EYW Blog

Bryan Ledgard/Flickr

The tiny Baltic country sandwiched between Scandinavia and Central Europe is a fusion of beautiful architecture, a buzzing arts scene, and food like no other. Food is what makes the world go round in Latvia. Any Latvian will tell you that they’ve forged a special connection with nature, and it is reflected in their food. They grow, hunt, fish, forage, pickle, smoke, and preserve anything they can get their hands on. Influenced by centuries of foreign powers and Nordic, Germanic, and Slavic ingredients and techniques, Latvian food always surprises with its inventive flavors and modern takes on traditional cuisine.

Griķi (Buckwheat)

This grain-like...

A spread from Dishoom. Photo courtesy of Yasmin Fahr/LokaPack

In this guest post, our friends at LokaPack, an expert-curated food and travel guide, spill the beans on where to score the best Indian food in London.

“The only good places to eat in London are curry houses”: You would have heard many people say this back in the day (curry houses are how Brits loosely refer to Indian restaurants). That’s a saying of the past, as London’s food scene is way underrated and has seen a tremendous amount of positive growth, particularly from chefs like Yotam Ottolenghi, Jason Atherton, and Nuno Mendes, but the fact that it’s the best place to eat Indian food outside of India itself...

According to our contributor, if views and vistas were edible, you’d never go hungry in Iceland. Photos won’t fill your belly, of course, so thankfully there’s a ton of hearty things to munch on.

Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon. All photos courtesy of Chanie Hyde.

Traditional Icelandic meals that you may have heard of, like sheep’s face and various uses of offal, are getting harder to come by as younger generations make a decent income and have grown their palates to more European tastes. Subsistence farming to survive the cold of winter and eating what’s available while preserving the rest are no longer necessary. “Back in my day!” cry the baby boomers of Iceland, lamenting the...

Our friends at Uniplaces, a student accommodation provider, share our belief that regional foods are key to unlocking a new culture when you travel. And they made these adorable maps to prove it.

Despite its small size, Portugal displays a great food variety. Known specially for its high-quality grilled fish and seafood, the country also has great meat options if you head to the countryside, like leitão à Bairrada (roasted suckling pig) or carne de porco à Alentejana (pork with clams). Ah, and you shouldn’t miss the regional specialty from the two largest cities in the country, pastéis de nata (egg custard tart) in Lisbon and francesinha (an open-faced sandwich with sauce,...

A quick recipe for burek, aka pita, from a cooking class in the mountains of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

All photos by Gigi Griffis

Ask anyone who has been to Bosnia and Herzegovina—the lush, mountainous Balkan country where Europe’s most recent war was waged just 20 years ago—about the food and you’ll get the same answers every time.

They’ll tell you about pita bread stuffed with cevapi, the local minced-meat sausage made from lamb, pork, or beef. They’ll tell you about ajvar—thick, tart red pepper sauce served with pretty much every meat dish in the country. And, undoubtedly, they’ll tell you about burek, the king of Bosnian dishes: an extremely thin pastry filled with meat and...

An easy recipe for limoncello, your new favorite DIY tipple.

All photos courtesy of Stephanie Andrews

Limoncello: It’s a tummy tamer, an after-dinner delight. Italy’s liquid courage. Behold the power of lemons and their ability to quickly turn your evening into a whirling dervish if you aren’t careful. This isn’t something you knock back like a pint, lest you be knocked right on your butt.

When I touched down in Florence, after weeks of weary travel, I had no idea that this city and its love for this neon libation would leave such a lasting impact—and, fortunately, no headache. After every evening meal, once our plates had been whisked away, a small cocktail glass appeared in...

In Sevilla, traditional local sweets, made by cloistered nuns, abound inside centuries-old convents. You just have to find them.

Plaza de España, Sevilla. Courtesy of Francisco Collinet/Flickr.

“Ave Maria,” comes the soft unseen voice.

Not sure of the proper response to the greeting, I simply say, “Buenas dias,” then: “Una caja media, por favor.”

The conversation takes place through the metal grillwork inside the entryway to the Convent of San Leandro; I am there to buy the sweets that the cloistered nuns are famous for. The Augustinian sisters at San Leandro, like several other convents in Sevilla, support themselves through their skills in the kitchen.

After a few...

On a recent trip to Krakow—in the dead of winter—I was on a self-imposed mission to explore Polish soups. Not the jazzed-up modern versions that often taste so flat and commercial, but the local ones prepared in the traditional way. The soups you encounter in the small towns and villages many outsiders never get to, the kind that take you straight to the warm, comforting soul of Polish cuisine. The results of my soup-scoping mission? These eight soups that are must-eats for anyone interested in Polish food—or anyone who’s a soup-foodie (soupie?) like me.
 

Courtesy of Joymaster/Wikipedia

Zurek (Sour Rye Soup)
This is probably the first Polish soup you’ll hear of. Zurek (also...

Sometimes a dip into another world comes at you fast and furious, and you’re buoyed by its thrill for days. Like that time in Portugal.

I was supposed to just run in for sandwiches.

Our kids had both fallen asleep en route to the Museu Serralves, a short drive from downtown Porto. Scott was behind the wheel. He would drop me off in front of this old-school tasca someone had recommended to us—a casual, traditional bar/eatery called Tasca da Badalhoca, known for its ham sandwiches—pull over, and hope the boys didn’t wake up while the car was unmoving (it happens). I’d be back in a flash.

But when I ran in through the heavy wooden doors, my eyes struggling to adjust to the dim...

Escalivada, Catalan roasted vegetables. Photo courtesy of Driftwood Journals.

In this guest post, our friends at Food Lovers Company—a company run by two Barcelona locals that specializes in authentic culinary experiences for discerning travelers in their city—share a few of their favorite Catalan foods (and drinks). ¡Salud!

Catalonia, in northeast Spain, offers gastronomic pleasures from two important perspectives: the traditional and the modern. This region is, after all, home to one of the best restaurants in the world, El Celler de Can Roca, committed to the avant-garde—and, in our city of Barcelona, plenty of traditional flavors from the kitchens of small bars, wineries, and...

We were excited to hear that Zara Quiroga—Portuguese food and travel writer, and one of the two forces behind travel site Backpack ME—had released an e-book called Lisbon in 100 Bites, for the purely selfish reason that we are planning a food trip there ourselves this fall! But our personal travels aside, Zara and her drool-worthy book are treasure troves of information for anyone interested in Portuguese food and food culture. We asked her a few questions.

You are from Portugal. When and why did you decide to create a Lisbon food book?
I am half Portuguese and half Spanish. I was born and raised in the north of Portugal, in a town called Valença do Minho, right at the border...

What is Andorran food? Here are 10 local dishes worth seeking out.

Photo by Jordi Troguet Ribes

With a population of only 85,470, the Iberian country of Andorra may be tiny, but it has plenty of attractive lures for visitors: dramatic, craggy mountains; lush forests and meadows; pristine lakes; wintery slopes ideal for snow sports. Not least of all, Andorra is home to an exciting range of foods and flavors, with a cuisine heavily influenced by the country’s unique location in the Pyrenees, sandwiched between Spain and France.

The effect on Andorran food is palpable: The region carries strong infusions of neighboring cuisines, especially Catalan and Provençal, and produces some...

Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris (Scott B. Rosen/Eat Your World)

In this guest post, our savvy friends at INSIDR—a service that provides travelers with a digital guide to explore Paris like a local—share what a typical day of eating looks like for a Parisian. Spoiler alert: There’s a lot of wine.

To really feel Parisian, you’ll have to eat like one. A few tips: Avoid grabbing a bite around the main tourist sites, where you’ll mostly find overpriced average bistros, tourist traps, and the usual international fast food chains. (The Champs-Elysées area is probably the worst place to have a decent lunch or dinner, so plan accordingly!) Instead, seek out non-touristy spots and learn the...

Photo courtesy of Tony Hammond/Flickr

As a visitor to Venice, you may think the foods to try are the Italian classics: Pasta and pizza are, after all, the foods we associate with this beautiful country. Enjoy those all you want, but of course we’re going to say this: Don’t overlook the Venetian specialties that are the true essence of this great city. Below, a short guide of what foods to eat in Venice. Seek these out for an authentic taste of Venice, past and present.
 

Photo from Wikimedia

Risotto al Nero di Sepia / Squid Ink Risotto

Even if squid isn’t your favorite shellfish, Venetian squid ink risotto will win you over. This delicious dish combines the sweetness of...

You may think of Amstel, Heineken, and, well, other types of highs in Amsterdam before you think “craft beer,” but the Dutch capital has no shortage of terrific microbreweries and impressive beer bars that showcase small-scale Dutch brewers. While we’ve written about this before, we are revisiting it now in honor of a post we contributed to Expedia.com—essentially a love letter to our favorite beer bar in Amsterdam, Proeflokaal Arendsnest.

For more on Arendsnest and our other favorite spots to drink Dutch craft beer in the city, read on:  

Best Brewery: Brouwerij ’t IJ

Founded in 1983, this stalwart of the Amsterdam brewing scene is easy to love: It’s located under a...

Markets are often the best place to experience the very essence of a city's culinary culture—and quickly. Contributor Giulia Blocal brings us this introduction to the food markets of Athens, Greece.


The farmers market at Perissos. All photos by Giulia Blocal.
 

From the heart of the Mediterranean basin, Greek cuisine is composed of a wide variety of dishes mirroring its long history, variegated landscape, and crossroads nature. On a recent trip to Athens, I encountered lots of meat (pork, lamb, beef, goat, chicken, veal, and rabbit), vegetables, and tasty savory pies (including tiropita, layered phyllo pastry filled with cheese, and spanakopita, spinach pie), as well as Greek...

Sometimes you have only a few short hours in a new place, and damn it if you won’t make the most of them. Such was the case for our day trip from Copenhagen to Malmö, Sweden, just over the huge Øresund bridge from the Danish capital, where our brief agenda included wandering the streets, stopping in some parks, and eating köttbullar, or what we call Swedish meatballs. Pretty manageable, right?

That’s what we thought, anyway, as we emerged from the train into the bright sunlight last September. Our 17-month-old son was peacefully asleep in a carrier on my chest, and we had plentiful time to wander the quiet, pretty streets and find us some meatballs for lunch. We quickly saw,...

We mean: outside of Noma. But must the word Noma be in every title of every article about Copenhagen dining?

Dessert at Relæ

To many an eater, Copenhagen means Noma, chef-owner René Redzepi’s temple to hyper-local Nordic ingredients, and the restaurant that’s topped the list of the S.Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants for four of the past five years. But for those who cannot secure one of its 45 highly sought-after seats—or shell out the US$500 a head or so for its 20-plus courses with wine—there are plenty of other places in which to experience the Danish capital’s superstar rise to gastronomic fame. Copenhagen, you see, has had its culinary landscape transformed by the...

We are kind of obsessed with Suriname and its multicultural cuisine. Where else do Dutch, Indonesian, Indian, Chinese, African, and Caribbean influences mix and mingle so freely? From what we’ve heard, anyway: We have not actually been to Suriname. Yet.

But we have been to Amsterdam, and great Surinamese food abounds there. You see, tiny Suriname, located on the northern coast of South America, is a former Dutch colony. When Suriname was granted independence in 1975, its people were given the choice of Surinamese or Dutch citizenship, and nearly half of the population at that time opted to migrate to the Netherlands, bringing their intriguing cuisine with them.

(Holland is, it...

Homemade placintas from the south of Moldova, in Comrat. Photo by Leah Kieff

Placinta. The first time I tasted this traditional fried bread, still warm from the pan, I knew I would love living in Moldova. My first bite was of a Romanian-style placinta—homemade, deep-fried, filled with brinza (homemade cheese, like a drier, saltier feta) and dill—hinting at the dish’s origins in Romania, back when that country was part of the Roman Empire. Nowadays it’s everywhere in neighboring Moldova as well, in just about every alimentara (corner market/convenience store) around the country, the equivalent of a cheap, convenience-store hot dog—though when homemade, it’s also a staple at large...

For this dish spotlight, we turn to Moravia and its uber-seasonal burčák wine, which contributor Christopher Burdick recently had the pleasure of tracking down for us.

photo by Mararie

“It tastes like delicious, carbonated, innocent grape juice. But it’s far from innocent. Start drinking early and the next thing you know it’s 1am, you’ve had two liters, and suddenly it’s not so easy to stand up.”

I’ll admit it: I’m a sucker for booze that’s specific to a region. If someone tells me I can’t get it anywhere else, it’s down my throat faster than they can say “Prost!” Usually this sort of thing involves shots of strong liquor, like Serbian rakija or the infamous “green fairy”...

Montserrat in Catalonia, Spain (photo: Laura Siciliano-Rosen).

It’s no secret that Spain is home to a rich culinary landscape. From sprawling vineyards to thriving fisheries and lush mountains teeming with life, the diversity of natural resources here is staggering. Perhaps nowhere is the richness of Spanish gastronomy better exemplified than in Catalonia, in northeast Spain. This region’s unique fusion of flavors takes full advantage of the local mar i muntanya (sea and mountain) while also incorporating culinary influences from nearby France, Italy, Greece, Portugal, and Africa. And although tomato, olives, aubergine, and bolets (mushrooms) may be the first foods to come to mind...

It was a rainy morning, as usual, in Galicia. At the weekly mercado de abastos, bustling with shoppers from nearby villages, a huge tent with communal wood tables and an enormous pile of wooden plates waited for customers to arrive, myself included. Outside, in the entrance, a line of cauldrons bubbled while the pulpeiras dipped pieces of octopus in and out—one, two, three times—before releasing them to the boiling depths. Nearby, a woman sliced up the cooked tentacles, laying them upon the wooden plates; a man next to her finished the dish—called polbo á feira—with a sprinkle of salt and Spanish hot paprika, and a generous drizzle of olive oil. It proved an efficient...

The French Riviera is known for its beaches, yachts, and famous film festival, but its largest town, Nice, is also a dream destination for foodies. An abundance of produce thrives in the mild Mediterranean climate; picturesque farmers markets and reputed local restaurants offer a feast for the eyes as well as the taste buds. While the salade Niçoise is Nice’s most-traveled dish, the jewel in the Côte d’Azur’s glittering crown has an abundance of lesser-known local specialties just waiting to be discovered by hungry visitors.

La Socca
The definitive Niçois snack, la socca is best served as an aperitif with a chilled glass of Côtes de Provence rosé. No knife and fork required,...

Mantı. We tried the beloved Turkish ravioli, filled with ground lamb or beef, three different ways in our travels around the country. In Kayseri, in Central Anatolia, whose version of the dish is most famous, the boiled dumplings are tiny and set afloat in a soupy tomato sauce, dolloped with garlicky yogurt and finished with a sprinkle of oregano, pul biber (red pepper), and chili oil.

Kayseri mantısı

At a roadside cafe in Istanbul we tasted a more standardized mantı, all yogurt, chili oil, and biber, the dumplings folded much larger.

Mantı in Istanbul

And in Sinop, along Turkey’s Black Sea coast, the ravioli are likewise bigger, with soft, delicate skins, and they’re...

View of Avignon's famous broken bridge and Villeneuve-lès-Avignon beyond.
All photos by Naomi Bishop

Avignon is the sweetheart town of the Provence region of France, its historic buildings and papal mansions held fast within the 14th-century ramparts. Local cuisine is, like elsewhere in France, a product of the terroir: Beyond the old city walls, the region’s Mediterranean climate lends warmth, sunshine, and just a little rain—idyllic conditions for vegetable growing—while the proximity of the Med to the south offers dream-worthy seafood spreads. Cultural influences from Spain to the west and the rest of France to the north mean that the superior ingredients are put to creative...

We’re a little obsessed with Georgian food lately. In Brooklyn, we nearly split our pants eating the simple, rich cuisine, in meals bookmarked by addictive soupy meat dumplings (khinkali) and buttery cheese-stuffed bread (khachapuri). While cruising Turkey’s Black Sea coastline last fall for hazelnuts and pide, we were tempted to just keep on driving to Tbilisi, to conduct our own taste tests of the two countries’ various dolmas (stuffed  vegetables), one of several dishes reflecting the countries’ shared Ottoman heritage. So when Anna, a Georgian friend in New Jersey, offered to cook us a homemade Georgian feast last month, we naturally accepted without hesitation.

The spread...

The canals, the coffee shops, the appeltaarts—Amsterdam is one heck of a city to visit, and when Scott and I were there in the fall of 2011, we thought, The more the merrier. We rented an apartment with five good friends, we gave them a taste of our crazy Eat Your World scavenger-hunt lifestyle (“jenever tasting followed by kroketten, everyone”); we museum-hopped, noshed at markets, biked past windmills, and drank a whole lot of good local beer. And they got us to go clubbing. Everyone won!

Our brief Amsterdam-highlights reel hardly conveys the magic of wandering into just the right neighborhood deli on a crowded weekend morning, or lingering over an incredible season-driven meal...

When in Paris as a visitor, the history and atmosphere of a restaurant—just how Parisian it is—matters a lot. It informs our dining experience, it satisfies our expectations, it reminds us that we’re in Paris! In this guest post, Doni Belau of Girls’ Guide to Paris suggests six brasseries that bring the goods in an authentic way.

             Aux Lyonnais. Photo: Pierre Monetta

There’s nothing quite like your first night in Paris. Ideally it’s spent at one of the city’s historic bistros or brasseries, the kind that make you feel you’ve really arrived in the French capital. But nowadays, so many restaurants are owned by large restaurant groups or are so chock-full of tourists...

For this guest post, Tim and Nat Harris of food and travel blog A Cook Not Mad share with us the recipe for caillette (“ky-YET”), a pork-and-greens meatball dish from south-central France that dates to the 16th century.

The first time we visited Les Vans, a small town in the Ardèche department of France, we fell in love with it. It was quaint, and because it was 15 years ago and during the off-season, we shared the village with only its 2,660 inhabitants. We had rented an apartment from a family friend for a month and spent our time exploring the nearby mountains and villages extensively, foraging for wild mushrooms and chestnuts, making soups and confiture. 

The couple who...

Diving into the crowded Spice Bazaar in Istanbul (with some gratuitous product placement, natch).

It’s true we’re biased toward food markets, but Istanbul's Grand Bazaar—with its expensive gold jewelry, leather jackets, and endless rows of mass-produced evil-eye tchotchkes—just wasn’t our thing. Much more fun and interactive was the Misir Çarsisi, or Spice Bazaar, a.k.a. the Egyptian market, established in Eminönü in 1664 (it once specialized in goods brought from Egypt). It’s the market you walk smack into if you approach the Old City from the Galata Bridge, as we did most days from our home base in Karaköy.

Over the years, the spice market has become plenty tourist-friendly; in...

My introduction to Portuguese cataplana stew couldn’t have been in a more traditional and idyllic setting. Facing the coast on the Algarve, in southern Portugal, in great company and the light of a beautiful sunset, I sat awaiting a dish I’d seen on almost every blackboard menu during my time in this region. Having been assured of the freshest, tastiest ingredients by the enthusiastic waiters, my expectations were high for this local dish. My group of four opted to share two large cataplanas so we could try both the meat and seafood variations.

The Algarve, where cataplana is most popular. Photo: Alexandra Jackson

While we sipped red wine and picked at a basket of bread and warm...

“Merhaba. Findik?” I made the motion of eating something. After one week of travel in Turkey, my Turkish had not improved a whole lot.

Three of the men at the roadside table looked blankly at me, but one caught my drift. He said something rapidly in Turkish and pointed vaguely down the dusty, barren road. I was doubtful but pretended I understood, thanked him profusely, and directed Scott, behind the wheel in our rental car, down the street.

There was only one storefront among the garages that it could possibly be. I repeated my terrible Turkish to the man standing in front of it. He nodded, turned away, and returned to the doorway with cupped hands. They were filled with...

Thin-sliced beef. Tomato sauce. Melted butter. Such is the holy trinity of the Iskender kebab, a.k.a. the döner kebab on crack—and one of the best things we’ve eaten thus far in Istanbul.

Of course I’m exaggerating (not about the crack part, because this is an easily addictive dish). There are two other key components to this kebab: Under the meat is a bed of cut-up flatbread, ensuring none of the sauce goes unsoaked, and off to the side is a pile of thick yogurt, imparting the perfect creamy, cooling balance to every bite. A few tomatoes and blackened green peppers add color to the plate, as well as winking vegetal presence. It’s not all meat and fat!

This kebab has its origins...

A few months ago, we published a Q&A with a saunier, or sea salt harvester, from Île de Ré, a small island off the west coast of France. In it, our subject mentions two can’t-miss dishes from the island, both of which make good use of its famous salt: sea bass baked in a salt crust and fava beans à la croque en sel. EYW contributor Cristina Sciarra, who’s just returned from the area—see our new Charente-Maritime food section—notes that these dishes are not as commonly offered in restaurants as prepared at home. Here she tells us how to make them. 

Sea bass baked in a salt crust

Buying (and cooking) whole fish is not only more economical than buying filets, but it’s also a lot...

We’re avoiding the news during the day and spending an inordinate amount of time on the couch most nights, which can mean only one thing: We’re in the thick of Olympics fever! Does the TV coverage make you want to take up swimming immediately? Are you admiring the athletic builds while rethinking those three pizza slices you called dinner? Do those stunning pans over the Thames make you want to go to London, stat?

We can help you with that last one, at least, by further tempting you (via food, of course) with our latest contribution to Serious Eats, “London: 10 Must-Eat British Foods During the Olympics.” Whether you visit during the Games or after, these 10 favorites, culled from...

The best way to discover the secrets of regional cuisine is in a local’s home, where it’s not always accessible to the average traveler. In Italy, however, there’s a shortcut to the dinner table, as freelance writer Jessica Spiegel explains in this guest post.

Central Milan

Back-tracking yet again through the narrow, dark streets behind one of central Milan’s many churches, scanning names on doorbells, we were glad we had arrived with time to spare before our appointment. We were both a bit nervous, not knowing what to expect or who else would be there when we finally found the right building, but no matter what else happened we were about to ring a stranger’s doorbell and...

“French people believe very strongly in the idea of terroir: We believe in locally made products, especially those that have a strong sense of identity and heritage. If I do my part and make my salt with as much respect as possible, then I’ve done my job.” —Hervé Rocheteau, Île de Ré, a small island off the western coast of France (pictured)

Tell us about your job.
I am a salt maker: My job is to manage a series of salt evaporation ponds, also known as salterns or salt pans. I feed saltwater from the ocean into different ponds very slowly; then the sun and the wind evaporate the water. Finally, the salt concentration becomes so high that it crystallizes, and results in sea salt....

Before I met my French boyfriend and his family, my culinary repertoire was sadly devoid of small sea creatures. Sure, I might occasionally have ordered mussels when out to dinner, but let’s face it—those mussels tasted only of what they were sauced with. I had never tried a clam or oyster, nor did I particularly care to. Scallops made me cringe. I was also fairly certain that sardines and anchovies were probably the
same thing.

But my shellfish ignorance was not to last. When I moved to Paris three years ago, my boyfriend and I started making regular excursions to his familial home in Angoulins sur Mer, a fishing village nestled into the western coast of France, famous for its...

A few days in Prague are hardly enough to soak up the medieval romance, abundant history, and vast amounts of beer for which the city is known. But try we did last October, when we hit the ground to round up all the tasty underappreciated Czech food we could. Some important things learned: 1. Autumnal, leaf-blanketed Prague is a beautiful time to be there. 2. Old Town is remarkably peaceful in the rain. 3. There will always be Dixieland on the Charles Bridge (Karluv most).

I remember the days of always having one camera, two lenses, and a flash with me on my travels. That’s all changed with the iPhone. Last October I (finally) bought one, and happily tossed my old Samsung that could hardly connect to the internet into my ATC (antiquated technology drawer). I quickly fell in love with the portability and playfulness of my new phone’s 8-megapixel camera and actually became stressed about traveling with it. Would I still use my Canon 5D? Would I learn to rotate? Would I have to take pictures of everything with two cameras?

My first trip dealing with this dilemma came a month later, when Eat Your World headed to Amsterdam with some friends. My immediate...

Our London EYW section—some 40-plus traditional foods and drinks in England’s fabulous capital—is under construction while we travel to India, but you can read about our absolute favorite Brit dining experience, at the new, historic-food-focused Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, over at Foodists.ca. (Pictured is the clever meat fruit, a dreamy, mousse-like chicken-liver parfait dipped in mandarin gelatin, inspired by the cheeky medieval English tradition of serving “illusion fruit” at dinner parties.) Stay tuned this summer for both London and New Delhi coverage!