But lately the food (and drink) scene in Wales has moved beyond the traditional, with gin and whisky distilleries, kefir dairies, coffee roasteries in former coal-mining towns, chocolate in abandoned factories and wine – yes, wine – in vineyards oblivious to a bit of rain. Local people are the driving force behind this revolution, each with a unique story to tell.

Get a caffeine kick at Coaltown Coffee to start your culinary tour of Wales © Kerry Christiani / Lonely Planet

Coaltown Coffee

It takes guts to pin your aspirations (and savings) on a small Carmarthenshire town, but Gordon and Scott James, a caffeine-obsessed father and son team, did just that. Tired of the basic brews being served locally, they started Coaltown Coffee in a garage back in 2014, and since then it has bloomed into a successful small-batch, sustainability-focused coffee roasting business. Try an aromatic signature blend Brazilian espresso with a chocolate-biscuit base, or a Rwandan single origin with ripe fruit flavours, all served up in their new retro-style café in town. Their long-term aim? To reboot the local economy and slash unemployment by training up baristas, some of them ex-miners.

Ceredigion kefir

The name is a winner and so too, apparently, are the benefits of the gut-healing goat milk kefir that Chuckling Goat produces on its Ceredigion farm. The powerful probiotic is the brainchild of Shann Nix and Rich Jones – in previous lives a San Francisco journalist and a Welsh farmer and harp-maker respectively. They bought a goat and started making kefir to cure their son’s eczema and never looked back. Now, the little kitchen-table business has grown into a million-pound global enterprise, with a herd of 50 ‘happy’ goats (hence the ‘chuckling’), free to graze 24 acres of lush Welsh pastureland. Barn tours at noon can be pre-booked by calling 01239 654 072.

Can’t decide which beer to have at Bluestone Brewery? Try all three © Bluestone Brewing Company

Bluestone Brewery

Swing down the hedgerowed lanes of the Preseli Hills in North Pembrokeshire and you may well stumble across the Bluestone Brewery, named after the stone that hails from these parts, miraculously hauled some 250 miles to build Stonehenge more than 5000 years ago. Tapping into this heritage and the crystal-clear spring water that filters through these hills, this family-run microbrewery produces hand-crafted real ales on a working farm. The relaxed visitor centre is a great place to pop in for a pint after a hike on the Pembrokeshire Coast Path: top tipples include the refreshing Preseli Pils lager, lightly malty Rockhopper pale bitter, and delicately hoppy Bedrock Blonde ale.

Caws Cenarth Caerphilly

In 2018, traditional Welsh Caerphilly won protected designation of origin (PDO) status, joining the likes of Welsh lamb, Halen Môn salt (see below) and laverbread. Made from cow’s milk, the hard, crumbly cheese, with its fresh, lemony flavour, was first made in the town of Caerphilly in the 1800s. Today, it crops up all over the country in different guises.

Caws Cenarth in Ceredigion is special, though. Gwynfor and Thelma Adams began making cheese in 1987, and today their son Carwyn heads up the business. Besides traditional Caerphilly, they produce garlic, herb and smoked varieties, as well as Brie-style Perl Wen, creamy blue Perl Las and pungent, rind-washed, award-winning Golden Cenarth. On the banks of the River Cych, the family farm, Glyneithinog, welcomes visitors: stop by between 11.30am and 3pm from Monday to Saturday and you’ll see the cheesemakers in action.

Halen Môn salt is a key ingredient in the story of contemporary Welsh food and drink © Clifton Wilkinson / Lonely Planet

Anglesey salt

It might now have PDO status and be one of the most famous ingredients to hail from Welsh shores today (even Heston Blumenthal is a fan), but Halen Môn sea salt had humble beginnings. Some 21 years ago, Alison and David Lea-Wilson left a pot of seawater to bubble away on their Aga as an experiment. Hey presto, they got fine white salt crystals. Their charcoal-filtered seawater is drawn from the Menai Strait around Anglesey, and their hand-harvested flakes are sold pure, oak-smoked, or with roasted garlic. Tŷ Halen, their visitor centre, offers behind-the-scenes tours followed by tutored salt tastings at 11am, 1pm and 3pm daily.

NOMNOM chocolate

Pemberton’s Chocolate factory did a brisk trade in Llanboidy, on the Pembrokeshire-Carmarthenshire border, for 25 years. But when it closed its doors, locals never imagined there would be chocolate here again. Cue Liam Burgess who, at the tender age of 19, decided to start his very own chocolate business, NOMNOM, with a £4000 loan.

The ‘Willy Wonka of Wales’, Liam began crafting his chocolate in the humblest of settings: a caravan in his mum’s back garden. But his imaginative confectionery and one-of-a-kind packaging (note the trademark sheep doodle) were his golden ticket to success. Using the old moulds found in the abandoned chocolate factory, he poured all his energy into original creations, with flavours like flame-roasted hazelnut, oak-smoked Halen Môn sea salt and apple sherbet, plus seasonal chocolate like mince pie bars at Christmas. Visit and you’ll be hooked.

Wales might not be generally associated with whisky, but Penderyn is here to change that © Penderyn Distillery

Penderyn whisky

Naturally you’d associate Scotland with whisky, but Wales has carved out its own niche for award-winning single malts thanks to the Penderyn Distillery. What began as a pub chat about whisky back in the 1990s swiftly evolved when Alun Evans bought a copper-pot still. He chose the foothills of the Brecon Beacons for its spring water and produced the first bottle of Welsh whisky in a century in 2004. Finished in different casks, the whiskies include Madeira-finished Legend, with notes of raisins and creamy fudge, and mildly peaty Celt. There are other spirits, too, such as Brecon Gin, with hints of coriander and cinnamon. Open daily, the visitor centre offers hour-long, behind-the-scenes tours of the whisky-making process, a tasting bar and more in-depth masterclasses.

Llanerch Vineyard

A vineyard just off the M4 northwest of Cardiff sounds highly unlikely, but that’s precisely what you’ll find at Llanerch in the Vale of Glamorgan. Going strong since 1986, the winery has scooped multiple awards for its Cariad wines, produced by hardy French-German hybrid grapes that can withstand the wettest weather Wales can fling at them. The wines include the light, summer berry-infused Sparkling Blush, a tart, citrusy dry white, and a smooth, sparkling wine that is made (like Champagne) with a second fermentation in the bottle. From April to October, the winery offers hour-long tutored wine tastings at 3pm daily, as well as more informal tastings. In October, you can even sign up to join in the grape harvest for the day – with wine, food and live music provided in exchange for willing hands.

Only the best local ingredients are used to flavour Forager’s Gin © Kerry Christiani / Lonely Planet

Snowdonia Distillery

The bare, brooding mountains of North Wales aren’t the first place you’d think of finding botanicals. Yet the team at Snowdonia Distillery pick the juniper, gorse and heather that go into Forager’s Gin right on Mt Snowdon’s slopes. Chris Marshall took a gamble when he swapped his former life as an investment manager and professional skier for a craft distillery back in 2015. “We do everything by hand, from foraging for botanicals to bottling,” he says. “Our gins speak of Snowdonia from start to finish, with the secret being slow distillation over weeks to capture the subtle notes of macerated botanicals.”

The smooth 46% Black Label is one of the few gins in the world made with two ingredients: juniper and sea buckthorn. The sweeter, more summery 44% Yellow Label has notes of gorse and heather, elderberry and apple.

For an immersive experience, luxurious Victorian country manor Palé Hall offers a ‘gin-venture’, combining a guided foraging hike with gin tasting at the Snowdonia Distillery and fine-dining.

Black Mountains Smokery

On the edge of pretty Crickhowell, in the foothills of the Black Mountains, is a smokery – the brainchild of Jo and Jonathan Carthew. After almost a decade of living in Africa, the couple began to dream of moving to the Welsh hills, where Jo had spent much of her childhood. They eventually wound up in the Brecons and in 1996 established the smokery.

Sustainability and traceability remain a key part of their ethos. Besides 10,000 sides of salmon a year, they gently smoke chicken, duck, quail, trout and haddock over Welsh oak, and make pates and terrines. More insight can be gleaned on one of their smokery tours and tastings at 11am on Wednesdays from March to September.

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When it comes to architecture, most people would file India under ‘religious’ or ‘historical’. The nation’s most famous buildings are towering temples and monumental mosques, or fearsome fortresses and the curious hybrid buildings left behind by the British Raj. It is less well known that India underwent a construction explosion in the years between the first and second world wars, as wealthy Indians turned their backs on tradition and embraced their status as citizens of the new global age.

Like Miami, Mumbai’s seafront is lined with iconic Art Deco apartments © Punit Paranjpe / Getty Images

Mumbai more than any other city became a playground for architects inspired by the French school of Art Deco, following the runaway success of the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris in 1925. Built over reclaimed land, the well-to-do neighbourhoods sprawling north from Mumbai’s old colonial quarters of Fort and Colaba were filled in with rows of landmark Art Deco apartment buildings and iconic cinema halls that drew on the modern iconography of technology and the science fiction embodied by comic books such as Amazing Stories and Flash Gordon.

But this is just one face of a city whose architectural legacy spans two millennia, from meditation caves hollowed out by Buddhist monks in the 1st century BC, through 5th-century Hindu temples and the imperialist fantasies of the Raj, to the futuristic glass towers soaring skywards above the streets of Worli and Tardeo, today the sixth largest collection of skyscrapers on the planet. Here’s a quick wander through the centuries, taking in Mumbai’s most significant ages of architecture.

Shiva as creator, preserver and destroyer of the universe at the Elephanta Caves © saiko3p / Getty Images

Architecture before Bombay

Traditionally, the history of Mumbai is charted from 1534, the year the Portuguese gained control over the string of islands that were later fused together to create Mumbai. However, this stretch of coast was inhabited long before European empire-builders set eyes on the subcontinent. The islands’ original inhabitants, fishermen and women from the Koli community, left few permanent buildings, but a flurry of construction followed the arrival of the Buddhist emperor Ashoka in the 3rd century BC. Hidden away in the peaceful forests of Sanjay Gandhi National Park in the northern suburb of Borivali, the 109 Kanheri caves were chipped out by Buddhist monks over a thousand years, starting in the 1st century BC, when the islands became a centre for Buddhist learning and discourse.

You’ll find less peace, but more grandeur, on Elephanta Island, a short boat ride out into Mumbai Harbour from the Gateway of India. Elephanta was named by the Portuguese, who found a stone elephant on the shore, and ventured inland to discover a network of caverns overflowing with spectacular temple carvings. Sadly, they proceeded to ransack many of the shrines in outrage at the unashamed display of idolatry. Nevertheless, a remarkable amount survives, including a magnificent 6m-high depiction of Shiva as Sadhashiva, the creator, preserver and destroyer of the universe, carved in the 5th century, when the Shaivite sect of Hinduism was competing for dominance with Vaishnavism, Buddhism and Jainism.

Gothic architecture meets Mughal architecture at the University of Mumbai © Joe Bindloss / Lonely Planet

Colonial Bombay

The excesses and misdeeds of the colonial period are well-documented, but Mumbai’s rich architectural heritage owes a lot to the British trading outpost which set up shop here in 1661, when Bombay was gifted to Britain as part of the wedding dowry from Catherine of Portugal to King Charles II. Leaving little doubt as to Britain’s intentions, the original depot was soon upgraded to a military fortress, Fort George, traces of which can still be spotted around the Fort neighbourhood, but it was the subsequent wave of colonial architecture that created the nostalgic character of Mumbai’s historic centre.

Architecture overload at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj terminus © Alexander Mazurkevich / Shutterstock

The architectural extravagance of the British Raj finds perhaps its most perfect expression in Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, formerly Victoria Terminus, Mumbai’s frenetic and crowded main train station. This is said to be the busiest train station in the world, used by a staggering three million passengers every day, and the building that houses it is a Victorian fantasy of Gothic arches, Mughal domes, gargoyles, turrets and arcades. Credit for this gloriously over-ornate Indo-Saracenic construction goes to British architect Frederick William Stevens, who left no architectural style unplagiarised in his quest to make a train station fit for Queen Victoria. Keep your eye on the detail – the columns supporting the entrance hall are covered in a tracery of vines, cobras, monkeys, parrots and other tropical wildlife.

More eye-boggling examples of the Indo-Saracenic style can be found nearby on the edge of the Oval Maidan, where the Bombay High Court and University of Mumbai – designed by George Gilbert Scott, creator of London’s St Pancras train station – erupt in a Hogwarts-style profusion of turrets, spiral stairways and arches. Visit late in the afternoon, when the low sunlight percolates through the palm trees and paints the twin facades in a glorious palette of yellows and golds. From here, it’s a moment’s stroll to reach the graceful corridors of the mosque-like Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, Mumbai’s top history museum, with its splendid collection of miniature paintings, ceramics, statuary and antique weapons.

The mosque-like interior of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya museum © Joe Bindloss / Lonely Planet

Fort is also blessed with some grand but neglected religious architecture from the colonial period, including the oldest surviving British-era building in Mumbai, St Thomas’ Cathedral, founded in 1672, when the ink was still drying on the documents that transferred Bombay to Great Britain. This unmistakably British cathedral once marked the eastern gateway to the East India Company’s fortress, and the interior is full of grandiose marble memorials to long-forgotten heroes of empire.

Marble memorials to forgotten empire-builders at St Thomas’ Cathedral © Joe Bindloss / Lonely Planet

Wander on past Hyde Park-inspired Horniman Circle Garden and the whitewashed colonnade of Mumbai’s British-era Town Hall and duck into the backstreets of Kala Ghoda to reach the eggshell blue Keneseth Eliyahoo Synagogue. This dignified house of worship was constructed in 1884 by the enterprising Sassoon family, which operated the Sassoon cotton docks in Colaba, used today to land the tonnes of fish sold every day in Mumbai’s restaurants and markets. Visit at dawn to see Koli fishermen unloading the night’s catch, and their wives striking hard bargains with wholesalers haggling for the best price on rays, sharks, pomfret, prawns, mackerel, kingfish and bombil, the tiny fish that form the basis of Mumbai’s famously misnamed Bombay duck.

Mumbai’s colonial administrators made every effort to transform their tropical home into a comforting facsimile of home. The nostalgic Royal Opera House on Charni Road, just inland from Girgaum Chowpatty beach, looks like a piece of London’s Theatreland moved brick by brick to Mumbai. Built in classic neo-Baroque style, the venue staged its first opera in 1916, but interest declined after Independence, and the opera house was converted into a cinema, closing completely for 23 years before a grand restoration in 2016.

Posing for a portrait at the landmark Taj Mahal Palace Hotel © Joe Bindloss / Lonely Planet

Interestingly, it was an Indian, not a Brit, who opened Mumbai’s best known colonial-era hotel. A riot of balconies and domes, the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel on Apollo Bunder was constructed by the Parsi industrialist Jamsetji Tata, founder of the vast Tata empire, after he was refused entry to the city’s British-run hotels for being ‘a native’. There’s a pleasing sense of justice to the fact that the Taj went on to become an Indian icon while the British-owned hotels faded into obscurity. Rooms at the Taj still command a stratospheric price tag, but travellers on smaller budgets can swing by for an elegant high tea in the Sea Lounge, or a meal at the spectacular Golden Dragon and Wasabi by Morimoto restaurants.

Following the lead of the British, make your last colonial stop the Gateway of India, the triumphal Indo-Saracenic arch built to celebrate the 1911 royal visit by King George V. Mobbed by sightseers, snack vendors, balloon sellers, photo-wallahs and pigeons, this was also the spot where the last British soldiers stationed in India held their final parade before India ousted the empire and marched proudly towards Independence.

Classic Art Deco motifs on the frontage of the Regal Cinema, Colaba © Joe Bindloss / Lonely Planet

Deco Mumbai

Even before the departure of the British, Modernism was starting to grip the popular imagination in Mumbai. The city’s wealthy – and widely-travelled – industrialists and entrepreneurs envisioned a new India: modern, dynamic and technologically advanced, reclaiming the position India held in ancient times as global hub for invention and innovation. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the grand Art Deco cinema halls that sprang up in the interwar years to showcase the output of the fledgling Bollywood movie industry. In fact, Mumbai already had strong links to film – the Lumiere Brothers screened the first movie shown in India at Watson’s Hotel on Mahatma Gandhi Rd in 1896, with a ticket price of one rupee – but the new theatres opened up cinema to the masses.

The rise of home entertainment and the modern multiplex ushered in a period of slow decline for the city’s Deco cinemas, but the rocket ship-shaped Eros, on the corner of Marashi Karve Rd and Veer Nariman Rd, still pulls in a crowd for every new Bollywood release from the likes of Shah Rukh Khan, Kareena Kapoor and Aamir Khan. In its heyday in the 1930s and 40s, the Eros competed for audiences with the Liberty Cinema on Marine Lines, the Aurora Talkies at Matunga, and the Los Angeles-style Regal, crowned by stylised Greek theatrical masks, at the top of Colaba Causeway.

Palms crowd the frontage of the Zaver Mahal © Joe Bindloss / Lonely Planet

Mumbai’s most spectacular collection of Art Deco buildings is displayed in a sweeping curve along Marine Drive, the long, broad promenade that curls north from Nariman Point to the swish suburb of Malabar Hill. Although faded, the ocean-facing apartment buildings here represent some of the most expensive real estate in India, with sea-view apartments selling for upwards of US$1500 per square foot. A stroll along the prom, buffeted by cooling breezes from the Arabian Sea, will take you past such tasteful towers as the sunshine-yellow Soona Mahal, and the creamy-white Kewal Mahal and Zaver Mahal (both built by a Gujarati cinema tycoon). Unbeknown to the world, the British government maintained a secret war office in the Kewal Mahal from 1935 to 1945, coordinating the British response to the Japanese invasion of northeast India.

In the optimistic decades that followed the declaration of Indian Independence, these apartments hosted lavish parties for the cream of Mumbai society: movie-makers, actors and starlets, fashion-designers, politicians, financiers, Indian royalty, poets, writers and the up-and-coming artists who displayed their work at the wave-fronted Jehangir Art Gallery at Kala Ghoda (another Deco structure from 1952). Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan famously slept rough on a bench on Marine Drive after arriving in the city as a penniless would-be actor in the late 1960s, just yards from the movie moguls he would later make fortunes for as star of such films as Deewaar and Sholay.

Art Deco apartments on Marine Drive making full use of the sea views © Joe Bindloss / Lonely Planet

One of the quirkiest Art Deco edifices on Marine Drive is the Taraporevala Aquarium, constructed in 1951 behind a cinema-style facade decorated with bas-reliefs of jellyfish, sea horses and cetaceans. Along with nearby Girgaum Chowpatty beach, it’s a popular hangout for the families, couples and teenage dreamers who promenade along the waterfront looking up at the genteel residences that represent the realisation of the Mumbai dream. For more on the Art Deco heritage of Mumbai, browse the archives of Art Deco Mumbai, a ground-breaking project aimed at recording and preserving the city’s architectural legacy for future generations, founded by financier and Deco-enthusiast Atul Kumar.

Joe Bindloss travelled to Mumbai with support from Taj Hotels Resorts & Palaces and British Airways. Lonely Planet contributors do not accept freebies in exchange for positive coverage.

A born-and-raised Londoner, Lonely Planet Local Lorna Parkes left the capital in 2015 for a family-friendly life in Leeds, Yorkshire. In between travel gigs for Lonely Planet, she spends her days drinking too much speciality coffee, getting lured into new independent food haunts and trying to resist the local craft breweries’ latest experimental beer launches.

Lorna, the Lonely Planet Leeds Local, outside the city’s Corn Exchange © Lorna Parkes / Lonely Planet

When I have friends in town… I take them beer tasting. Yorkshire’s illustrious brewing heritage dates back hundreds of years, and Leeds has some of the country’s best microbreweries and craft-beer bars. I always start at Northern Monk, because it not only does excellent, hoppy American-style IPAs (my favourite), but also has rotating kitchen residencies supporting local indie food start-ups: great for lining the stomach. During the summer months I would then head to Eat North, a weekly craft beer and street food festival with DJs, set on an industrial estate at the North Brewing Co brewery. I might finish off with international craft beers and Indian street food at Bundobust to regain my equilibrium.

Follow the finger to Northern Monk, a top spot for beers and brunch © Lorna Parkes / Lonely Planet

When I feel like splurging… I window-shop in the sumptuous covered 19th-century shopping arcades that occupy the Victoria Quarter laneways off Briggate. Then I splash out on a charcuterie plate of Iberico Bellota and a glass of premium wine in Friends of Ham. It has to be said that Leeds is a beer city and good wine is hard to come by, but this British and European deli-bar is quality.

A typical weekend involves… brunch and browsing. Artisan coffee has well and truly taken off in Leeds and my favourite brunch spot is the North Star Coffee Shop & General Store, run by the city’s own roastery. The coffee is strong and comes with tasting notes, and the breakfasts are superb, especially the creamy slow-scrambled eggs sandwiched into a four-cheese rye scone from the on-site bakery. It’s just around the corner from the Royal Armouries museum, which is free and great for a browse afterwards, particularly with kids on a rainy day. I also often take my young family to Kirkstall Abbey for bike-riding around the gaunt Cistercian ruins and for lunch if its monthly food market is on.

Eat, drink and be merry in the shadow of Kirkstall Abbey’s ruins © Lorna Parkes / Lonely Planet

For cheap eats… I head to Kirkgate Market, which has added a street-food hangar to the traditional market (est 1857). Indian food is one of Leeds’ specialities, thanks to its textile manufacturing heritage which brought South Asian immigrants to the area, and award-winning Manjit’s Kitchen is based here. It serves excellent vegetarian Indian street food plates (and Yorkshire craft beers); try the ginormous, crispy and light onion bhajis with tamarind chutney. At night, I head to Belgrave Music Hall & Canteen for cheap slices of gourmet pizza in its lively misfit beer bar.

If I can get a babysitter… I book a table at Ox Club and then go to the jazzy rooftop bar at Headrow House. Happily, they’re both in the same building – once a grotty pub, now converted into one of Leeds’ most all-encompassing nightlife riots. I’m a big foodie and the Ox Club grill restaurant is hands-down the city’s best midrange dining spot: I defy anybody to try dishes like its heritage tomatoes, goats cheese ice cream, lemon verbena and buckwheat, and not be impressed. The rooftop bar has two levels overlooking Leeds’ Victorian centre, with shocking-pink bucket chairs, comfy canopied booths fashioned out of reclaimed wood, and a giant neon sign shouting ‘THE WORLD IS YOURS’.

Enjoy a drink with a view at Headrow House © Lorna Parkes / Lonely Planet

When I want to get out of the city… I drive to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, set on the type of 18th-century country estate that would have inspired the local Bronte sisters, about a 30-minute trip south of Leeds. It’s really family friendly with more than 200 hectares to roam in, planted with giant sculptures by artists such as Ai Weiwei, Andy Goldsworthy, and Barbara Hepworth (the latter was a local).

My favourite hangout… is Granary Wharf, which is where the Leeds and Liverpool Canal ends. Narrowboats are always moored here and it’s also home to one of my favourite bars, Water Lane Boathouse, which occupies a converted boat shed. Leeds is about as far away from the coast as you can get in England, so it’s here that I head to if I’m craving water – sometimes for drinks, sometimes to walk the canal tow path that starts here.

Take a stroll by the canal at Granary Wharf © Lorna Parkes / Lonely Planet

One thing I hate about Leeds is… the weather. The North of England is further than London from the equator (it’s a local joke, but it’s also true). Summers are mild with little to no humidity, barely getting above 22C most of the time. The knock-on effect is that it’s hard to lead an outdoorsy lifestyle.

On a cold winter’s day… everybody in Leeds is searching for the toastiest fireside seat in a pub. Always book ahead for Sunday lunch, because the classic British roast pub dinner is always excellent in Leeds (they don’t call that staple of the Sunday roast ‘Yorkshire pudding’ for nothing) and a weekly institution. Cross Keys pub and The Reliance are two of my city-centre favourites.

You can rely on The Reliance for a top quality Sunday lunch © Lorna Parkes / Lonely Planet

On my daily commute… I always notice the street art. Outside the old Tetley brewery HQ, very near my co-working space, there’s a palm-tree sculpture titled The Sun Shines Every Day Forever (2018) by Matthew Houlding on which locals perch for lunch. I can never bear to join them because it feels like ruining the art (though it is designed to be sat on…).

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Every city around the world has a local food culture that embodies the unique essence of the place. While some have become iconic on the global stage – think Philadelphia’s Philly cheesesteak or Tokyo’s renowned ramen – others remain under the radar, tucked away in a backstreet trattoria or hidden in the pages of grandma’s secret recipe book.

For curious connoisseurs looking for the best bite in town, we asked our team of Lonely Planet Locals to dish out the delicacies that they feel get to the heart of their hometown – from fish tagine in Tangier to Shanghai’s steaming dumplings.

A golden plate of chicken Machboos © vm2002 / Shutterstock

Chicken Machboos in Doha

It’s often thought that the cosmopolitan capital of Qatar isn’t able to lay claim to any distinctive dishes of its own; having ‘borrowed’ so many recipes and cuisines from the eclectic melting pot of cultures that have made this city their home over the decades. However, there is one Middle Eastern staple that Doha-dwellers vow has been rightfully theirs from the very beginning, and that is the delightful chicken Machboos. Made from rice, laced with rich spices and cooked in a big pot with tomatoes, onions and chicken, this comforting dish is similar to a biryani (an Indian dish made with spicy rice and meat or veg) and a staple on the dinner table of many Qatari households.

Top spots to tuck in? There are a plethora of Arabic restaurants dotted around the city that offer an authentic and delicious Machboos, but two particular spots stand out amongst the crowd – the opulent Al Sufra Restaurant at the Marsa Malaz Kempinski Hotel and the cheaper and more traditional Damasca One in Souq Waqif.

Polly Byles is a prolific blogger and freelance travel writer who has made Doha her home since 2013. Follow her adventures on Instagram @polbag.

The only rule with Danish smorrebrod: the more toppings the better! © vm2002 / Shutterstock

Smørrebrød in Copenhagen, Denmark

If you only try one food when visiting this Scandinavian capital, it should be smørrebrød – the beloved open-faced sandwich. Smørrebrød is Denmark’s favourite lunch food, and practically a way of life! It starts with a base of rye bread, slathered in butter and garnished with a variety of toppings, like pickled herring, crispy pork, or shrimp and egg. There are both traditional flavours and innovative creations to be had, with some restaurants serving up to 250 varieties. The toppings are piled so high that smørrebrød must be eaten with a knife and fork – you know it’s good when you can’t even see the bread!

Top spots to tuck in? For classic smørrebrød, try traditional Restaurant Kronborg or Torvehallerne Market stall Hallernes. For something more innovative, the stylish Kompasset or new kid on the block, Selma.

Caroline Hadamitzky is a Canadian tour guide and travel writer living in Copenhagen, Denmark. She has a passion for photography, food and sharing her incredible city with people from around the world. Follow her tweets @lovelivetravel.

Hot wings are an excellent mouthwatering morsel to have on the go in the ATL © Ni’Kesia Pannell

Hot wings in Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Whether you like them plain, seasoned or spicy, hot wings can be found at almost any casual dining spot in the ATL. Though not exclusive to Atlanta, anyone who grew up here can testify to hot wings being the ideal grab-and-go meal in the city. Specifically, lemon pepper wings – the favourite flavour of ATLiens — which can be served wet (in sauce) or dry, with the lemon pepper sprinkled on top. If you want to go full local, mix your lemon pepper with a hot or mild sauce.

Top spots to tuck in? Head to J.R. Crickets, American Deli and ATL Wings for a serving of some of the best wings in the city.

Ni’Kesia Pannell is a travel, food and lifestyle writer based in Atlanta. Follow her on Instagram @kesi_p.

A dish of fish kefta tagine topped with coriander made by a local woman in Tangier © Jess Cherkaoui

Fish kefta tagine in Tangier, Morocco

You can’t go wrong with any dishes on a Moroccan menu, but visitors should adapt their taste to the local geography – and the seafood tagines of Tangier are the city’s trademark within this flavourful country. As the only city that dips its toes in both the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, it’s no surprise that fish is a staple here, and sardines in particular are the main ingredient in one locally adored dish: fish kefta tagine. Unfortunately, it’s not an option that you’ll commonly see in restaurants because it takes immense time and patience to prepare, so it’s usually cooked at home. Sardines are cautiously taken apart and moulded into succulent meatballs, before being slow cooked, in the same way as the more well-known beef tagine you’ll see elsewhere in the country.

Top spots to tuck in? If you haven’t made friends with a local family yet, you can still sample an authentic fish tagine at Rif Kebdani, which sits inside the ancient medina just below Terrasse Borj Al Hajoui.

Jess Cherkaoui is military officer-turned-travel writer who left the coasts of Spain for the sumptuous flavours of Tangier. Follow her tweets @jgcherk.

A delicious treat awaits through the plumes of steam on the streets of Shanghai © PixHound/ Shutterstock

Xiǎolóngbāo dumplings in Shanghai, China

Shanghai has so many unique and delicious cuisines (traditionally known as Benbang cuisine or 本帮菜, běnbāng cài) that it’s almost impossible to choose just one that captures the spirit of the city’s food culture. That said, no visit to Shanghai would be complete without sampling its iconic and delectable dumplings: xiǎolóngbāo (小笼包) and (the lesser-known, but no less delicious) shēngjiānbāo (生煎包). Xiǎolóngbāo – sometimes called soup dumplings – are thin, doughy parcels filled with ground pork and piping hot broth, and steamed in a small bamboo basket. Though popular around the world now, this dumpling originated in Shanghai. Shēngjiānbāo have a thicker, doughier skin, and are pan-fried on the bottom to give them a satisfying crunch through to the juicy meat filling.

Top spots to tuck in? For an authentic taste of xiǎolóngbāo, try Jia Jia Tang Bao or Din Tai Fung. For shēngjiānbāo, head to the touristy – but reliably tasty – chain restaurant Yang’s Fry Dumplings.

Rosie Draffin upped sticks and swapped her life in London for a life in Shanghai, where she continues her quest to find the best noodle soup in China! Follow her on Instagram @emmarosedraffin.

A South African samoosa is a must-try treat in Johannesburg © AS Food studio / Shutterstock

Samoosas in Johannesburg, South Africa

South Africa has one of the largest populations of Indian diaspora; so, unsurprisingly, food from the subcontinent has long played a role in the South African culinary scene. Evolving over centuries, it now features its own unique combinations of ingredients and spices, complete with South African-influenced names. Samoosas (with two o’s, not one) are a perfect example. A South African take on samosas, samoosas tend to be smaller and feature a wider range of fillings – beyond traditional choices such as vegetable and chicken, you’ll find everything from feta and corn to coconut.

Top spots to tuck in? For the best samoosas in Johannesburg, head to World of Samoosas in the historic Oriental Plaza. It is the only place in town serving coconut varieties, and their spicy dipping sauce is divine.

Heather Mason moved to Johannesburg in 2010. She loves the quirky, tree-lined suburbs and the gritty inner city, with its coffee houses, evolving foodie scene and hidden pockets of art, culture and music. Follow her on Instagram @2summers.

When it comes to feijoada simmering on the stove, your patience will pay off © Vinicius Bacarin / Shutterstock

Feijoada in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Cariocas (Rio’s locals) like to take their time; if that means arriving late then so be it. Feijoada is the culinary embodiment of this attitude. The rich black bean stew, heaving with salted pork, beef and sliced sausage, takes hours to prepare and is enjoyed during long, lazy lunches that, like the cariocas, cannot be hurried. No coincidence that it is chiefly served on Saturdays (or on Fridays, when most workers have already switched to weekend mode). The official follow-up activity is often dancing to samba, but after all that heavy stew, first a leisurely snooze – what’s the rush?

Top spots to tuck in? Bar do Momo doesn’t look like much, but the packed tables tell the true story. Their superb feijoada is served on Friday and Saturday lunchtimes and sells out by 2.30pm.

Tom Le Mesurier is a food and travel writer and culinary tour guide based in Rio de Janeiro. Follow him on Instagram @eatrio.