The best meals of your life might be in cities you’ve never considered

Bursa’s culinary story begins with the city’s position as the first capital of the Ottoman Empire. It’s a place where imperial recipes and street food have coexisted for centuries. In the colder months, chestnut vendors appear on every corner—their charcoal braziers sending plumes of sweet, nutty smoke across the cobblestone streets. But the real draw is İskender kebab, born here in the Kayhan Bazaar in 1867, when İskender, the son of a local butcher named Mehmet, decided to cook lamb vertically rather than horizontally. The result is legendary: thinly sliced lamb draped over torn pieces of pide, a traditional Turkish flatbread, and then drenched in a vivid tomato sauce and melted butter. A cool swoop of yoghurt on the side cuts through the richness. The original shop, now being prepared to become a museum, is still run by İskender’s descendants, who continue to serve the same recipe passed down through four generations.

Beyond the kebab, Bursa is the spiritual home of two ancient culinary traditions. One is kestane şekeri, candied chestnuts that are sold in tiny wooden boxes tied with ribbon. The other is boza, a thick, fermented millet drink with roots stretching back to around the 9th or 8th millennium BCE in Anatolia and Mesopotamia. Written records of boza date to the 10th century, when it became popular among Central Asian Turkic peoples, and it was widely consumed in the Ottoman Empire from the 15th century onward. Vendors ladle it from brass urns into small cups, topping it with roasted chickpeas and a dusting of cinnamon. It’s earthy and tangy, tasting remarkably like a very cold, slightly sour banana bread.

West Africa’s rising food capital, Accra, has stepped into the spotlight with its loud and colourful charm. The dish to try is waakye, a combination of rice and beans cooked together with dried millet leaves until they turn a deep reddish-brown, then served with spaghetti, fried plantains, boiled eggs, avocado and a fiery sauce called shito. Shito, which means pepper in the local Ga language, originated in Accra and has become ubiquitous with Ghanaian cuisine. It’s made from fish or vegetable oil, ginger, dried fish, prawns, tomatoes, garlic, peppers and spices, a complex, umami-rich paste that takes continuous stirring to achieve its signature dark brown, almost black colour.

Another dish worth trying is kenkey, a fermented corn dough wrapped in dried corn husks, which is boiled before being served with fried mackerel and more shito. The kenkey itself is dense and dry, so it’s almost always accompanied by something wet: a light, clear fish broth or a simple pepper soup that you sip between bites. In Accra, shito is used so widely—on everything from steamed rice to spring rolls and even Chinese-style fried rice—that it’s effectively the city’s answer to ketchup, with a smoky, funky kick.

A city that has fully embraced its second act, Medellín is now one of South America’s most exciting food destinations. Try the traditional bandeja paisa, a glorious protein-rich platter of beans, white rice, chicharrón (crispy fried pork belly), grilled steak, fried egg, sweet plantain, avocado, a crisp corn arepa, and often a slice of blood sausage and chorizo. Paisa is the name given to people from Colombia’s northwestern Antioquia region, centred around Medellín and extending into the Coffee Axis (Caldas, Risaralda and Quindío). It was originally designed to fuel farmers and workers who spent their days climbing the region’s steep, mountainous terrain.

In more recent times, Medellín has exploded as a cocktail capital, with lively bars in the Provenza neighbourhood. The spirit of choice here is aguardiente, an anise-flavoured sugar-cane liqueur that Colombians drink with a fierce patriotism—it’s 29 per cent alcohol and best consumed on a full stomach (which is exactly what the bandeja paisa provides). You’ll find it in refajo (mixed with a local red soda for a dangerously drinkable long drink) or sipped neat from a tiny glass while snacking on bites of chicharrón or grilled plantain chips. Meanwhile, the city’s new-wave bars are shaking up cocktails with local ingredients like lulo, a tart citrus-like fruit, passionfruit, and aromatic herbs from the surrounding hills. The energy is creative, welcoming and unmistakably Colombian.

The gateway to Kerala’s coconut-and-curry coast, Kochi’s most celebrated culinary tradition is the Kerala sadya, a grand vegetarian feast served on a banana leaf that can include more than two dozen dishes, from crispy banana chips and tangy mango pickle to creamy avial (mixed vegetables in coconut and yoghurt) and warm sambar, a lentil and vegetable stew. The sadya is traditionally served during festivals and special occasions, but in Kochi, it’s available year-round, a reflection of how deeply embedded this tradition is in everyday life. Other dishes to try are karimeen pollichathu, pearl spot fish marinated in a fiery spice paste, wrapped in a banana leaf and pan-seared until the leaf chars and the fish absorbs every bit of flavour, and appam, fermented rice hoppers with a soft, pillowy centre that are perfect for sopping up stews. For drinks, seek out fresh toddy—palm wine tapped that morning, tangy and mildly alcoholic; or a strong cup of chai, fragrant with cardamom and ginger.

In Mattancherry’s Jew Town, a narrow street that has been home to Kerala’s Jewish community since at least the 11th century, with the Mattancherry settlement established in 1524, the Paradesi Synagogue still stands as the oldest active synagogue in the Commonwealth. The street is now lined with antique shops and bakeries selling halwa, a dense, chewy sweet introduced by Arab traders centuries ago, alongside spicy samosas that reflect centuries of cultural exchange between Jewish, Arab and local communities. Nearby, the Chinese fishing nets still creak in the harbour, believed to have been introduced by explorer Zheng He’s fleet in the 15th century. These layers of influence: Arab, Chinese, Jewish and European, all converged on this spice-trading coast, where black pepper was once as valuable as gold. A city that tastes like history, indeed.

NOW READ

Explore Ningbo: How freshness shapes the way Ningbo eats

Off the Rails: How André Chiang and Simon Rogan mastered the art of cooking on the Eastern & Oriental Express

How the godfather of Chinese roast duck transformed an imperial classic into a modern empire