Where to travel for food: journeys planned around the table

The street as a kitchen: Vietnam, Hong Kong, Mexico

In Vietnam, some of the best cooking happens on the pavement. In Hanoi the day starts with a steaming bowl of phở, lunch is bún chả with charcoal-grilled pork, and the stools are so low your knees nearly reach your chin. Heading south, the food changes: in Hội An, cao lầu noodles closely tied to the town; in the Mekong Delta, fruit, fish and herbs you don't yet have names for. Vietnam suits people who like to eat often, a little at a time and without ceremony.

Hong Kong is the densest map of flavour you can find in one place. Dim sum belongs to the morning and to weekend family tables; roast goose and char siu hang in the windows; in the evening the open-air street kitchens, the dai pai dong, remind you that this city lives outdoors. A few days is enough to find the rhythm, and a hop to Macau adds another layer, where Portuguese and Chinese cooking meet.

Mexican cooking is one of the richest food traditions anywhere. In Mexico City, tacos are eaten standing up on the street and markets fill whole neighbourhoods. Oaxaca goes deeper: moles of many kinds, tlayudas, chocolate whisked with water or milk, and mezcal whose character depends on the agave and the village. The Yucatán is different again, with slow-cooked cochinita pibil, citrus and fierce habanero salsas.

Region and season: Italy and Japan

In Italy, “Italian food” is really twenty regional cuisines. For many, Emilia-Romagna is the heart of the map: Parma ham, aged Parmigiano Reggiano, traditional balsamic vinegar from Modena and tortellini folded by hand in Bologna. Tuscany is simpler and more rural – beans, olive oil, unsalted bread. In Puglia, right in the south, it is orecchiette, burrata and the sea. Rather than trying to cover the whole country, we'd suggest choosing two or three regions and staying longer in each.

In Japan, food is inseparable from the season. Bamboo shoots in spring, eel and cold soba in summer, mushrooms and chestnuts in autumn, crab and hotpots along the Sea of Japan in winter. A kaiseki dinner at a ryokan follows the same rhythm: the dishes change with the month rather than the chef's mood. In Kyoto, walk Nishiki Market; in Kanazawa, the fish and seafood market; in Osaka, eat on the street in the evening. In Tokyo, even a simple izakaya can become one of the evenings you remember longest.

A food journey is not a list of restaurants but a route in which a market counts as much as a mountain.

The table as landscape: Peru and Turkey

In Peru, altitude shapes the cooking. On the coast, ceviche – raw fish cured in lime juice, traditionally eaten at lunchtime in Lima. In the Andes, potatoes in more varieties than anywhere else on earth, corn, quinoa and slow stews. In the Amazon, river fish and fruit you won't find in Europe. Travelling from Lima to the Cusco region and the Sacred Valley, you move through these layers one after another, and the markets of Andean towns show how alive they still are in daily life.

In Turkey, the food changes with every region. In Istanbul, autumn and winter often fill the markets with palamut (Atlantic bonito), and the market lanes of Kadıköy on the Asian side are one of the best ways to see how the city shops. On the Aegean coast the food is lighter: olive oil, wild greens, fish and meze for a long, unhurried dinner. Far to the south-east, Gaziantep is known for baklava and kebabs, while Mardin and Şanlıurfa open onto another, more spice-scented Anatolian table.

How to plan a journey around food

• Choose regions, not countries. Two weeks in Emilia and Puglia gives more than a week scattered across the whole of Italy.
• Follow the season. The same city eats differently from one month to the next – especially in Japan and Turkey.
• Plan mornings at markets. Many are liveliest early, so the first day after a long-haul flight is rarely the one for it.
• Leave evenings open. The best ones are often those you didn't plan.
• One or two cooking classes or farm visits are worth more than five tastings in a row.

Each of these countries can become a journey built around the table: a slow week in Italy's regions, a few well-fed city days in Hong Kong and Macau, the Aegean in autumn, or Mexico from the capital to the Yucatán. Tell us what you love to eat and how you want the journey to feel, and we'll explore the possibilities from there.