deliberately not a white-tablecloth room. One live contradiction to check: its contact page says open Monday to Sunday while its own FAQ asks why it is closed on Mondays, so ring before you walk there on a Monday.
Dubrovnik · casual
Kopun
On a small square above the Jesuit stairs, cooking revived Croatian recipes including the capon the restaurant is named after, with two dinner seatings at 19:00 to 21:00 and 21:00 to 23:00. It is not in the Michelin selection despite plenty of search results claiming otherwise, which we checked against the guide’s own index, and it does not need to be: this is a good dinner at a fair price in the quietest corner of the walled city.
Dubrovnik · casual
Gverović-Orsan
A family seafood restaurant since 1966, in a centuries-old boathouse on Zaton bay with its own organic garden, which celebrated its sixtieth year in 2026. It is seven kilometres west of the Old Town, which is exactly far enough that the ships do not reach it, and the drive is the price of a lunch where the water is at the table leg rather than in the photograph.
Dubrovnik · casual
Bota Šare oyster and sushi bar
The Old Town branch of the Mali Ston oyster family, serving oysters pulled from a bay 40 kilometres away earlier the same day, plus a fusion sushi menu that is better than it sounds on paper. There is also a six-seat, no-menu room built around a dry-aged whole Adriatic bluefin, which is the most interesting reservation in the city for anyone who eats raw fish. No hours are published, and the only Bota Šare pin on OpenStreetMap is the Mali Ston original, so navigate to the Buža gate rather than to a map marker.
Dubrovnik · casual
Dubravka 1836
The big terrace immediately outside the Pile gate, open 08:00 to midnight, run by the same group as Nautika next door, which is why the kitchen is better than its position suggests. It is the practical answer to the walls-at-opening plan: coffee here at 07:30, through the gate and up the steps when the ticket office opens.
Dubrovnik · cafe
Life According to Kawa
A third-wave coffee bar and concept store in a converted garage a few minutes outside the walls, pouring Croatian roasters, and the nearest thing in Dubrovnik to a room where people are working rather than sightseeing. Useful for the same reason the Buža bars are: it is a few metres off the tour route and therefore a different city.
Dubrovnik · market
The Gruž market
The city’s real market, on the harbour front in Gruž, fish on one side and produce on the other, and a completely different experience from the small souvenir-and-fruit stalls on Gundulić square inside the walls. Go early. We could not confirm the opening hours on any official page and the two independent versions we found contradict each other, so treat early morning to early afternoon as the safe window and do not plan a late visit.
Egypt: Cairo, Luxor & the Nile · institution
Abou El Sid, Zamalek
Cairo’s salon of Egyptian cooking: molokheya, stuffed pigeon and om ali in a lamplit, antique-filled room on 26th of July Street. Book ahead on weekends; portions assume sharing.
Egypt: Cairo, Luxor & the Nile · street-food
Zooba
Egyptian street classics, taameya, ful, hawawshi, koshary, done fast, bright and reliably, which matters on day one of a sensitive stomach. The Zamalek flagship is the handy one.
Egypt: Cairo, Luxor & the Nile · institution
Sofra
A 1930s Luxor house turned restaurant: duck with molokheya, stuffed pigeon and a rooftop of cushioned alcoves. Unlicensed, beloved and busy: reserve for dinner in season.
Egypt: Cairo, Luxor & the Nile · casual
Solaih Nubian Restaurant
In the painted Nubian village across the river: clay-pot stews, grilled fish and hibiscus juice on terraces over the Nile. Combine with the village wander and a felucca or motorboat back.
Ella · institution
Café Chill
The big café in the middle of the main street, open since 2009, with Sri Lankan, Asian and Western food and a bar. Its site gives the hours as every day from 08:30 to 02:00, kitchen until 22:00. It gets very busy in the evenings.
Ella · casual
Matey Hut
A small family place that cooks a spread of vegetable curries with rice, plus kottu and roti. It has no website; its HappyCow listing, with reviews into September 2026, gives Monday to Saturday 11:00 to 20:00, closed Sunday, cash only. The listed hours are old, so check.
Ella · casual
AK Ristoro
A long-running restaurant on the Passara road with pasta, pizza and Sri Lankan dishes. It has no website of its own; OpenStreetMap was updated in August 2025.
Ella · cafe
The Barn by Starbeans
The Ella branch of the Starbeans coffee company, in business since 2010, with coffee, pizza and Sri Lankan dishes and vegetarian choices; cards accepted.
Ella · modern
The Green Door
Out of the centre on the Passara road, with a daily changing menu of bowls, crab cakes, pizza and marked vegan dishes. OpenStreetMap gives 09:00 to 22:00 daily.
Ella · cafe
Herb Haus
A vegetarian and vegan place added to OpenStreetMap in April 2026, opening at 06:30, early enough to eat before Ella Rock. New, so check it is still trading.
Ella · sunset-venue
98 Restaurant and Bar
The hilltop restaurant of 98 Acres Resort, with Sri Lankan and international food and the valley below; non-residents should book ahead. By our model the sun sets here 7 to 18 minutes before the almanac time, behind the western hills.
Fiji · casual
Resort dining, Mamanucas and Yasawas
On small islands, dining is at your resort; many serve the daily catch and run a weekly lovo night with a cultural show.
Fiji · fine-dining
Fijiana Restaurant, Likuliku
The signature restaurant at Likuliku Lagoon Resort, known for fresh, locally caught seafood in a lagoon setting.
Fiji · casual
Port Denarau marina dining
The marina at Port Denarau has the widest choice of independent restaurants and bars before you head to the islands.
French Riviera (Cote d'Azur) · institution
La Merenda
Run by chef Dominique Le Stanc, a former head chef at Le Negresco’s Chantecler; more than sixty years of Nicoise cooking, no phone, no card payments, cash and a queue.
French Riviera (Cote d'Azur) · institution
Chez Pipo
Founded in 1933 and cooking socca on one of the city’s oldest ovens; a straightforward, no-frills place built entirely around the dish.
French Riviera (Cote d'Azur) · fine-dining
La Petite Maison
A long-established Old Town address for Mediterranean and Nicoise dishes; reviews on service are mixed, book ahead regardless.
Goa · institution
Vinayak Family Restaurant
A plain room on the Assagao road that has spent two decades being the answer to "where do Goans actually eat". Thalis, dried seafood, squid and prawn done simply, at prices the surrounding villa economy has not touched. Come at lunch, expect a wait in season, and do not expect decor.
Goa · institution
Mum's Kitchen
Built around recipes collected from Goan grandmothers, which sounds like a marketing line and reads on the plate as an unusually wide menu of dishes that restaurants normally skip. The place to try sorpotel, cafreal and a proper vindalho in one sitting, in a room where the staff will explain each of them. Book in season.
Goa · institution
Martin's Corner
The South Goa institution: a garden restaurant in Betalbatim that grew out of a village bar and now fills nightly with families, live music and enormous plates of crab, prawn and kingfish. It is famous, it is busy, and the food is still good, which is a harder trick than it sounds. Reserve, and go for the Goan half of the menu rather than the continental half.
Goa · modern
Gunpowder
A restored Portuguese house in Assagao serving the food of the coast further south, Kerala, Andhra and Tamil Nadu, alongside Goan dishes, in a garden strung with lights. The appam, the Malabar prawn curry and the pork are the reasons people keep coming back through fifteen years of Assagao changing around it. Book ahead in season.
Great Barrier Reef & Cairns · casual
Prawn Star
A prawn trawler tied up at Marlin Marina, E Finger, Berth 31, selling and serving its own catch from 11 am to 9 pm daily. You eat on the boat.
Great Barrier Reef & Cairns · modern
Ochre Restaurant
A long-running Cairns restaurant built around native Australian ingredients such as crocodile, kangaroo and native spices, alongside reef seafood.
Great Barrier Reef & Cairns · modern
Salsa Bar & Grill
A Port Douglas restaurant open since 1995, on Wharf Street overlooking Dickson Inlet, serving reef fish and modern Australian dishes.
Greece in 10 Days: Athens, Mykonos & Santorini · institution
Diporto Agoras
A no-sign basement taverna operating near the Central Market since 1887, with two doors (hence the name) and a short, unchanging menu of horiatiki, gigantes and the day’s stew.
Greece in 10 Days: Athens, Mykonos & Santorini · fine-dining
Interni
A garden restaurant in the Matoyiannia lanes, running as a dinner-into-nightlife destination since 2000; Mediterranean cooking with cocktails and music later in the evening.
Greece in 10 Days: Athens, Mykonos & Santorini · casual
Kiki’s Tavern
A no-website, no-phone, no-reservations shack behind Agios Sostis beach on the island’s quieter north coast; arrive well before opening, since it closes once the food runs out for the day.
Greece in 10 Days: Athens, Mykonos & Santorini · fine-dining
Kapari Wine Restaurant
A courtyard restaurant within a small Imerovigli hotel, overlooking the caldera cliffs, with a contemporary Mediterranean menu built around Santorini produce and wine.
Halkidiki · institution
Arsanas
The best-documented restaurant in Halkidiki and the one that does not vanish in October: its own site publishes a year-round operation with a single annual break, usually 10 November to 15 December, and daily hours of 12:15 to 00:30. Seafood, on the water at Nikiti. Twelve hours of continuous service a day means there is no locked-out lunch here, which on a driving trip matters more than it sounds.
Halkidiki · fine-dining
Melia
Opened in 2017 beside Karydi beach and run under Giannis Baxevanis, one of the cooks associated with the modern Greek revival, which puts a serious kitchen on the best beach on the peninsula. The site publishes a phone number, +30 23750 91067, and takeaway, but no hours and no season, so ring. A third-party listing gives weekday hours we could not confirm at source and would not print.
Halkidiki · institution
Kritikos
Founded in 1977, a street back from the Ouranoupoli port tavernas, with live shellfish tanks at the door and fish landed from the Athos grounds. Note there is a sister operation in Panorama, Thessaloniki, on a separate subdomain, so check which one a link is pointing at. The site publishes no hours, no season and no prices; the telephone is 2377071222.
Halkidiki · modern
Cikado
New for the 2026 season and curated by Lefteris Lazarou, one of the best-known seafood chefs in Greece. The format is a panigiri by the sea: it opens with the Paramana, a shared spread of small dishes, then moves to wood-oven pies, clay dishes and baked recipes, seafood-led with some meat, with tsipouro and ouzo service in the evening. The page publishes its hours twice and disagrees with itself: 12:30 to 20:30 in the useful-information block, lunch 12:30 to 17:00 and dinner 19:00 to 22:00 in the dining list. Either way it starts and finishes earlier than a Greek dinner usually does, so ring.
Halkidiki · casual
Ergon Beach House restaurant and Balboa
A food house that happens to have rooms: seafood mezedes, salads and locally landed fish from early morning to midnight, with Balboa doing burgers, stuffed flatbreads and pizza on the sand and an Ergon deli selling the olives, preserves and wine at the end of it. As a canvas-built property it is very unlikely to run outside high summer, and no season is published.
Halkidiki · fine-dining
Water at Sani Asterias
Sani’s flagship, on the marina beach at Sani Asterias, now shaped by the two-Michelin-starred Bruno Oger. One caution before you build an evening around it: a renovation of Water was flagged for completion during 2026, and neither hours nor season are published, so confirm it is open before you drive across the estate. The same restaurant index lists Avli and Psaroyiannos on the marina itself, both reachable without staying in any of the five hotels.
Hanoi · institution
Pho Gia Truyen
A Michelin Bib Gourmand shop where you queue, pay at the counter, carry your own bowl and find a stool. Roughly 50,000 to 60,000 dong depending on the cut. Open early morning and again in the evening, with a long midday gap; the queue at 8am is the correct time to join it.
Hanoi · casual
Bun Cha Huong Lien
The shop where Barack Obama and Anthony Bourdain ate in 2016, which the family has monetised with a set "Obama combo" of bun cha, a seafood roll and a beer at around 130,000 dong; the plain bun cha is about 60,000. The fame has not wrecked the grilling. Open through the day, busiest at lunch.
Hanoi · institution
Cha Ca Thang Long
A Bib Gourmand in the 2026 Michelin Guide Vietnam. The pan of turmeric fish arrives already sizzling and you finish it at the table with dill, spring onion, peanuts and noodles. There is effectively one thing on the menu. Open through the day into the evening; go at opening or after eight to avoid the tour groups.
Hanoi · street-food
Banh Cuon Gia Truyen Thanh Van
A new Bib Gourmand in the 2026 Michelin Guide Vietnam, and a shop that has been rolling banh cuon on Hang Ga for generations. Sit where you can see the cloth stretched over the steam pot. Mornings are when it is at its best.
Hanoi · fine-dining
Tam Vi
One Michelin star in the 2026 Michelin Guide Vietnam, in a small house styled like an old tea room. The cooking is northern family food rather than fusion, which is exactly what makes it interesting after three days of street stools. Book several days ahead; the room is small.
Hanoi · cafe
Cafe Giang
The family that claims the invention of ca phe trung in the 1940s, down an alley and up a staircase to a low-ceilinged room of stools. Order it hot the first time. A hundred metres from the water puppet theatre, which makes it the obvious pre-show stop.
Maui and Oahu: Planning the Two-Island Hawaii Trip · institution
Mama’s Fish House
A South Seas dining room on its own cove near Pāʻia, run by the same family since 1973. The menu names the fisherman and the boat behind each fish, and demand is such that reservations effectively open months out; check back for cancellations 24 to 48 hours before.
Maui and Oahu: Planning the Two-Island Hawaii Trip · street-food
Tin Roof
Chef Sheldon Simeon’s takeout counter near the airport, opened in 2016: mochiko chicken, garlic shrimp and poke bowls from a Top Chef finalist at food-truck prices. Expect a line at lunch; it moves.
Maui and Oahu: Planning the Two-Island Hawaii Trip · institution
Helena’s Hawaiian Food
Serving Hawaiian food since 1946 and named a James Beard America’s Classic in 2000. Order the pipikaula-style short ribs, kalua pig, lomi salmon and poi, and go at lunch; it is a modest storefront with lines for a reason.
Maui and Oahu: Planning the Two-Island Hawaii Trip · bakery
Leonard’s Bakery
The Portuguese-Hawaiian bakery that made the malasada a Honolulu institution, open since 1952 on Kapahulu Avenue. Order them hot, original sugar or custard-filled, and eat in the parking lot like everyone else.
Maui and Oahu: Planning the Two-Island Hawaii Trip · sunset-venue
Duke’s Waikiki
The open-air beach bar and grill named for Duke Kahanamoku, the Olympic swimmer who fathered modern surfing, directly on the sand at Waikīkī. Tourist-famous and deservedly so at sunset, with live Hawaiian music most evenings; the Barefoot Bar takes no reservations.
Hoi An · institution
Banh Mi Phuong
The banh mi shop made internationally famous after Anthony Bourdain featured it; expect a queue at peak times. It was suspended for three months after a food-poisoning case in September 2023 and reopened on 3 January 2024.
Hoi An · market
Hoi An Central Market food stalls
The market kitchens are where locals eat the Hoi An classics for a fraction of restaurant prices.
Hoi An · modern
Morning Glory
A well-known Ancient Town restaurant serving refined versions of the local street dishes, with an associated cooking school. The same owner runs two branches, Morning Glory Original and Morning Glory Signature; check which one you are booking.
Hokkaido · institution
Sapporo Beer Garden
A long-running all-you-can-eat jingisukan and beer hall inside the historic brewery grounds.
Hokkaido · market
Nijo Market
A compact fish market a short walk from Odori Park, with stalls and small seafood-rice-bowl counters.
Hokkaido · cafe
Furano Cheese Kobo
A small local dairy and cheese workshop with a soft-serve stand, a popular break on the Furano/Biei route.
Ibiza · institution
Es Torrent
A storied fish restaurant on its own pebble cove near Porroig, cooking boat-fresh seafood since the 1980s; the bullit de peix is the order, ideally reserved when you book the table. Lunch only for most of the season.
Ibiza · cafe
La Paloma
A family-run garden restaurant among citrus trees in tiny Sant Llorenç, open since 2004: casual Mediterranean lunches with a Levantine lean, Italian-leaning dinners, and the island’s most loved courtyard. Book ahead in season.
Ibiza · fine-dining
La Gaia
Óscar Molina’s dining room at the Ibiza Gran Hotel holds one of the island’s three Michelin stars in the 2026 guide, building tasting menus from Ibizan sea and farm produce. The island’s benchmark for a dressed-up night.
Istanbul · modern
Karaköy Lokantası
A blue-and-white-tiled dining room serving refined versions of home-style Turkish dishes.
Istanbul · institution
Hamdi Restaurant
A long-running kebab house near the Spice Bazaar with rooftop seating over the water.
Istanbul · institution
Çiya Sofrası
A Kadıköy institution rotating dishes from across Turkey’s regions, the reason many food writers cross to the Asian side.
Jeju Island · institution
Donsadon
The black-pork house most often named first, grilling skin-on pork over yeontan coals and serving it by the geun, 400 or 600 grams, with the staff doing the cutting. No reservations; open 12:00 to 22:00 and closed on Tuesdays.
Jeju Island · institution
Olle Guksu
The pork-noodle bowl of Jeju City, listed among the Koreat top ten of the island in 2016 and still the bowl to start with. Closed on Sundays.
Jeju Island · casual
Ojo Haenyeo-ui Jip
The haenyeo house of Ojo-ri, run by the village divers’ cooperative on the lagoon between Seongsan and the main road: abalone porridge for breakfast, sea urchin and raw abalone later. It opens early, which is why it belongs to the morning you climb Ilchulbong.
Jeju Island · institution
Sambo Sikdang
An old Seogwipo kitchen for the south-coast dishes: abalone ttukbaegi, okdom, the red tilefish, grilled, and jari mulhoe when the damselfish are in. Last orders at 20:00, closed on the second and fourth Wednesdays.
Jeju Island · institution
Negeori Sikdang
The hairtail house at the Seogwipo crossroads: galchi-guk, the clear soup, galchi-jorim, the braise, and the long grilled fish. Open every day, last orders 20:40.
Jeju Island · casual
Myeongjin Jeonbok
The abalone restaurant of the north-east coast road, known for the stone-pot rice and the porridge. Closed on Tuesdays, last orders 20:00.
Jeju Island · cafe
Delmoondo
The bakery cafe on Hamdeok beach, open from 06:00 to midnight every day, with a pub, Beach Wave, from 18:00 that checks ID. Early coffee here is the consolation for a beach that hides its own sunrise.
Jeju Island · street-food
Jimmy’s Natural Ice Cream
The peanut ice cream of Udo, by the black-sand cove under Udobong, open every day in season. Peanuts are the island’s crop.
Jeju Island · fine-dining
Milieu
A fine-dining room, French tasting menus built on Jeju seafood and vegetables at the Haevichi resort: eight courses at 250,000 won, five at 160,000, a children’s course at 60,000, dinner only from 18:00 to 22:00, closed on Wednesdays and Thursdays. A 30,000-won deposit a head is kept on a no-show.
Jeju Island · budget
Samdae Guksu Hoegwan
The late-night gogi-guksu house of the city, open until 01:20 and every day of the year, for the bowl after the Dongmun stalls or before a dawn drive east.
Kenya-Tanzania Safari Route · modern
Four Seasons Safari Lodge dining
Several dining venues at a full-service lodge overlooking a Serengeti waterhole.
Kenya-Tanzania Safari Route · casual
Ngorongoro Serena crater-rim dining
Full-board dining as part of a crater-rim stay, with layers advised for cold evenings.
Kenya-Tanzania Safari Route · casual
Governors’ Camp bush breakfast
Bush breakfasts and full-board meals at a riverfront Mara camp.
Kerala Backwaters · fine-dining
Chakara at Raheem Residency
The restaurant of the 1868 heritage house on the beach road, open to non-residents and a genuine step above the rest of the town: Kerala seafood cooked accurately alongside a shorter international menu, served on a rooftop and a verandah rather than in a dining hall. Book ahead in season, particularly around the August race, and take the table upstairs.
Kerala Backwaters · casual
Thaff Restaurant
A long-standing Alappuzha favourite that fills every night with a mix of local families and travelers: Kerala fish and prawn dishes alongside grilled chicken, biryani and shawarma, in a plain downstairs room and a cooler air-conditioned one upstairs with the same menu and the same prices. Portions are large, the bill is small, and the fish of the day is the order.
Kerala Backwaters · cafe
Kream Korner Art Cafe
Part cafe, part gallery, with local paintings on every wall and a menu that runs from appam and stew through Indian standards to sandwiches and cold coffee. It is the reliable middle-of-the-day stop in a hot town, and a good first meal for anyone still calibrating their chilli tolerance.
Kerala Backwaters · budget
Halais Restaurant
A plain, busy, no-nonsense local restaurant of the kind Kerala towns do well: biryani, fish curry meals and fresh juices, served fast to a room that turns over constantly. There is no atmosphere to speak of and no need for one at these prices.
Kerala Backwaters · institution
Kayees Biryani, Mattancherry
A Mattancherry institution that sells mutton and chicken biryani until it runs out, which on a good day is early afternoon. The room is small and functional, the queue is part of it, and the point is a rice that tastes of the pot rather than of a spice cupboard. Go at opening, take cash, and do not plan anything strenuous afterwards.
Kerala Backwaters · cafe
Pepper House Cafe
A cafe in the courtyard of a restored Dutch-era spice warehouse that doubles as a gallery, library and one of the main venues when the Kochi-Muziris Biennale is running. Good coffee, a short menu that leans European with Kerala ingredients, and a shaded garden opening onto the water. The most civilised hour in Fort Kochi.
Koh Phangan · fine-dining
DAO by Chef Nir Mesika
Sixteen seats around a chef's table in a restored Thai house five minutes from the pier, four nights a week, one ten-course tasting menu at 3,000 baht before 7 percent VAT and service, with a fish-only version and wine pairings of four or five glasses at 2,000 or 2,500 baht. Nir Mesika studied at the Bishulim school in Tel Aviv and opened Zizi Limona there and Timna in New York before moving to Koh Phangan in 2023; the food is Levantine in method and Gulf-of-Thailand in ingredient. Over-16s only, reservations required, no gluten-free, dairy-free or vegan menus, and a 1,000 baht a head deposit for parties of three or more.
Koh Phangan · institution
Fisherman's Restaurant and Bar
On the sand at Ban Tai since 2007, built by Lek, a chef from a local fishing family, out of natural materials and the family's old longtails, which are now the seating. Crab curry, barracuda, fish cakes and a fish pie for the homesick, with the lights of Koh Samui across the water. Early tables from 18:00 to 19:30 are two-hour sittings and parties of more than six should call ahead.
Koh Phangan · cafe
Bubba's Coffee
The island's coffee company since 2015, roasting beans from the northern Thai hills at its Haad Yao cafe and serving them with all-day breakfast at three places: the original in Ban Tai, the roastery at Haad Yao between the villas and the bay, and the newest by the Thong Sala pier, which is where you go straight off the boat. All three open 07:00 to 17:00 every day.
Koh Phangan · bakery
Nira's Home Bakery
A Thong Sala institution on the pier road, baking since the 1980s: croissants, German breads, cakes and a long breakfast menu that covers the English, the German and the French versions, plus Thai dishes. A second branch on the Haad Rin walking street feeds the party crowd. We could not read an official page; the details are from listings and the map.
Koh Phangan · casual
Fabio's
An Italian on the Ban Tai main road since 2007, across from a coffee lounge, baking its own bread daily and rolling its own egg pasta; lasagne, seafood tagliatelle and pizza, with a dessert thrown in. Popular enough, by its reviews, that a table at eight in high season needs a call. Details come from listings and the restaurant's Facebook page rather than a site of its own.
Koh Phangan · casual
Phorn Restaurant
A family seafood restaurant with indoor and outdoor tables overlooking the Chaloklum pier: calamari, red snapper, king prawns and the standard Thai menu, plus burgers and an English breakfast for the divers. The kind of place that is on every list for the same reason: reviewers call it clean and cheap, and the boats it buys from are tied up in front of it.
Koh Phangan · market
Thong Sala Saturday Walking Street
Saturday from about four to ten in the old market lanes behind the pier: whole grilled fish, squid on sticks, som tam pounded to order, kanom jeen, roti with banana, mango sticky rice, and the island's only crowd that is half Thai. Bring cash and go early for the fish.
Koh Phangan · casual
Chabad House Koh Phangan
The Chabad house on the Hin Kong road between Thong Sala and Srithanu, with a synagogue, Friday-night and Shabbat meals, a kosher restaurant and a shop stocking Israeli products and kosher meat. Run by Rabbi Dovber Deutsch. The address and services are from the Chabad directory; hours and prices are not published and are best confirmed by message before Shabbat.
Koh Samui · fine-dining
KOH Thai Kitchen
The signature Thai restaurant at Four Seasons Koh Samui, serving curries and seafood with bay views; book ahead.
Koh Samui · market
Fisherman’s Village Walking Street
A Friday-evening street market along the Bophut shophouses with food stalls, crafts and music; the easiest introduction to Samui street eating.
Koh Samui · market
Lamai Sunday Walking Street
A Sunday-evening market on the Lamai beach road near the fresh market, from about 17:00, with grills, Thai street food and crafts; bring cash.
Kuala Lumpur · institution
Village Park Restaurant
The nasi lemak by which the city measures all others, running since 2002: coconut rice, dark sambal and the famous spice-crusted fried chicken, around RM13 to RM15 a plate. The queue on weekend mornings is part of the experience; go on a weekday before 10am. It is in suburban Petaling Jaya, so make it the breakfast before or after a morning at FRIM.
Kuala Lumpur · street-food
Jalan Alor
A whole street that becomes an open-air Chinese grill house every evening: charcoal chicken wings, grilled stingray in sambal, satay, noodles and fresh juice under strings of red lanterns. It is touristy and it is still good, which is rare. Arrive from 6pm as the woks light; the famous wing stalls run out late.
Kuala Lumpur · institution
Heun Kee Claypot Chicken Rice
A Michelin Bib Gourmand fixture where claypots of chicken, salted fish, lap cheong sausage and rice are still cooked to order over charcoal, and the point is the wok-scorched crust you scrape from the bottom. Expect a wait at dinner; it moves fast. Pudu's wet-market streets around it are their own reward before seven.
Kuala Lumpur · institution
Kim Lian Kee
The shop credited with inventing KL Hokkien mee on this street in the 1920s, still frying the black-soy noodles with pork lard over serious fire, upstairs and streetside on Petaling Street. Order the Hokkien mee and the fried lala clams and do not fight the lard. Evenings only feel right here.
Kuala Lumpur · casual
Vishal Food and Catering
A Brickfields banana-leaf standard where the leaf arrives, the rice lands, and the vegetable curries, rasam and pickles keep coming until you fold the leaf in surrender; add mutton curry or fried chicken if the table insists. Lunch is the meal: come before 1pm or queue with the lawyers and railway workers. A few ringgit buys the full spread.
Kuala Lumpur · fine-dining
Dewakan
Malaysia's only two-Michelin-star restaurant, and since the 2026 guide also a Michelin Green Star holder: chef Darren Teoh builds tasting menus from indigenous Malaysian ingredients, jungle fruit, fermented preparations and forgotten grains, 48 floors above the city. This is the one meal in KL priced like Europe, and the one that justifies it. Book weeks ahead.
Kyoto · street-food
Nishiki Market food stalls
A working market street where visitors can sample pickles, skewers, tofu sweets and seafood from stall to stall.
Kyoto · fine-dining
Kikunoi
The Higashiyama flagship of the Kikunoi kaiseki house, led by a third-generation chef and rated three stars in the Michelin Guide Kyoto Osaka 2024. Lunch is seated from 12:00 and dinner from 17:00 (last order 19:30); closed on the first and third Tuesday of the month.
Kyoto · institution
Omen (Ginkaku-ji Honten)
An udon house opened near Ginkaku-ji on 10 August 1967, known for thick noodles dipped into a kombu and bonito broth with kinpira burdock, sesame and a heap of seasonal vegetable condiments. The only other Kyoto branch is in Pontocho, off Shijo.
Langkawi · institution
Restoran Siti Fatimah
The island's most famous nasi campur hall: dozens of trays of Kedah-style curries, sambals, fried fish and kerabu, busiest before 14:00, after which popular trays can run empty. Open from breakfast to late afternoon; come hungry, point at what you want, pay astonishingly little.
Langkawi · institution
Nasi Dagang Pak Malau
A village breakfast spot in a wooden house looking across rice paddies toward Gunung Raya: nasi dagang with tuna curry is the order, and it can sell out by mid-morning. One of those places where the setting does half the cooking; mornings only.
Langkawi · fine-dining
The Gulai House
The Datai's signature restaurant, a timber pavilion in the rainforest where classic Malay and Indian dishes (gulai, tandoor work, whole fish) get resort-level execution. Non-guests should call ahead to reserve and confirm access; the drive from Cenang takes most of an hour, so make an evening of it.
Lisbon · bakery
Pasteis de Belem
Baking to the same secret recipe since 1837 and open every day; expect a queue at the takeaway counter, which moves fast, or take a table inside.
Lisbon · market
Time Out Market Lisboa
A curated food hall of Lisbon chefs and stalls inside the historic Mercado da Ribeira on the Avenida 24 de Julho, open daily from 10:00 until late; busy at peak meal times.
Lisbon · institution
Cervejaria Ramiro
A no-frills but famous shellfish hall on the Avenida Almirante Reis, open since 7 April 1956. Tuesday to Saturday 12:00 to midnight, Sunday to 23:00, closed Mondays. Its site now takes table bookings; expect a queue if you walk in.
Lisbon · fine-dining
Belcanto
Jose Avillez’s flagship on the Rua Serpa Pinto, two Michelin stars in 2026, a few steps from the Sao Carlos opera house. Book well ahead.
Lisbon · institution
Clube de Fado
A fado house in a vaulted building below the cathedral: the kitchen opens at 19:30, fado starts at 20:30 and runs to about 01:00, every day. Booking is recommended and free, since the stone room is small; the set menu is 78 euros a person with the fado included, drinks extra.
Los Cabos · institution
Flora’s Field Kitchen (Flora Farms)
A working organic farm whose restaurant built the Los Cabos farm-dining scene; everything is grown or raised on site or nearby. Book weeks ahead in season.
Los Cabos · fine-dining
El Farallón
Seafood priced by the day’s catch, served on a ledge carved into the Pedregal cliffs with waves breaking below; the champagne terrace before dinner is the move. Book well ahead.
Los Cabos · sunset-venue
Sunset Monalisa
A Mediterranean cliffside restaurant whose terraces face the arch straight across the bay; come for the sunset seating even if you dine elsewhere. Reserve the early tables far ahead.
Madrid · institution
Sobrino de Botin
Opened in 1725 and listed by Guinness World Records as the world’s oldest restaurant, still roasting in its centuries-old wood-fired oven: suckling pig 32.50 euros, roast lamb 33. Open every day from 13:00 to 23:30; book ahead.
Madrid · market
Mercado de San Miguel
A restored iron-framed market hall of more than a century, now a gourmet tapas market with more than seven million visitors a year, so touristy and priced accordingly. Open 10:00 to midnight, to 01:00 on Fridays, Saturdays and holiday eves.
Madrid · institution
Chocolateria San Gines
Chocolate and churros since 1894, open 24 hours every day of the year. No reservations: order and pay at the till first, then hand the ticket to the waiter.
Madrid · fine-dining
Deessa
Quique Dacosta’s restaurant in the Ritz, with two Michelin stars in the 2026 guide. Book well ahead.
Madrid · casual
Las Tortillas de Gabino
A Bib Gourmand in the 2026 Michelin guide, built around the tortilla de patatas in many versions. Book for dinner.
Madrid · bar
Bodegas Ricla
A tiny standing-room bodega founded in 1867, a few doors from Botin, for vermouth or a glass of wine with a tapa. Its listed hours are lunchtime every day but Tuesday and evenings from Thursday to Saturday, but the listing may be old, and its own domain did not load when we checked.
Madrid · bar
La Venencia
A sherry-only bar where no photographs are allowed and no reservations taken, open from 12:30 to 15:30 and from 19:30 in the evening by its map listing. We do not link its website, which now carries injected casino spam.
Maldives Overwater Villas · fine-dining
Ithaa Undersea Restaurant
Advance reservations are essential; the domed room seats only 14 guests per service, 5 metres below the surface.
Maldives Overwater Villas · fine-dining
Soneva Fushi dining program
Six restaurants across the island, including overwater and treehouse settings; the observatory and open-air cinema double as evening venues.
Maldives Overwater Villas · street-food
Local-island short eats cafes (e.g. Dharavandhoo, Maafushi)
Resorts near inhabited islands often arrange a local-island excursion; small tea shops serve hedhikaa and garudhiya at a fraction of resort prices.
Mallorca · institution
Can Joan de s’Aigo
Palma’s oldest café, in business since 1700 and famous for its thick hot chocolate; the classic order is an ensaïmada with almond ice cream in the chandeliered back room.
Mallorca · market
Mercat de l’Olivar
Palma’s main covered market: produce, cheese and charcuterie stalls alongside fish bars where the morning’s catch goes straight onto your plate. Mornings only for the full spectacle; closed Sundays.
Mallorca · fine-dining
DINS Santi Taura
Santi Taura’s Michelin-starred dining room in the El Llorenç hotel rebuilds historic Mallorcan recipes with modern technique across a single tasting menu; book well ahead.
Malta · fine-dining
ION Harbour by Simon Rogan
The only restaurant in Malta with two Michelin stars, on the top of Iniala Valletta above the Grand Harbour, cooking in Simon Rogan’s farm-led style with Maltese produce. Book well ahead through Iniala.
Malta · institution
Rubino
Opened as a confectionery in 1906, now a Bib Gourmand for the seventh year running, cooking Maltese classics: fried rabbit at 24.50 euros, sea bass involtini at 31.50. By its own site it opens for lunch and dinner Monday to Friday and dinner only on Saturday, and is closed on Sunday; the Michelin page gives different hours, so book and confirm.
Malta · modern
Grain Street
The Bib Gourmand kitchen of the Rosselli hotel, with Under Grain, its one-star sibling, downstairs in the same building for a special night.
Malta · bar
Trabuxu Wine Bar
A wine bar in a 400-year-old stone cellar at the top of Strait Street, open for more than twenty years, Tuesday to Saturday from 19:00 to midnight. Ask for DOK wines from Maltese grapes.
Malta · street-food
Crystal Palace Bar (Is-Serkin)
The pastizzi bar outside Mdina that everyone on the island knows by its nickname, Is-Serkin. It has no website; its map listing, surveyed in March 2026, gives it as open around the clock. Order a ricotta and a pea one, and a tea in a glass.
Malta · institution
Tartarun
A seafood restaurant on the Marsaxlokk waterfront. Lunch 12:00 to 15:00 and dinner 19:30 to 22:00, closed on Monday and Thursday, and lunch only on Sunday, so it fits the Sunday market day. Book at weekends.
Malta · casual
Commando
A Bib Gourmand on the square in Mellieha, open for dinner Tuesday to Sunday, 18:30 to 22:30, closed on Mondays. The right dinner after a sunset at Ghajn Tuffieha.
Malta · casual
Diar il-Bniet
A farm kitchen in Dingli village that cooks and sells produce from its own fields, with a farm shop of preserves and sauces. It publishes no fixed hours, so ring (+356 2762 0727) before you go, and then walk to the cliffs.
Malta · institution
Ta’ Rikardu
A family place inside the Cittadella known for its Gozitan platter of its own cheeses, sun-dried tomatoes, capers and bread, and its own wine. It has no working website and we could only confirm it from map and directory listings, so ring +356 2155 5953 before you climb up for it.
Malta · sunset-venue
Cafe del Mar Malta
A beach club on the rocks at Qawra Point, open every day from 10:00 to midnight, with sunset beds and DJ sets and events listed into October 2026. Day bed prices are not published. By our terrain model the sun sets behind the Mellieha ridges, 2 to 8 minutes early all year, so this is a place for the evening light rather than an open-sea sunset.
Mauritius · institution
Le Capitaine
Open since 1989 on the Grand Baie waterfront, and one of the few places on the island that publishes its hours plainly: every day, 11:00 to 23:00. Fish, lobster, tiger prawns, calamari and a signature Thermidor Isle de France, mains from Rs 650. A search summary gave it a Monday closure and a split schedule; its own site says otherwise, and we trust the site. Book for dinner.
Mauritius · institution
La Bonne Chute
A Tamarin fixture that says it has been serving since 1969: lunch 11:30 to 14:30 and dinner 19:00 to 22:00 on Monday and Wednesday to Saturday, the bar later. Its own page prints a Monday-to-Saturday line next to a note that it is closed on Tuesdays, Sundays and public holidays; we follow the closure note, and it asks you to call on the eve of a holiday to check, which is the kind of honesty we like. That Tuesday closure is why our Le Morne hiking day does not end here.
Mauritius · sunset-venue
Le Chamarel Restaurant
A hillside terrace above Chamarel looking down over Le Morne and the lagoon, and lunch only: open every day 9:00 to 16:00 with the last lunch orders at 15:00 and the bar until 15:45. There is no dinner, no takeaway, and a smart-casual request. Book, especially for a terrace table, and do not plan it as a sunset dinner because it will be closed. Palm-heart salad, octopus, venison in season.
Mauritius · fine-dining
Varangue sur Morne
A colonial-style veranda on the Plaine Champagne road with the Black River Gorges falling away below it, serving a Mauritian fine-dining menu that draws on all four of the island's kitchens. Lunch only, every day from noon to 16:30 according to its listing on the island's restaurant platform, which is where its hours live; reservations expected. Pair it with the gorges viewpoint a few minutes up the road.
Mauritius · modern
Domaine Anna
Pavilions over ponds on an old sugar-estate property just inland from Flic en Flac, with a Chinese-led menu that crosses into Creole, Indian and European dishes. Its listing on the island's restaurant platform rendered without its hours for us; the secondary sources agree on Tuesday to Sunday, lunch and dinner, closed Mondays, which we print with that caveat. Reserve, and do not turn up on a Monday.
Mauritius · institution
Escale Creole
A mother-and-daughter table d'hote in a garden at Moka, on the road between the two coasts, serving the home cooking the resorts do not: rougaille, vindaye, brede greens, chutneys. Weekday lunches only, roughly noon to 14:30, and by reservation, according to the listings we could read; its own page on the restaurant platform did not render. Call first. It is the lunch we would build a coast-to-coast transfer day around.
Mauritius · street-food
Dewa and Sons
The stall that Mauritians name first when you ask about dholl puri, in Rose Hill on the plateau rather than in Port Louis as some guides place it. It sells out; go in the morning. No website and no published hours, and we could not read its social page, so treat this as a local institution located by its address and confirmed by the queue rather than by a schedule.
Mexico City · fine-dining
Pujol
Enrique Olvera's flagship, two Michelin stars in the 2026 guide and the room that taught the world to take Mexican fine dining seriously. The tasting menu, built around the mole madre, the ancient mole kept alive and re-fed for years, runs around 3,500 pesos before drinks; the taco omakase bar is the other way in. Book roughly a month or more ahead on the official site; lunch dates release the same way and go slower.
Mexico City · institution
Contramar
Gabriela Camara's seafood dining room has been the city's standing lunch party since 1998: waiters running raised trays of tuna tostadas, the pescado a la talla split red chile and green parsley down the middle, and a room that treats 4pm as the height of the day. It seats lunch through the afternoon; book ahead online or arrive at the 12:30 opening and take the first wave. The fig tart ends it correctly.
Mexico City · institution
El Cardenal
The Centro's great traditional dining room, family-run since 1969: breakfast here is the event, natas (fresh clotted cream) with sweet rolls, eggs in every regional style, hot chocolate whisked at the table, then mole and escamoles at comida. It opens early, fills with chilango families by 9:30am, and is the correct first morning of the whole trip before the Zocalo crowds arrive. Several branches; La Palma is the one.
Mexico City · fine-dining
Rosetta
Elena Reygadas' restaurant in a Porfirian townhouse, one Michelin star in 2026: handmade pastas and Mexican ingredients folded together, a plant-filled room that makes the case for Roma in one glance, and an a la carte format that lets dinner stay a dinner. Her Panaderia Rosetta nearby causes its own queues, the guava-and-ricotta roll is the city's pastry, and solves two breakfasts. Book dinner a week or two out.
Mexico City · street-food
Taqueria Los Cocuyos
A hole-in-the-wall on Bolivar with a cauldron of slow-simmering suadero, longaniza and the full anatomy lesson beyond, running late into the night: the campechano mixto is the order, doubled tortillas, salsa verde, standing on the pavement with the after-cantina crowd. A handful of tacos and a bottled agua costs pocket change. It anchors the classic Centro taco crawl with Los Paisas and the tortas nearby.
Mexico City · street-food
El Vilsito
By day a car workshop, by night one of the most famous al pastor operations in the city: the garage doors roll up, the trompos start spinning, and the taqueros carve pastor with pineapple caught mid-air. Featured on Netflix's Taco Chronicles and busier for it, but the queue moves and the taco justifies Narvarte's distance. Evening into the small hours; go after 8pm when the spits have developed their crust.
Miami · institution
Versailles Restaurant
Founded in 1971 on Calle Ocho and a gathering place for the Cuban exile community. It bills itself as the world’s most famous Cuban restaurant.
Miami · institution
Joe’s Stone Crab
A Miami Beach institution since 1913 and still family-run; the restaurant most associated with Florida stone crab. Expect a wait in season.
Miami · bar
Ball & Chain
A restored live-music bar on Calle Ocho whose original 1935 venue hosted Billie Holiday and Count Basie; reopened in 2014 with nightly music.
Mirissa · institution
No.1 Dewmini Roti Shop
The family roti shop in a garden off Udupila Road, with savoury and sweet rotis and rice and curry. Hours are not printed; it is a lunch and early-evening place.
Mirissa · sunset-venue
Zephyr Restaurant & Bar
The big beach bar in the middle of the crescent: beanbags on the sand by day, a catch-of-the-day fish station at sunset and a bar late. An older Yamu review put mains for two at around 2,500 rupees, so expect considerably more now; the beach sunset here is over the sea only from 3 November to 8 February by our model, and behind the headland for the rest of the year.
Mirissa · cafe
Shady Lane
A tropical vegetarian café and shop with a second branch in Arugam Bay: smoothie bowls, avocado toast, oat pancakes and good coffee under the trees. Posting in September 2026, so open this season; the Arugam Bay branch runs 08:00 to 16:00 and Mirissa keeps similar daytime hours.
Mirissa · casual
The Slow
A beachfront vegan and gluten-free restaurant on the Matara road side of the bay, open 08:00 to 22:00 daily, with rooms and apartments attached. Fresh, locally sourced plates and a surf-beach view.
Mirissa · fine-dining
The Atlas at Cape Weligama
The main restaurant of Resplendent Ceylon’s cliff-top resort, with The Society bar and the chef’s table Tableau alongside. Book ahead as a non-resident and come for the last hour of light: by our model the cliff has an open-sea sunset from 1 September to 10 April.
Mirissa · sunset-venue
Hangtime Hostel rooftop
The rooftop café of a surf hostel above Weligama Bay, open 07:30 to 21:30 daily, with sushi rolls at 1,800 to 2,600 rupees, paninis, smoothies, yoga classes at 2,500 and open-mic evenings. The bay loses its sunset early behind the headland, but the sky show over the water is the point.
Mirissa · modern
Rise
An Italian restaurant and bed-and-breakfast on the bay road, led by chef Simone, that reopened on 2 October 2025 after a closure. Dinner from 17:00 to 21:00, Tuesday to Sunday; closed Mondays.
Mirissa · cafe
Ceylon Sliders
A courtyard café, rooftop and surf shop in a boutique hotel on the Weligama beach road, open 08:00 to 17:00, with a sister site in Ahangama that runs 07:30 to 21:00. Good coffee and the surf crowd.
Morocco: Marrakech, Sahara & Chefchaouen · modern
Nomad
A rooftop restaurant above the spice square reworking Moroccan dishes with a lighter, contemporary style; popular, so book ahead for sunset seating.
Morocco: Marrakech, Sahara & Chefchaouen · institution
Restaurant Tissemlal (Casa Hassan)
The in-house restaurant of one of Chefchaouen’s long-running riads; straightforward tagines and local dishes.
Morocco: Marrakech, Sahara & Chefchaouen · street-food
Jemaa el-Fna food stalls
Numbered stalls set up nightly serving grilled meats, snails, soups and orange juice; pick a busy stall and confirm prices before ordering.
Mykonos · institution
Sea Satin Market
Beneath the Kato Mili windmills, a short walk from Little Venice, open since 1990, with tables so close to the sea that waves reach the windows in rough weather.
Mykonos · institution
Nikolas Taverna
A family seafood taverna on the sand at Agia Anna, run by the same family since 1967; grilled fish and simple Greek plates.
Mykonos · institution
Kiki’s Tavern
A no-reservations, no-electricity taverna above a small northern cove; arrive early, wait on the benches (a free glass of wine is customary), and swim in the cove while you wait.
Naxos · institution
Metaxi Mas
A meze taverna on the old market street, 150 metres from the port, cooking Naxian produce and seafood: graviera saganaki in a clay pot at 8 euros, stuffed peppers at 8.50, courgette fritters, an Apiranthos-style dakos and sun-dried mackerel. Open 13:00 to midnight. Its real site is metaximas-taverna.gr; the similar-looking metaximas.gr belongs to a different taverna on the mainland.
Naxos · institution
Scirocco
Opened on 24 March 1995 by the brothers Nikos and Michalis and still theirs: Greek and Mediterranean cooking built on Naxian products, certified under the Aegean Cuisine network, with vegetarian and gluten-free dishes marked and online booking, which in August you will want.
Naxos · casual
To Elliniko
Homemade Greek food from local products, cooked continuously since 2008 to the recipes of mama Katerina. Reservations by phone between 12:00 and 23:00, and groups of more than six book 48 hours ahead.
Naxos · budget
Maro’s Taverna
A plain Greek taverna a street back from the seafront, open 11:00 to 23:00 every day according to its map listing, last checked in December 2025. It has no website of its own, so treat the hours as a guide.
Naxos · sunset-venue
Oniro Wine Bar Restaurant
Family-run, on two terraces and a rooftop below the Kastro with views over the harbour and the islands, cooking Greek and international dishes. Its map listing gives 11:00 to 23:00 daily. We found no website of its own, and the pages that look like one are booking-feeder clones, so ring or walk up. From the old town the sun goes down behind Paros for most of the year, over its low northern tip in summer.
Naxos · bar
520 bar and Porta
A small local group in the old town: 520 the bar, Porta the restaurant, Chouchouro the pastry shop and a fourth venue in Old Chora. Reservations by phone on +30 6944 680629.
Naxos · casual
Picasso
A Mexican kitchen on Plaka beach since 1996, which sounds wrong on a Cycladic island and has lasted thirty years regardless. Open every day from 9 a.m. for breakfast and brunch, lunch and dinner from May to September, with service out to the sunbeds.
Naxos · institution
Taverna Giannis
The village taverna on the Halki square, with a second restaurant opened in 2018 on the main road from Chora, and nights of live traditional music, according to third-party listings. It has no working website: yannistavern.gr, which search results still show, is a squatted domain now serving a casino page, so do not follow it. Ring ahead or just turn up at lunch.
Naxos · casual
Paravas Traditional Tavern
A Greek taverna in Halki whose map listing gives 11:00 to 23:30 every day, so it is worth trying for dinner as well as lunch. No website of its own, so treat the hours as a guide and the menu as a surprise.
New York City · institution
Katz’s Delicatessen
At 205 East Houston Street. Cafeteria-style ordering with a ticket system; expect a line and a loud, busy dining room. A cash tip for the counter carver is customary.
New York City · institution
Russ & Daughters
Bagels and lox since 1914. The shop at 179 East Houston Street works on take-a-number; there are also shops at Hudson Yards and the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and a sit-down cafe at 127 Orchard Street if you would rather be served at a table.
New York City · bakery
Levain Bakery
The original small basement bakery on West 74th Street, open since 1995; expect a short line for the dense cookies.
New Zealand South Island Road Trip: The 10-Day Loop · institution
Fergburger
The Queenstown burger with the permanent queue, open early to very late on Shotover Street. Order ahead by phone to skip the line, and take it to the lakefront.
New Zealand South Island Road Trip: The 10-Day Loop · fine-dining
Amisfield Bistro
The winery restaurant at Lake Hayes runs a set trust-the-chef menu built on Central Otago produce and its own Pinot Noir. Book well ahead; this is the table people plan the Queenstown leg around.
New Zealand South Island Road Trip: The 10-Day Loop · bakery
Fairlie Bakehouse
The bakery that made a small Mackenzie town a mandatory stop; the salmon and bacon pie is the one everyone argues about. Expect a line in summer.
Okinawa · institution
Kishimoto Shokudo
A soba shop in Motobu open since 1905, famous for a broth recipe more than a century old and noodles made the old way with wood-ash water rather than kansui. The main shop in Toguchi opens 11:00 to 17:00, or until the soba runs out, and is closed on Wednesdays; the Yaedake branch nearby opens daily to 19:00. It has no website, so these hours come from local listings. Expect a queue at lunch and bring cash.
Okinawa · institution
Yunangi
A Naha izakaya that has served Okinawan home and court cooking for more than fifty years: rafute, champuru, jimami tofu, soba. It no longer serves lunch: dinner only, listed as 17:30 to 22:00, closed on Sundays and public holidays. It has no site of its own that we could confirm, so call before you go (098-867-3765).
Okinawa · market
Makishi Public Market, upstairs
Buy on the ground floor, from the fish stalls with parrotfish, lobster and sea grapes, and have it cooked by one of the restaurants upstairs for a per-dish fee. The upstairs restaurants take last orders at 20:00. Closed on the fourth Sunday of the month except in December. Ask the price per kilo before the fishmonger starts cutting.
Okinawa · modern
Okinawa-en
A yakiniku and shabu-shabu house near Makishi station specialising in Agu pork and island beef. Lunch 11:30 to 15:00 with last orders at 14:30, dinner 17:00 to 23:00 with last orders at 22:00, and no regular closing day. The sanshin live house Mion is in the basement of the same building, which makes an evening of it.
Okinawa · bar
Shimauta Live Obaa no Ie Mion
A basement izakaya where sanshin players and singers perform five sets a night, at 19:00, 19:45, 20:30, 21:15 and 22:00. Open 17:00 to 23:30 with last orders at 22:00. The music comes with the banquet courses, at 4,950 or 5,800 yen including tax; expect the room to be on its feet for the kachashi dance at the end.
Okinawa · street-food
King Tacos, Kin main store
Taco rice was invented in 1984 at Parlor Senri in Kin, the town outside Camp Hansen; Parlor Senri closed in 2015 and the family's King Tacos carries the recipe on, with this Kin shop as the first of several branches. It opens daily at 10:30; listings disagree on the closing time, from 21:00 in one to 3:00 in another, so the late-night version is not one to count on. Order the taco rice with cheese and vegetables and share it.
Okinawa · casual
A&W
A&W has been in Okinawa since 1963, nine years before the island went back to Japan, and it has stayed part of the island's roadside ever since. Go to a drive-in branch rather than a mall counter; the Makiminato one in Urasoe opens from early morning to 2am. Hours vary by branch and are posted on the chain's site.
El Nido, Palawan · casual
Trattoria Altrove
The town’s long-standing Italian institution: wood-fired pizzas and pasta upstairs on Calle Hama, with a queue at the door most peak-season evenings. Go early or expect to wait; it earns the line.
El Nido, Palawan · modern
Jinjer at Cadlao Resort
The garden restaurant of the Cadlao Resort on Caalan beach, open to non-guests: Filipino and pan-Asian plates in a quieter setting than anything on the town’s main streets.
El Nido, Palawan · sunset-venue
Maremegmeg Beach Bar
The Maremegmeg Beach Club’s bar on the best sunset beach near town: feet in the sand, halo-halo or a cold San Miguel, and the sun dropping behind the bay’s islands. Arrive an hour before sunset for a front-row table.
Paphos, Cyprus · institution
7 St. Georges Tavern
A stone and wood house in Geroskipou hung with rural Cypriot antiques, where there is no menu at all: plates keep arriving until you stop them, built around seasonal produce and wild greens the family forages themselves. Reckon on about twenty dishes and two hours. Book ahead; this is the meal to eat early in the trip so it recalibrates everything after it.
Paphos, Cyprus · casual
Laona Restaurant
A small family place on a sloping lane in Ktima that cooks about ten dishes fresh each day: rabbit stew, meatballs, bean and vegetable pots. Turn up late and the list will be shorter. Primarily a lunch kitchen, which suits a morning in the market and the district museum.
Paphos, Cyprus · institution
Imogen’s Inn Taverna
In the middle of Kathikas at 600 metres, open since 1996 and run by the same family, with rooms full of ancestral photographs and a meze that leans Cypriot with Middle Eastern edges. The obvious dinner after an afternoon at the Kathikas wineries, and 10C cooler than the coast in August.
Paris · institution
Chez Janou
A long-running Marais bistro just off Place des Vosges, with a terrace and a big bowl of chocolate mousse for dessert.
Paris · market
Marché des Enfants Rouges
Paris’s oldest covered market, dating to the 17th century, with stalls covering Moroccan, Japanese and French cooking side by side.
Paris · cafe
Café de Flore
The famous Left Bank cafe once frequented by Sartre and de Beauvoir; go for the atmosphere and a coffee, not for value.
Patagonia: Torres del Paine and El Chalten · modern
La Marmita
A small regional kitchen on Plaza Sampaio cooking guanaco, hare and lamb alongside vegetarian dishes, one of the best-loved tables in Punta Arenas. No working website; its Facebook page is the contact.
Patagonia: Torres del Paine and El Chalten · institution
Sotito’s
The long-established seafood restaurant near the Punta Arenas waterfront, known for centolla in every form. No website; call or walk in.
Patagonia: Torres del Paine and El Chalten · casual
Cafe Kaiken
A small restaurant cooking homemade pasta since 2005, with gluten-free pasta too. Its own site gives Wednesday to Monday, 13:00 to 15:00 and 19:00 to 22:00: closed on Tuesdays.
Patagonia: Torres del Paine and El Chalten · casual
Mesita Grande
Thin-crust pizza and pasta at long communal tables on the square, a Natales favourite with a sister branch in Punta Arenas. Monday to Saturday 12:00 to 22:00 and Sunday 13:00 to 20:00 by its own site.
Patagonia: Torres del Paine and El Chalten · institution
El Asador Patagonico
The grill on the Natales square, with lamb roasting on the cross by the fire. No website; its Facebook page is the contact.
Patagonia: Torres del Paine and El Chalten · institution
La Tablita
The El Calafate parrilla since 1968, just over the stream from the centre, with lamb on the asador in the window. Its site is la-tablita.com; the similarly named .com.ar belongs to a deli in Buenos Aires.
Patagonia: Torres del Paine and El Chalten · modern
Casimiro Bigua
Two restaurants a few doors apart on the main street, a gourmet restaurant and grill at number 963 and a parrilla and asador at 993, with a third in Ushuaia.
Patagonia: Torres del Paine and El Chalten · casual
Pura Vida
A relaxed, homely restaurant at the west end of the main street with stews, pies and vegetarian dishes and a window on the lake. No website of its own; a directory page uses its name. Dinner only, from 19:30, by the latest map survey.
Patagonia: Torres del Paine and El Chalten · casual
La Tapera
A log cabin off the main street with a fire, trout and lamb, and a room full of hikers. No website; walk in or ask at your hotel.
Patagonia: Torres del Paine and El Chalten · bar
La Cerveceria
A brewpub on the main street since 1999, with its own beers and hearty plates. Instagram is its only site.
Peloponnese · modern
3Sixty Grill Dining
The dining room and wine bar of a neoclassical mansion from the 1860s, run by the same Nafplio group as the adjoining hotel and the all-day Xenon on Syntagma Square. Grill-led, with premium beef on the card and a Greek list that goes deep on Nemea and Mantinia. Book for the courtyard.
Peloponnese · institution
Lela’s Taverna
Opened on 13 August 1983 by Lela Giannakeas, who had kept house for Patrick Leigh Fermor, and now in the family’s fourth generation, on the rocks beside the old olive-oil factory with the port and the islet in front. Dinner only, Tuesday to Saturday from 18:00 to 23:00, so it is closed on Sunday and Monday and you should plan the Kardamyli nights around that.
Peloponnese · market
Gaia Wines, Nemea
One of the estates that put Nemea on the map, at Koutsi in the heart of the PDO zone. Open all year, Wednesday to Sunday, 10:30 to 16:30, with a guided tasting of four to seven wines lasting about an hour from 20 euros a head and premium flights up to 70. A two-hour wine-paired village lunch is offered too. Closed Monday and Tuesday.
Peloponnese · modern
Kyrimai restaurant
The restaurant of the hotel in the old warehouse on the Gerolimenas quay, serving breakfast, lunch and dinner on Maniot heritage recipes with a named cuisine consultant behind the menu. Siglino, local greens, fish off the boats in front. Non-residents can eat here; book in season.
Peloponnese · modern
Chrisovoulo
The restaurant of the Moni Emvasis suites on the main lane of the lower town, and the most reliable serious dinner on the rock, where choice is otherwise limited to a few tavernas. Laconian ingredients, a local list with the sweet Malvasia at the end of it, and terraces above the sea.
Peloponnese · fine-dining
Grand Bistro at the Grand Hotel Kalamata
The restaurant of the 23-key hotel built on the site of the 1920s Hotel America on Kalamata’s waterfront, with a menu curated by a Michelin-starred chef around Messinian ingredients. The live site is grandhotelkalamata.com; the old .gr address is dead, and the unrelated grandhotel.gr is a different resort altogether.
Peloponnese · sunset-venue
Pirgos Mavromichali
The restored 18th-century tower of the Mavromichalis clan, who raised the 1821 revolt from Areopoli up the hill, now a small hotel with a Greek and Mediterranean restaurant on the bay. Limeni faces due west, and the fish tavernas along the same few metres of shore fill from late afternoon for the same reason.
Peru: Cusco & Machu Picchu · fine-dining
Cicciolina
A long-running Cusco gastronomic reference with a tapas bar and dining room. Book ahead.
Peru: Cusco & Machu Picchu · fine-dining
MAP Café
A glass-walled dining room in the courtyard of the Museo de Arte Precolombino.
Peru: Cusco & Machu Picchu · modern
Chicha por Gastón Acurio
Chef Gastón Acurio’s Cusco restaurant focused on seasonal regional produce, a block from the Plaza de Armas.
Phuket · institution
Mee Ton Poe
A Hokkien Mee institution serving since the 1940s and recognized by the Michelin Guide; the reliable place to try the island’s signature noodles.
Phuket · fine-dining
PRU
A Michelin-starred farm-to-table restaurant at Trisara, sourcing from its own farm; book well ahead.
Phuket · market
Lard Yai (Sunday Walking Street)
A Sunday-evening street market along Thalang Road, closing the road to traffic for food stalls, crafts and music.
Prague · casual
Lokal Dlouhaaa
The Ambiente group's flagship modern pub: a long tiled hall with fast unpasteurised Pilsner Urquell from the tank, a short blackboard of Czech classics that changes through the day, and prices that stay honest despite an address one minute from Old Town Square. Ask for a hladinka, or a snyt if you want to talk more than drink. Book or arrive before 7pm; it fills every night.
Prague · fine-dining
Field
Radek Kasparek's one-star restaurant in a quiet Josefov street, doing modern cooking built on Czech and Central European produce with an a la carte alongside the tasting menu, which is the more flexible way into Prague fine dining. Open Monday to Friday 11:00 to 14:30 and 18:00 to 22:30, weekends from noon, smart casual, and not suitable for children under six. Reservations are held for fifteen minutes only, so be on time.
Prague · fine-dining
La Degustation Boheme Bourgeoise
Oldrich Sahajdak's one-star kitchen builds its tasting menu from nineteenth-century Bohemian cookbooks and Czech producers, served across a counter that faces the pass. The menu runs 3,500 CZK, with wine pairings at 2,000 CZK for the house selection or 3,700 CZK for the renowned-terroir flight and a non-alcoholic pairing at 1,300 CZK. Set menu only, one sitting, book weeks ahead. This is the meal that makes the argument for Czech cuisine as a cuisine.
Prague · institution
Cafe Savoy
An 1893 cafe restored to its coffered gold ceiling, doing a serious breakfast, a proper patisserie counter and a Viennese-adjacent menu without the theatrical pricing of the Old Town institutions. Ten minutes from Charles Bridge on the left bank and a different city in temperature. Book breakfast at weekends; walk in on a weekday morning.
Prague · casual
Kantyna
A butcher shop and canteen in a former bank hall: you queue at the counter, choose the cut by weight, take a paper slip and eat at long communal tables under the coffered ceiling with a beer from the tank. Steaks, tartare, sausages and soup, all Czech-sourced, all cheaper than the equivalent sit-down room. Cash and card both work; the slip system confuses first-timers for about four minutes.
Prague · modern
Eska, and Stangl above it
Worth stating clearly because most guides still describe this wrong: after the 2023 renovation, the ground floor of Eska in Karlin operates as a bakery with brunch and a shop, open 8:00 to 18:00 on weekdays and from 9:00 at weekends, built around the three-stage rye sourdough loaf they call bread 33. The tasting restaurant moved upstairs and is now Stangl, named for head chef Martin Stangl, which holds one Michelin star in the 2026 Czechia selection. So: come in the morning for bread and eggs, or book the first floor for dinner. Do not turn up at 8pm downstairs expecting the old restaurant.
Provence · fine-dining
L’Oustau de Baumanière
Three Michelin stars in 2026, with the chef Glenn Viel cooking Mediterranean food around the Vallée des Baux olive oil and the estate’s own garden. The Michelin listing shows the restaurant closed on Wednesdays and Thursdays; confirm the days and dinner service when you book.
Provence · fine-dining
L’Auberge de Saint-Rémy, Fanny Rey & Jonathan Wahid
Two Michelin stars for the chef Fanny Rey and the pastry chef Jonathan Wahid, on the ring road around the old town. Closed Sundays and Mondays per the Michelin listing.
Provence · fine-dining
La Chassagnette
A farmhouse restaurant in the Camargue with a Michelin star, where the chef Armand Arnal cooks from three hectares of gardens, beehives and a greenhouse. About 20 kilometres from Arles. The Michelin page lists lunch on Mondays and Thursday to Sunday and closes it on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
Provence · modern
Pollen
The chef Mathieu Desmarest’s restaurant, one Michelin star. Lunch menus at 60 euros or a 120-euro carte blanche, dinner at 120 or 150. Open Monday to Friday, closed at weekends.
Provence · fine-dining
La Mirande
The hotel’s gastronomic restaurant and its more relaxed bistro, with a chef’s table and a cooking school in the old kitchens. Book through the English site; the French homepage was returning an error when we checked.
Provence · fine-dining
Le Vivier
One Michelin star in 2026, with a terrace over the river, chef Romain Gandolphe. Per the Michelin listing: lunch Wednesday to Friday and Sunday, dinner Wednesday to Saturday, closed Mondays and Tuesdays.
Provence · institution
Le Bistrot du Paradou
Open since 1984, one fixed menu a day with the dish set by the weekday, aïoli on Fridays, cassoulet on Wednesdays, Bresse chicken from the rotisserie. Lunch Tuesday to Saturday per the Michelin page, open from mid-February to 31 December.
Provence · modern
Le Mas, Alexis Osmont
The farmhouse restaurant long known as Le Mas Tourteron, now run by the chef Alexis Osmont under the name Le Mas. Dinner Thursday to Monday, lunch at weekends, closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays per the Michelin listing. The old domain mastourteron.com now belongs to an unrelated company, so ignore it.
Provence · fine-dining
La Bastide de Moustiers
Alain Ducasse’s country inn, one Michelin star in 2026, with a new head chef in the kitchen. Per the house, lunch 12:00 to 13:30 and dinner 19:00 to 20:30, from May to September closed Tuesdays and Wednesday lunch, in April and October closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and shut from 2 November to 1 April; confirm when you book.
Queenstown · institution
Fergburger
Open from early morning to the small hours; expect a queue, and consider ordering ahead if the app or phone-order option is available.
Queenstown · fine-dining
Rātā
A Michelin-recognised restaurant from chef Josh Emett built around seasonal New Zealand produce; book well ahead.
Queenstown · institution
Stratosfare Restaurant & Bar
A buffet restaurant at the top of the Skyline Gondola with panoramic views over the lake and Remarkables; the gondola fare is included in the dining ticket.
Rajasthan Golden Triangle · fine-dining
Suvarna Mahal
Royal-court cooking from Rajasthan, Awadh, Punjab and Hyderabad in a gilded dining room. Book ahead.
Rajasthan Golden Triangle · institution
Chokhi Dhani
A recreated Rajasthani village resort serving thalis alongside folk music, dance and crafts.
Rajasthan Golden Triangle · street-food
Old Delhi street food (Chandni Chowk)
The lanes around Chandni Chowk are the classic street-food crawl; choose busy, freshly cooked stalls.
Rhodes · institution
Mavrikos
On Lindos’ main square since 1933 and in the family since 1912: slow-cooked Rhodian and Mediterranean cooking that has earned decades of awards, from chickpea puree with orange to lamb with kumquat. Book dinner in season.
Rhodes · market
Nea Agora (New Market)
The Italian-built heptagonal market hall at Mandraki harbor, closed since November 2025 for a full restoration: the shops and food counters are due back around the 2027 season, with handover planned for April 2027. Worth a look at the facade from the harbor; check locally whether the courtyard has reopened.
Rhodes · fine-dining
Marco Polo Café
The garden restaurant of a restored Ottoman mansion deep in the Old Town lanes: candlelit tables under bougainvillea and a daily menu of creative Greek and Mediterranean cooking. One of the island’s most atmospheric dinners; reserve in season.
Rome · institution
Roscioli
A deli-restaurant-wine cellar hybrid on Via dei Giubbonari, running since 1824 in its current form since 2002; book ahead.
Rome · institution
Armando al Pantheon
Run by the same Gargioli family since 1961, now the third generation; reservations are online only.
Rome · institution
Da Enzo al 29
A small, always-busy trattoria on Via dei Vascellari; go right at opening to avoid the wait.
San Francisco and Napa Valley · fine-dining
The French Laundry
Thomas Keller’s multi-Michelin-star restaurant serving nine-course tasting menus; reservations open months ahead and go fast.
San Francisco and Napa Valley · institution
La Taqueria
A James Beard "America’s Classic" taqueria on Mission Street, widely cited among the best burritos in the country.
San Francisco and Napa Valley · institution
Swan Oyster Depot
A tiny counter-only raw bar and seafood institution; cash-friendly, no reservations, expect a line. It has no official website.
Santorini · fine-dining
Selene
A long-running fine-dining name on the island, now based in the quieter hilltop village of Pyrgos; a creative menu built around Santorini’s own produce and wines.
Santorini · institution
Ammoudi Bay tavernas
A cluster of fish tavernas right on the small harbour below Oia, reached by a few hundred steps down the cliff; a classic long seafood lunch away from the crowds above.
Santorini · institution
Metaxi Mas
A well-established taverna in a quiet inland village, known for fava, tomatokeftedes and other island classics done well.
Sardinia · fine-dining
Fradis Minoris
Francesco Stara’s restaurant on the Nora lagoon holds a Michelin star in the 2026 Italy guide, one of five starred restaurants on the island alongside Confusion at Porto Cervo, Capogiro at Baja Sardinia, Il Fuoco Sacro at San Pantaleo and Gusto by Sadler at San Teodoro. The kitchen sits on the lagoon it cooks from, so the menu follows the catch.
Sardinia · institution
Agriturismo Sa Mandra
A family farm that grew from a flock of sheep into a restaurant, museum and rooms; fixed menus built on what the farm raises and grows. Book ahead.
Sardinia · institution
Ristorante Su Gologone
The restaurant the hotel grew out of, open since 1967 beside the Su Gologone spring; the roasts turn on spits in front of the fire and the wine list leans on local Cannonau.
Seminyak · casual
Motel Mexicola
A loud, colourful Mexican party spot near Petitenget; more scene than temple of gastronomy, but a long-running Seminyak fixture.
Seminyak · sunset-venue
Potato Head Beach Club
The grass-amphitheatre beach club on Petitenget Beach; a cover charge applies in the sunset window and is redeemable against drinks.
Seminyak · casual
Beachfront seafood warungs
The beanbag warungs along the sand grill fresh seafood and serve cold drinks as the sun drops.
Seoul · market
Gwangjang Market food stalls
A dense alley of stalls inside one of Seoul’s oldest markets; go hungry and share several small plates.
Seoul · street-food
Myeongdong street food stalls
A dense strip of food carts through the main Myeongdong shopping streets, busiest in the evening.
Seoul · institution
Tosokchon Samgyetang
A long-running samgyetang (ginseng chicken soup) restaurant in a traditional hanok building close to the palace area.
Seychelles · institution
Marie Antoinette
Open since 1972 in a colonial house above Victoria, and still the clearest introduction to Creole cooking in the country: a fixed menu of grilled fish, tuna steak, chicken curry, aubergine fritters, rice and salads for 450 rupees, or 325 for the vegetarian version. Monday to Saturday. Nobody comes here for the decor and everybody comes back.
Seychelles · casual
Villa Chez Batista
A thatched, sand-floored beach restaurant on the south coast that has been grilling fish and lobster for decades, with a Sunday Creole buffet that draws Seychellois families as much as visitors. There are eighteen simple rooms attached if the afternoon runs long.
Seychelles · modern
Bravo Restaurant
On the Eden Island marina since February 2010, and the safe answer when a group cannot agree: Creole and seafood alongside grills, pizza and sushi, with a happy hour from three to six Monday to Thursday. Ten minutes from Victoria and about the same from the airport, which makes it a sound last night.
Seychelles · casual
Bonbon Plume
Under thatch at the end of Anse Lazio, which means you can swim, eat grilled fish and swim again without putting shoes on. Lunch runs daily from about 12:30 to 15:00 and dinner only by arrangement for larger groups. It closes for the month of June, which is worth checking before you build a day around it.
Seychelles · modern
Le Repaire
The restaurant at the boutique hotel of the same name near the jetty, and the one place on La Digue where an evening reservation is genuinely worth making in high season. Italian technique on Seychellois ingredients, which on an island of grilled-fish plates is a welcome change of gear.
Seychelles · bar
The Rum Shack at La Plaine St Andre
The bar and food truck in the grounds of the Takamaka estate, open Monday to Saturday 10:30 to 16:30 alongside the free distillery tour. A tasting flight is 175 rupees and there are two Aldabra tortoises in the garden. It is the best value few hours on Mahe and it works in any weather.
Seychelles · market
Sir Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke market takeaways
The market hall and the stalls and food trucks around it are where Victoria eats: takeaway plates of curry and rice for well under 100 rupees, snacks for 25 to 50, and the fish slabs at their best first thing. Busiest early and on Saturday mornings, closed Sundays. Renovation work has moved traders around in recent years, so ask rather than assume.
Sicily · institution
Antica Focacceria San Francesco
Founded in 1834 in a former chapel, and known for Palermo’s spleen sandwich, pane câ meusa.
Sicily · bakery
Caffè Sicilia
A pasticceria founded in 1892 on Noto’s main street, run since 1985 by Corrado Assenza, known for reviving heirloom almond and pistachio varieties in traditional Sicilian sweets.
Sicily · institution
Osteria Antica Marina
A long-running seafood trattoria beside Catania’s Pescheria fish market, serving the day’s catch; reservations recommended, especially for lunch.
Singapore · market
Maxwell Food Centre
One of Singapore’s best-known hawker centers, with dozens of stalls including long-running chicken rice and porridge vendors.
Singapore · market
Lau Pa Sat
A restored Victorian-era cast-iron market building in the CBD, with an outdoor satay street that comes alive in the evenings.
Singapore · institution
Jumbo Seafood
A long-established Singapore chilli-crab institution with several riverside and East Coast locations.
Split to Dubrovnik Road Trip · fine-dining
Krug
One star in the Michelin Guide Croatia 2026, on Trumbiceva obala on the Split seafront. A tasting-menu restaurant for the one night you want to spend properly; book ahead.
Split to Dubrovnik Road Trip · modern
K.uzina
A Bib Gourmand in the 2026 Michelin Guide, meaning good cooking at a fair price, in the old town at Kraj Svete Marije 1. Open from noon to midnight and closed on Sundays, so plan it for another night.
Split to Dubrovnik Road Trip · institution
Konoba Fetivi
A family-run konoba in Varos at Tomica Stine 4, in the Michelin 2026 selection without a distinction, for Dalmatian classics and the day’s fish. It has no website of its own; the domain with its name belongs to something else entirely, so call or walk in.
Split to Dubrovnik Road Trip · modern
Jeska Fine Bistro
Run by the couple Ela Ozic and Ljudevit Blazevic on the main square, and the first Makarska restaurant in the Michelin Guide, new in the 2026 selection. A short walk from the harbour hotels.
Split to Dubrovnik Road Trip · fine-dining
Jeny
A family-run fine-dining restaurant in the hillside village above Tucepi with five- and seven-course menus, in the Michelin 2026 selection. Its site gives a season of 25 May to 30 September, Monday to Saturday 18:00 to midnight, and says it serves no vegan or vegetarian menu. Take a taxi if you are drinking.
Split to Dubrovnik Road Trip · institution
Djudja i Mate
The Neretva restaurant in Vid, across from the Narona museum, with frogs fried or grilled, eel and the delta’s other specialities, free parking and rooms upstairs. Gault&Millau lists it in its 2026 guide.
Split to Dubrovnik Road Trip · institution
Kapetanova kuca
The best-known seafood restaurant in Mali Ston, on the shore with the oyster beds in front of it, where the chef Lidija Kralj cooks the house seafood risotto and the Ston cake, a pasta-filled sweet. Same family as the Ostrea hotel next door.
Split to Dubrovnik Road Trip · casual
Bota Sare
A restaurant in a medieval salt warehouse on the Mali Ston waterfront, cooking from two old cookbooks found in the building, and running an hour-long oyster tasting year-round that takes a boat from the harbour out to a floating farm, with wine and candied orange peel. The group also has oyster bars in Dubrovnik and Split.
Split to Dubrovnik Road Trip · fine-dining
LD Restaurant
The terrace restaurant of the Lesic Dimitri Palace, one Michelin star in 2026, with a terrace over the Peljesac channel and head chef Marko Gajski in the kitchen. Book ahead.
Split to Dubrovnik Road Trip · institution
Konoba Mate
A family konoba in the inland village of Pupnat, 15 minutes from Korcula town, with a Bib Gourmand in the 2026 Michelin Guide. Its own site gives summer service from 19:00 to 23:00 and says it is closed on Sundays in May, June, September and October; park above the bar.
Split to Dubrovnik Road Trip · fine-dining
360
Tables on the city walls above the old harbour, one Michelin star in the 2026 guide and 18 points from Gault&Millau. Tuesday to Sunday 18:00 to midnight, closed Mondays, and the dress code is elegant.
Split to Dubrovnik Road Trip · modern
Restaurant Dubrovnik
A restaurant in the Old Town at Marojice Kaboge 5, in the Michelin 2026 selection. Closed from November to April. Its real site is restorandubrovnik.com; the English-spelled domain is a parked page.
Split to Dubrovnik Road Trip · institution
Gverovic-Orsan
A family seafood restaurant in a centuries-old boathouse on the bay at Zaton, 7 kilometres before Dubrovnik on the D8, celebrating its 60th year in 2026. The right lunch on the day you drive in, before the car goes back.
Split to Dubrovnik Road Trip · modern
Pantarul
A neighbourhood restaurant in Lapad at Kralja Tomislava 1 with a menu that follows the seasons and produce from farmers around Dubrovnik. Its contact page says open every day while its FAQ talks about Monday closing, so call before a Monday.
Sri Lanka Round Trip · fine-dining
Ministry of Crab, Colombo
A well-known Colombo restaurant built around Sri Lankan lagoon crab, set in a converted Dutch-era building.
Sri Lanka Round Trip · institution
The Kandy House kitchen
A restored ancestral manor house near Kandy known for home-style Sri Lankan rice and curry meals.
Sri Lanka Round Trip · casual
Galle Fort cafes and restaurants
The Fort’s narrow streets hold a concentration of cafes and small restaurants mixing Sri Lankan and international menus.
St Lucia · fine-dining
Dasheene at Ladera
The open-sided restaurant a thousand feet above the sea at Ladera, looking straight down the valley between the Pitons. Chef Nigel Mitchel cooks Creole-rooted farm-to-table plates; book a sunset table days ahead and arrive before the light goes.
St Lucia · modern
Orlando’s Restaurant & Bar
Chef Orlando Satchell’s small Soufriere dining room, the town’s standard-bearer for locally grown Creole cooking (he was awarded a British Empire Medal in 2026 for his community work). Closed Sundays and Mondays; book ahead, the room is small.
St Lucia · casual
The Naked Fisherman
Cap Maison’s beach grill on the sand at Smugglers Cove, down a long stair from the clifftop: grilled catch, rum cocktails and a swim between courses. Lunch is the move; the stair back up earns dessert.
St Lucia · casual
Flavours of the Grill
A local favourite between Rodney Bay and Gros Islet: grilled fish and chicken, provision sides and no view to pay for. The kind of unfussy, generous cooking the north’s resort strip mostly forgot; busy on Fridays before the jump-up.
Sydney · fine-dining
Bennelong
Set inside one of the Opera House’s sails, with a menu built around native Australian produce. Book well ahead.
Sydney · market
Sydney Fish Market
One of the largest fish markets in the Southern Hemisphere; buy fresh or eat at the on-site casual seafood counters.
Sydney · cafe
bills Darlinghurst
The original cafe from chef Bill Granger, credited with popularising the modern Australian brunch style now exported worldwide.
Tel Aviv · institution
Dallal
The Neve Tzedek institution: a converted pair of old houses and a courtyard doing French-Mediterranean brasserie cooking with an in-house bakery whose morning counter is a destination in itself. Open through the weekend, which makes it a Shabbat anchor. Book for dinner; breakfast rewards arriving early.
Tel Aviv · modern
Shila
Sharon Cohen's seafood-and-grill stalwart moved in 2026, after two decades on Ben Yehuda, into new premises on Montefiore Street built around a central bar, a crudo counter and live tanks. The move is the food-scene story of the year and the cooking, Mediterranean seafood with confidence and butter, came with it. Book the bar seats.
Tel Aviv · institution
Abu Hassan
Jaffa's legendary hummus house, run by the Karawan family since 1959 or so, serving hummus, masabacha and ful at a pace that empties the pots by early afternoon: it opens in the morning and closes around 2:45pm or whenever the hummus runs out, and is closed Saturdays. Go before noon, order the triple (a little of each), and do not plan anything ambitious immediately after.
Tel Aviv · street-food
HaKosem
The Magician: a corner falafel-and-shawarma operation elevated to city institution, where the falafel is fried in continuous small batches, the pitas are warm and the free falafel ball handed to the queue is the best marketing in Israel. Closed over Shabbat like most of the strictly street tier; go Sunday to Friday afternoon.
Tel Aviv · modern
Ha'achim
The Brothers: an Ibn Gvirol staple since 2011 doing the charcoal-grill-and-salatim formula, a table crowded with small salads, warm pita and skewers, at a fair price with real energy. The kind of restaurant every visitor wishes their city had; book or come early.
Tel Aviv · casual
M25
The Carmel Market butchery-restaurant: cuts chosen at the counter, grilled simply, served in the market lane with the stalls still trading around you. The menu follows the butchering, so ask what is good today. Market hours, so plan it as lunch, and not on Saturday.
Tel Aviv · bar
Port Sa'id
Eyal Shani's open-air canteen-bar opposite the Great Synagogue: a record collection, a daily handwritten menu of small plates, and the city's creative crowd at plastic tables into the small hours. No reservations to speak of; turn up, put your name in, drink something while you wait. The dish list changes daily, which is the point.
Tel Aviv · fine-dining
OCD
Raz Rahav's counter-format tasting room, the city's most talked-about fine-dining seat for a decade: a set multi-course menu served across a chef's counter, precise, playful and deeply local in its produce. Operating schedules have flexed in recent years, so check current service days and book well ahead; this is the meal to plan the trip around if the format appeals.
Tokyo · street-food
Tsukiji Outer Market food stalls
Dozens of stalls selling fresh sushi, grilled skewers and tamagoyaki on sticks; busiest and freshest before noon.
Tokyo · institution
Ichiran
A nationwide tonkotsu ramen chain known for individual booth seating and a customizable order form; a safe, no-language-barrier introduction to ramen.
Tokyo · modern
Afuri
Known for a clear, yuzu-citrus-inflected shoyu ramen, a lighter contrast to tonkotsu shops.
Turkish Riviera (Bodrum to Antalya) · institution
7 Mehmet
Founded in 1937 and now run by the third generation of the Akdag family, this is the city’s best-known restaurant: a vast menu of Mediterranean meze, grills and Antalya specialties like tahini piyaz.
Turkish Riviera (Bodrum to Antalya) · sunset-venue
Limon Gümüşlük
A hillside garden restaurant above Gümüşlük bay, open evenings in season (roughly April to October); tables at sunset are the most contested on the peninsula, so book ahead.
Turkish Riviera (Bodrum to Antalya) · market
Fethiye Fish Market (Balık Pazarı)
The Fethiye ritual: buy your fish from the central market stalls, then hand it to one of the surrounding restaurants to cook for a fixed per-head fee with meze and salad. Go hungry, go early on summer weekends.
Turks and Caicos · fine-dining
Coco Bistro
The island's best-known dinner, set in an old palm grove off Grace Bay Road, and the one table people book before they book anything else. Dinner only, 5:00pm to 9:30pm, and reservations are required for parties of every size, not just large ones; the book opens 60 days ahead. Check the closure dates before you plan around it: it is shut 7 to 30 September 2026. Budget for the 12 percent tax and the statutory 10 percent service charge on top of the menu price.
Turks and Caicos · institution
da Conch Shack
The open-air beach institution in Blue Hills, the oldest settlement on the island, where the conch is pulled from the water in front of the kitchen. It is as much a bar as a restaurant: a We Funk Junkanoo band plays from 8pm on Wednesdays with a DJ from 5pm, a DJ runs 5pm to midnight on Fridays, and there is live music 12:30pm to 3:30pm on Saturdays and 1pm to 4pm on Sundays. The bar opens later on Wednesdays and Fridays. Reservations by phone or WhatsApp on 649-443-5701.
Turks and Caicos · casual
Hemingways on the Beach
The beach club at The Sands, on Grace Bay for more than 26 years, and the useful thing about it is the clock: open daily 8am to 10pm, which on an island where a lot of good rooms close a night or two a week makes it the reliable answer rather than the exciting one. Eggs on the beach in the morning, conch fritters at noon, surf and turf at night.
Turks and Caicos · budget
Turks Kebab
A roadside kitchen doing Turkish grills and jerk a few minutes from the Grace Bay hotels, and the answer to the question every visitor eventually asks about what dinner costs here. Monday to Saturday 11am to 11pm, closed Sundays, with delivery over the same hours. Cash-priced rather than resort-priced, and the ambience is the side of the road.
Turks and Caicos · institution
Turks Head Inne
The courtyard restaurant of an 1830 house on Duke Street, and on an island with very few kitchens it is close to the default. Note the days rather than just the hours: breakfast 8am to 10am, the beachfront taco bar 11am to 3pm Monday to Thursday and 11am to sunset on Friday and Saturday, dinner 6pm to 9pm, all Monday to Saturday, so a Sunday on Grand Turk needs a plan of its own. Dinner starters run about 17 to 19 dollars, a fish taco 20.
Tuscany · institution
Regina Bistecca
A steakhouse near the Duomo specializing in charcoal-grilled Chianina IGP bistecca alla fiorentina, in a space that was previously a long-running antiquarian bookshop.
Tuscany · institution
Osteria dell’Acquacheta
A well-known Montepulciano osteria known for its charcoal-grilled bistecca, presented and cut tableside; reservations are recommended well ahead.
Tuscany · institution
Antica Trattoria Papei
A long-established trattoria just off Piazza del Campo, serving Sienese staples including pici and ribollita.
Two Weeks in Japan · market
Tsukiji Outer Market
The retail and food-stall market that remains after the wholesale auction moved to Toyosu; arrive early for the shortest lines.
Two Weeks in Japan · casual
Ichiran Ramen
A tonkotsu ramen chain with individual ordering booths; consistent quality across every city on this route.
Two Weeks in Japan · market
Nishiki Market
A roughly 400-meter covered market street of small food stalls, known locally as "Kyoto’s kitchen."
Two Weeks in New Zealand · casual
RealNZ Milford Sound cruise dining
Cruises through Milford Sound with onboard refreshments; the operator also runs Doubtful Sound and Queenstown experiences.
Two Weeks in New Zealand · casual
Marlborough cellar-door lunches
Many Marlborough wineries near Blenheim pair Sauvignon Blanc with vineyard restaurant lunches; ideal after the ferry crossing.
Two Weeks in New Zealand · institution
Fergburger, Queenstown
A well-known Queenstown burger joint; queues are part of the experience.
Ubud · fine-dining
Locavore NXT
The relocated flagship of the Locavore kitchen, built on Indonesian ingredients and fermentation. Book well ahead.
Ubud · institution
Ibu Oka style babi guling warung
Ubud is known for its babi guling warungs near the palace; go at lunch, as the roast pork often sells out by mid-afternoon.
Ubud · cafe
Ubud wellness and vegan cafés
Ubud has a real concentration of plant-based and raw cafés, most of them around Jalan Gootama and in Penestanan.
Utah Mighty 5 and Grand Canyon Road Trip · casual
Zion Canyon Brew Pub
Pub food and its own beer on a patio by the Virgin River at the park entrance, open daily for lunch and dinner.
Utah Mighty 5 and Grand Canyon Road Trip · modern
King’s Landing Bistro
Seasonal chef-driven cooking with views of the walls; Tuesday to Saturday 17:00 to 21:00, reservations only for groups of six and more, so arrive early.
Utah Mighty 5 and Grand Canyon Road Trip · institution
Bit & Spur
The long-running Springdale saloon and Southwestern kitchen, daily from 17:00, with online reservations.
Utah Mighty 5 and Grand Canyon Road Trip · fine-dining
Stone Hearth Grille
Steaks and seafood on a terrace with a view; dinner only, reservations strongly recommended. The 2026 season ends on 29 October.
Utah Mighty 5 and Grand Canyon Road Trip · budget
Ruby’s Inn Cowboy’s Buffet & Steak Room
The all-day buffet at the park gate, open from 06:30 all year; from 16 October it closes at 20:30.
Utah Mighty 5 and Grand Canyon Road Trip · cafe
Kiva Koffeehouse
A café built into the cliff above the Escalante River canyon; Wednesday to Sunday 08:00 to 16:00, closed Monday and Tuesday.
Utah Mighty 5 and Grand Canyon Road Trip · institution
Hell’s Backbone Grill & Farm
Four Corners cooking from its own six-acre farm, in its 27th season in 2026: dinner Thursday to Monday 16:00 to 21:00, booked on Tock. On Tuesday and Wednesday its food truck, Little Bone, serves dinner instead.
Utah Mighty 5 and Grand Canyon Road Trip · bakery
Gifford House
Small fruit pies, jams and ice cream in the restored Gifford farmhouse, run with the park; 09:00 to 16:30 daily for the season, which normally runs to late November. Go early.
Utah Mighty 5 and Grand Canyon Road Trip · modern
Hunt & Gather
New American cooking with bison and wild game and vegetarian plates; Wednesday to Sunday from 17:00, reservations highly recommended.
Utah Mighty 5 and Grand Canyon Road Trip · fine-dining
Desert Bistro
Moab’s fine-dining room, international cooking with a Southwestern lean, nightly from 17:00 on Tock reservations; it has closed for winter in past years.
Utah Mighty 5 and Grand Canyon Road Trip · institution
Milt’s Stop & Eat
Moab’s oldest restaurant, opened in 1954: burgers, fries and milkshakes from a walk-up window, daily from 11:00.
Utah Mighty 5 and Grand Canyon Road Trip · casual
The Moab Brewery
Brewpub and distillery since 1996 on South Main, daily from 11:00.
Utah Mighty 5 and Grand Canyon Road Trip · institution
Goulding’s Stagecoach Restaurant
Southwestern and Navajo dishes with the valley in the windows, breakfast from 07:00 and dinner to 21:00, hours varying with the season. Non-alcoholic beer only.
Utah Mighty 5 and Grand Canyon Road Trip · casual
Big John’s Texas BBQ
Brisket and ribs at picnic tables, with live music most evenings; daily 11:00 to 21:00, no reservations.
Utah Mighty 5 and Grand Canyon Road Trip · casual
Arizona Steakhouse (Arizona Room)
The one sit-down dinner on the South Rim during the water restrictions: 17:00 to 20:30, lunch closed. The park still calls it the Arizona Room.
Utah Mighty 5 and Grand Canyon Road Trip · modern
Sego Restaurant
Regional New American small plates in the Canyons Boutique Hotel; 17:00 to 21:00, closed Thursday and Sunday.
Venice · institution
Cantina Do Mori
One of the oldest surviving bacari in the city, a narrow room with copper pans hanging from the ceiling, no tables and no seats. Lunch and early evening only, and it closes in the mid-afternoon.
Venice · casual
All’Arco
A tiny family-run counter that has been making cicheti to order from the Rialto market since the 1990s. Lunchtime only, no dinner, and not open every day, so check before you build a plan around it. The queue outside is the sign you are in the right place.
Venice · institution
Antiche Carampane
A family trattoria hidden in the lanes behind the Rialto, famous for a sign refusing pizza, lasagne and ketchup. Closed Sundays and Mondays and for a stretch in high summer; reserve well ahead.
Venice · modern
Osteria alle Testiere
Around twenty seats, two dinner sittings and a menu that changes with the market. Reservations are effectively mandatory and open a set period ahead; closed Sundays and Mondays and for part of August.
Venice · fine-dining
Venissa
A Michelin-starred restaurant inside a walled vineyard on Mazzorbo, working with lagoon fish, garden vegetables and the rare Dorona grape grown on site. Book ahead and build the boat times around it rather than the other way round.
Zanzibar · sunset-venue
The Rock Restaurant
Book ahead, especially for a table timed around the tide crossing.
Zanzibar · street-food
Forodhani Gardens night market
A waterfront gathering of food stalls that opens each evening; go hungry and share several stalls.
Zanzibar · casual
Lukmaan Restaurant
A long-running, no-frills local restaurant serving biryani, pilau and curries near the old town market.