Because Latin American culture is inherently welcoming—families will often open their doors to entertain, host, or feed others without giving it a second thought—they offered to take me to Marcos’ hometown so I could see where it all began: in his parents’ bakery. So the next day, the baking duo picked me up in an old red truck, as local news reports blared through the speakers.

We sped out of the crowded city to the countryside, where farms that yield everything from agave to artichokes peppered the landscape. We arrived in the village, with its beautiful Iglesia Zimatlán de Alvarez towering over the center of town and a flutter of small green, red, and, white flags in the main square, and we headed straight for the main market in search of a few ingredients: piloncillo, chile, and different cuts of meat that Marcos promised to grill for lunch.

The market was a treasure unto itself. Various shapes of piloncillo were gathered in bunches, there was fresh masa being made from blue and yellow corn, and pan dulce was piled high. Ingredients for mole, hanging from stalls and overflowing bins, were aromatic and enticing. But it was when we drove down a long, winding road, and reached a metal sign that said Levain Pan—the original, that is—that I knew we were in the right place.

Their home doubles as the bakery, which perhaps explains how their work and identity have become so intertwined. When you live with bread—and the labor of love required to make it—that instinct to follow the scent is rooted in something instinctual. There, in the large kitchen, fresh ingredients were being chopped and ground for a meal; the living room was full of artesanías (handmade crafts commonly found in Mexico). Hints of sweet pan dulce permeated the air.

Marcos’s parents have happily worked together in their home every day for 30 years: up early to bake loaves for the day, before transitioning into the mixing and shaping of breads for the following. They take frequent breaks to sip fresh Oaxacan coffee in the garden until nightfall, when it is time to sell—and they roll their truck out onto the streets as young families and workers getting off the job flock, like moths to the light, toward their glistening display.

Put reaching that moment at the end of the day—when the truck graces the town and bread flies off the shelves—takes work. When we first arrived, Marcos’s mother warmly welcomed me into the home before assigning me the task of laminating dough for their reganadas (similar to a puffed pastry, but rolled extremely thin and dusted with flour at each turn). This no-nonsense woman had a well-ironed system and wasn’t afraid to tell me how it should be done: use lots of flour, pat quickly and fold, fold, fold, making sure to brush excess flour away efficiently. Meanwhile his father, a quiet but steadfast worker, commanded the incredible rotating stone deck oven with ease, meeting me with a quick smile as we worked. Though every step of their process required care and precision, once the evening’s deliveries began—and everyone in the community got a taste of the final result, eyes lighting up in joy—there was a pride to be taken, that any baker could appreciate.

It’s special to see a family-run business enter a new world of baking, and even more so when traditions remain in the process. It’s not an easy balance to strike, but it’s one that represents the momentum of Latin America baking today. And it’s stories like these that fuel the pastries and bread we all love to stumble upon when walking through a new city on a crisp morning.

Speaking to Virgilio Martínez—undeniably Peru’s most lauded chef of the past decade—it’s clear that being the brains behind a restaurant repeatedly named the best in the world (his Lima spot, Central) means that every meal offers the potential for inspiration.

In November, he and traveled to Valencia, Spain, and brought several of his teammates with him—including the chef of his Cusco restaurant, Mil (Luis Valderrama), and his wife, chef Pia León of Kjolle. “We wanted to go to as many restaurants as possible in four days,” he tells me, as we sit in Central’s empty dining room before service begins for the day. Martínez had been to the city before, for the World’s 50 Best Awards, but events kept him so busy that his wishlist of to-visit restaurants remained largely the same once it was time to head back to Peru.

Eager to spend time with fellow chefs, Martínez figured that getting out of their own restaurants would allow everyone the mental space to really catch up. “Most of the time, when I go to speak to my chefs, it’s hard to get away from the chaos of the restaurant—so we said, okay, let’s go to Valencia, and try some of these restaurants we’ve been hearing about.”

What followed was a whirlwind of paella, seafood, and more vegetables than you’d expect from the land of jamón. Below, Martínez tells us about the very best bites of the trip to Valencia—and everything he shoved into his suitcase for the journey home.

What was your most anticipated meal—and how was it?

Quique Dacosta, which was about two hours from the city of Valencia. It’s a high-end experience, with a long menu, where you spend a few hours—the kind of meal that makes you reflect on gastronomy.

We also had excellent paellas. Now, you see paellas everywhere, but you’ve got to go to Valencia to try theirs. Paella Valenciana is made with things like rabbit and snails. The best we had was at Casa Carmela, and Lavoe. At Casa Carmela, it was cooked over fire. It’s a big place, where you get to see all the paellas being cooked and you can smell the smoke. You’ve got to bring a lot of people: The first time I went, we had 10 chefs with us, so we ordered 6 or 7 paellas.

At Lavoe, they let me go into the kitchen and I got to see the broth. It had smoky pimento, and this really intense flavor. Everything was done in a beautiful, organic, artisanal way.

I also had paella at Llisa Negra, and what I liked about that place is that they also serve gambas (shrimp) and Carabineros (jumbo prawn), among all sorts of seafood.

What was your go-to breakfast every day?

I always go to the market. There was the Mercat Central, and we went to Retrogusto to try their coffee. They had coffee from Peru, Panama, and there are little typical snacks like croquetas and jamón all around the market.

The venerated Food Opera dining court at Ion Orchard shopping center has a trove of the city’s best food stalls—including hawkers who have been in business for half a century, like outposts of Sergeant Hainanese Chicken Rice and Thye Hong Fried Prawn Noodles.

Italy has gelato. India has kulfi. Singapore has the ice-cream sandwich. You’ll find a couple of the old-school street carts, which have operated for over 30 years, on Orchard Road. (Look for them outside Takashimaya Shopping Centre.) Expect local flavors like durian, red bean, yam, and sweet corn, spooned between wafer biscuits or slices of pillowy pandan bread. Stroll 20 minutes past Tanglin Mall to Dempsey Hill, where a leafy enclave of British colonial buildings now houses some of Singapore’s loveliest restaurants and bars, including the new Air CCCC from Will Goldfarb and Matthew Orlando, the innovators behind Bali‘s sensational Room4Desserts and Amass, along with Potato Head Bali’s Ronald Akili. The 40,000-square-foot campus contains a restaurant, cooking school, and R&D space, with a big lawn for picnics and garden events. The dishes on the menu rely on local produce, like the yellowfin tuna tataki with charred Sarawak eggplant; and lemongrass-glazed chicken with chunky herb chimichurri. Book in advance.

After a shopping trip on Orchard Road but before dinner at Fysh, head to the Artyzen Singapore hotel for a sunset cocktail in the rooftop garden. With uninterrupted views of Singapore and a scattering of tables and lounges, this is an excellent spot to watch the sun melt with a frosty G&T. Unlike most rooftop bars in Singapore, this one still feels like a bit of a secret. Go now. The 2023 opening of the Singapore Edition really put this side of Orchard Road on the map. Inside the hotel, the celebrated Australian fish specialist Josh Niland, known for his sustainable fin-to-tail approach to seafood, has opened his first international restaurant, Fysh. The high ceilings, dark timber, and green banquettes give it a classic steakhouse vibe—appropriate, given it’s Niland’s first restaurant to serve meat. But stick to seafood to really experience the chef’s wizardry. Expect riffs on local classics like swordfish curry puffs, trout-roe egg tarts, and lobster noodles made partially from fish bones. Go on a Sunday for Niland’s take on a roast, with dishes like grilled cod and swordfish served on the bone, plus plenty of sides.

This article appeared in the January/February 2025 issue of Condé Nast Traveler. Subscribe to the magazine here.

If one were to conduct a poll asking a populace to vote for their city’s one conclusive best burger, NYC residents would likely come up with the closest race out of any of them. That’s because the Big Apple is so vast in its geography and its tastes, so inventive on the form, and so welcoming of smash burgers and traditional patties alike that the myriad potential responses could make a bar graph of results look like the city skyline. Also, people would name their respective bodegas. And since there is no “best burger NYC” straight-up, we’ve looked to our editors to gather some of their favorite burgers from across the city. These picks fire on all cylinders: we’ve got the quick-and-dirty casual smashes, and the thick and bloody steakhouse numbers from the best restaurants in the city.

Patrick Dolande/Gotham Burger Social Club

Gotham Burger Social Club

What started for Mike Puma as a hobby of reviewing burgers around the city and making them himself at dozens of popups throughout the city with hours-long waits has beautifully blossomed into a brick-and-mortar one-stop-shop. Gotham Burger Social Club (GBSC) has a small-town-diner feel that blends seamlessly into the hustle and bustle of NYC, exemplified by its always-busy atmosphere. It’s a good sign whenever you see a chef running the show in the front-of-house, and that’s exactly where you’ll find Mike Puma. There he is, ensuring that every burger (beef or Impossible) with grilled onions, American cheese, and housemade pickles is smashed to perfection, and that each order of “frickles” (fried pickles) comes with tasty homemade sauces. Don’t miss out on their vanilla or chocolate egg creams to maximize that nostalgic feel, and make sure to drink yours while sitting at the counter looking out on an iconic New York City corner, pretending you’re in a rom-com. —Emily Adler, associate social media manager

7th Street Burger

I consider myself a burger connoisseur so whenever I have a craving, I don’t want just any burger—but I also don’t want to wait in a line wrapped around the block for the “best” in the city. So when 7th Street Burger opened a mere block away from my favorite dive in the Upper East Side—one of several locations in the city—I was intrigued. Could this be my new go-to? The replacement for pizzas ordered to the bar? The place I stop by on my walk home from a friend’s birthday party at midnight? The answer to all of the above is a resounding yes. Their menu is simple—either a plain smash burger or one with cheese. Single or double. Beef or impossible meat. One size of fries. Few toppings, great balance of flavor. Every time that greasy unbranded brown paper bag is in my hands, I know I’m in for a treat. —Taylor Eisenhauer, editorial operations manager

Emily

The burger at Emily, with its secret sauce and caramelized onion, is hands down the best in New York City in my book. It’s the kind of burger my friend Fernanda described as “filthy”—so decadent, so indulgent, that describing it in all of its thick, juicy, greasy glory feels NSFW. The cheese oozes out the sides of the pretzel bun, the juices drip down your wrist, the beef is dry-aged Pat LeFrieda. It also costs nearly $31. For a burger! It’s delightfully vulgar. This is the burger for hedonists (particularly those who have time to take a nap right after). People say they love the pizza here, but I can’t imagine focusing on anything but this burger. —Megan Spurrell, associate director, articles

Red Hook Tavern

Red Hook Tavern is not very near to a subway. Most will have to trek 20 minutes or so from a Brooklyn F or G to get here. But, boy, is the burger (which is famous city-wide despite the remote location) worth it. Just about everyone in this warm and humble eating and drinking house will order the burger—you can see into the kitchen from the bar, where a burger gets built on plate after plate in a row. And it’s a worthy burger, even at $30, for a few reasons. If you listen to your waiter, you’ll have it medium rare and therefore juicy as can be. The burger will drip all over your fries, which are included. There’s a lot of American cheese melted on top, and a demure pile of raw onion. The patty is crusted in pepper. It’s just good. And don’t get me started on how nicely it pairs with their Vesper martini. —Charlie Hobbs, associate editor

JG Melon

I’m sometimes skeptical of “The One Thing” to order at a given restaurant, but in the case of JG Melon, it holds up. Every time I’ve been to the (cash only) Upper East Side institution, I’ve ordered the cheeseburger, and I’ve not been disappointed. You can get it without cheese, or with bacon; either iteration comes with LTO and pickles. It’s no-frills, but in the age of the ever-present smashburger, the size is a nice return to burgers of yore. Is it annoying that the pillowy cottage fries are not included? Yes, but order a side anyway. —Madison Flager, senior commerce editor

As a Jewish New Yorker, food is always top of mind—at home, it revolves around cooking and preparing for the next Shabbat or holiday meal, and on the streets of New York City, the world of Jewish food exists vastly in the form of delicatessens, bakeries, lox counters, and steakhouses. In a city with such strong ties to Jewish heritage—namely the Lower East Side where Jewish immigrants settled in the early 1900s, and pockets of Brooklyn, home to one of the largest Orthodox Jewish communities in the world—it’s no secret that some of the city’s best and most nourishing bites have deep historical ties to Jewish culture, with influence from Eastern Europe, Morocco, Israel, and everywhere in between.

Hanukkah is around the corner, and this year, the eight-night Festival of Lights coincides with Christmas Day and New Years. In other words, there’s never been a better time to celebrate this holiday and take advantage of New York City’s Jewish food offerings. These are the most quintessential Jewish and Jew-ish spots to visit this holiday season, and well beyond, no matter what holiday you celebrate.

Gertrude’s

605 Carlton Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11238

The “older sister” restaurant to Gertie’s, this new Brooklyn spot brings a young spirit to Jew-ish staples, including latkes with crème fraîche and trout roe, babka french toast, and brisket hash. Aside from Getrude’s brunch menu, dinner offerings resemble those of a neighborhood European bistro with dishes like steak au poivre and a cheeseburger on a toasted challah roll (hence the Jew-ish). Oh, and don’t miss the Black & White Seven Layer Cake, a mashup of two classic Jewish desserts: black and white cookies and seven-layer cake.

Michaeli Bakery

401 E 90th St, New York, NY 10128

Founded by one of the bakers behind the widely-loved Breads Bakery, Michaeli Bakery offers a more low-key atmosphere with pastries and baked goods that are equally as delicious. Unless you’ve visited the shuks (markets) in Israel, you likely have not tried anything as divine as their babka and rugelach: moist, chocolatey, slightly greasy, and dense in the best way possible. You’ll also find seasonal specials year-round with creative flavors like pistachio and hazelnut sufganiyot (Hanukkah jelly-filled donuts).

Inside Boca, a breezy, biophilic tapas restaurant in the heart of Dubai‘s Financial District, the after-work crowd is drinking at the bar. Downstairs, I’ve joined friends for dinner in the private dining room located in the restaurant’s wine cellar. Many bottles in the collection are from Morocco, Lebanon, and elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa. We start with oysters harvested from Dibba Bay in Fujairah, the easternmost of the United Arab Emirates, on the Gulf of Oman. Opened a decade ago, Boca has become a pioneer in using ingredients sourced from across all seven emirates. The oysters share a menu with only-in-the-Emirates ingredients like khansour, a mountain plant often used in salads, and kingfish from the Arabian Gulf, served ceviche-style. Technically, Boca is a Spanish restaurant, but its Dubai roots and commitment to local ingredients make it uniquely Emirati.

Not long ago Boca’s approach was atypical for Dubai. Since 2001, when Gordon Ramsay flew in to raise the curtain on Verre, inside the Hilton Dubai Creek, the city’s culinary circuit has been dominated by celebrity chefs opening glitzy restaurants inside equally glitzy hotels. In the years to follow, Michel Rostang, Nobu Matsuhisa, and Massimo Bottura all lent their names to restaurants in the UAE, creating a food scene with an international reputation for glamor, excess, and exorbitant prices. Certainly the restaurants were buzzy—Ramsay’s caramelized apple tarte Tatin, served straight from the oven in a copper pan, would sell out each night. But the names and concepts were all imports, detached from anything truly local. For years this meant that Dubai’s only real dining options were big-name, white-tablecloth restaurants or unassuming eateries in neighborhoods without skyscraper hotels, which served shawarmas, pani puri, and cheese-laden manakeesh.

Now there is a third way. Chefs and restaurateurs from the UAE and around the world recognized a gap in the market that would allow them to showcase regional ingredients while pursuing their own culinary ambitions. With the COVID pandemic prompting a desire to support local restaurants, the last few years have seen the rapid growth of a high-quality homegrown restaurant scene.

Take Boca. It’s the brainchild of Omar Shihab, a Dubai-born-and-bred Jordanian national who has become one of the UAE’s leading sustainability champions, working with local and international government bodies. “It didn’t matter what cuisine we served,” he says. “We wanted to feature quality ingredients we could get locally.” This mindset is shared by Shaw Lash, a jovial Texan with a background in Mexican cooking who moved to Dubai eight years ago. At the end of 2022, she and her Dutch Syrian husband, Tarek Islam, opened Lila Taqueria on Jumeirah Beach Road, right next to a small shop serving more local dishes like shawarma. They followed with Lila Molino + Café in trendy Alserkal Avenue, a warehouse complex. “Homegrown, chef-driven wasn’t nearly what it is now, so I always thought Dubai had potential for the Mexican food that I made,” Lash says. She and her team grow most of their ingredients and work with local farmers to source the tomatoes, tomatillos, chiles, squash, and more that brighten up her plates. She and her team also make their own tortillas fresh every morning. Lila Taqueria’s pièce de resistance is a local red snapper, served in two butterflied halves with guajillo chile paste and coriander.

Further inland, among the unassuming maze of Jumeirah Lakes Towers, or JLT, a stack of skyscrapers rising from a series of artificial lakes, a panoply of global cuisines can now be found, including the Peruvian hole-in-the-wall Fusión Ceviche and the Greek taverna Mythos Kouzina & Grill. This is also where, in 2017, Palestinian chef Salam Daqqaq opened her casual Levantine restaurant Bait Maryam, which is Arabic for “the home of her mama, Maryam.” International accolades from the Michelin Guide and the World’s 50 Best Restaurants prompted her to expand next door. This past summer she opened the more upmarket restaurant Sufret Maryam across town in the plush Jumeirah complex of Wasl 51. Its centerpiece is a sufretna—a communal dining table—that seats 20. The star of the menu is habra niyeh, a dish of minced raw beef mixed with spices with a silky pâté-like texture that is perfect for spreading on freshly baked saj flatbread. These are the kinds of places—rather than swanky hotel restaurants—that many of us Dubai locals began seeking out during the pandemic. They don’t all have liquor licenses like the big-ticket spots do, but they’re sure to have a heap of soul.

Soul is what the Serbian restaurateur Stasha Toncev brings to the table. She relocated to Dubai in 2010 to work for Armani Ristorante and later Hakkasan, but found her path in 2018, when she launched 21grams. The tiny 25-seat Balkan bistro’s original location was in the residential Umm Suqeim neighborhood, steps away from a popular public beach in the shadow of the iconic sail-shaped Burj Al Arab hotel. After 21grams opened, I would often wrap up my weekends with a sunset beach stroll and a laid-back dinner there. Four years later, when lockdown restrictions were lifted, Toncev transplanted the venue to a larger space nearby. She and head chef Milan Jurkovic serve what she describes as “honest, wholesome soul food, inspired by the mountains, pastures, and seas of the Balkan peninsula, with centuries-old recipes, modern cuisine, and seasonal ingredients.” Weekends are busy, so the no-reservations policy means lines for a table and all-day breakfast dishes like scrambled eggs in a tomato, pepper, and onion relish with beef chorizo and a soft cow’s cheese, a favorite of Emiratis and expats alike.

For a taste of breakfast from someone who knows a thing or two about brunch and coffee, go see Tom Arnel. The Aussie native, who formerly worked at various Michelin-starred hot spots like Arzak, is a master of growing local businesses in Dubai. Over a dozen years he has opened 12 only-in-Dubai restaurant brands, with 22 total locations. At his first Australian café, Tom & Serg, in Al Quoz, a neighborhood best known for its warehouses, the immediate daily queues proved that a great menu will be popular no matter what the location. “Australia has an amazing café culture that comes with gourmet food for breakfast and lunch,” he says, “and I thought I would bring that to the UAE because the place at the time was full of franchises and international food brands that were spitting out very mechanical food that I didn’t like.” The expat community lapped it up. My multicultural foodie friends and I were more than happy to line up for Arnel’s pop-up Rule the Roast deal—150-day Angus rib-eye beef and Western Australian lamb leg, complete with all the trimmings. The boisterous vibe only added to the fun.

But no conversation about the wave of new homegrown global cuisine in Dubai would be complete without a mention of Filipino food, which until recently was underrepresented in the city despite the large local population. That changed in 2022 when JP Anglo, a globe-trotting chef and social media star who moved to Dubai four years ago, opened Kooya Filipino Eatery after a string of successful pop-up dinners during the pandemic. The menu at his charming bistro is centered around the Philippines‘ signature stews and deep-fried dishes, always served with a dipping sauce. He makes generous use of vinegars and souring agents like calamansi, a lime native to the country. A bestseller at Kooya is the chicken inasal, a dish that originated in Anglo’s hometown of Bacolod. Grilled and marinated in coconut vinegar, lemongrass, and garlic, it is served with sides of papaya salad and garlic rice. For a sweet ending, order the pistachio-coated buttercream “sandwich.” “I’d like to be one of the Filipino chefs to help elevate our cuisine,” Anglo says, “and to hopefully one day bring it to the level of other cuisines like Chinese, Thai, and Indian.”

One cuisine does remain chronically underrepresented in Dubai: Emirati food. Few visitors to Dubai would seek out dishes like machboos, a signature concoction of spiced chicken rice, because Emirati cuisine outside the home remains relatively uncommon. Sahar Parham Al Awadhi is seeking to change that. The poster child for Emirati cooks, she won best pastry chef at the inaugural World’s 50 Best Middle East & North Africa awards in 2022, and became the first Emirati chef to work at the Burj Al Arab. She’s a consultant for Gerbou, which opened in November as one of the year’s most important new places to eat in Dubai. The restaurant, whose name translates to “welcome to our humble abode,” is a modern Emirati restaurant housed in a renovated 1987 building. Located in Nad Al Sheba, near the city’s famous race course, it is surrounded by historic ghaf trees, a symbol of Emirati culture. The menu includes machboos with local chicken and tomato pickles and other Emirati dishes interwoven with the Indian, Levantine, and Mediterranean flavors that Sahar experienced growing up in this relatively young nation.

“There’s always a misconception that only Emiratis should be cooking and pioneering Emirati food,” she says. “I disagree. Especially when we see Indians cooking Japanese and Singaporeans cooking Italian. Everyone should be cooking what they are passionate about.”

Utopia opened in 1981 and until June 2024, fans who wanted to visit the iconic bakery had no choice but to make a pilgrimage to Whitestone, Queens. Thankfully, there’s now a sprawling location on the corner of 34th Street and Lexington Avenue in Murray Hill where bagels are baked on site. They strike an ideal balance between a crispy crust with tiny air bubbles and a solid, but not overwhelming, chewy interior.

Tal Bagels

357 1st Ave., New York, NY 10010

We’ll forgive you if you’re skeptical of a bagel chain with five locations in Manhattan, but don’t allow that to keep you away from Tal Bagels. The bagels here have crusts with lots of tiny bubbles that shatter at first bite. And while the team mostly sticks to the classics, the olive-rosemary bagel is a welcome offering.

Absolute Bagels

2788 Broadway, New York, NY 10025

Absolute is an icon in New York’s bagel scene. Sam Thongkrieng, who moved from Bangkok to New York and then worked at Ess-A-Bagel in the 1980s, opened the shop near Columbia University in 1990. On weekends, lines here are virtually unavoidable, with students, neighbors, and bagel hunters waiting for the slightly doughy bagels with a nice crust that are as big as a hand. If a full size bagel feels like too much, opt for one of the more modestly sized mini-bagels and wash it down with Thai iced tea. Be sure to bring cash.

Robert K. Chin/Alamy

Tompkins Square Bagels

165 Avenue A, New York, NY 10009

The lines at the original location of this beloved bagel shop just off of Tompkins Square (there are two others in Manhattan) are legendary, but the friendly team moves through them efficiently. Fans come to Tompkins Square Bagels for oversized, puffy bagels (including one flavored like French toast), bagel sandwiches, and a wide selection of house whipped cream cheeses like lox dill, plus a slew of sweet options including ones dotted with fresh fruit. There’s some seating in a space that feels a bit like a 90s era coffee shop, but it’s best to escape the mobs by going to the namesake park.

On the first of many runs to Collines, I pick up freshly-prepared tapenade, local walnuts, and La Tomme de la Brigue—an aromatic, almost vegetal cheese made with Brigasque sheep’s milk that I first fell in love with on an earlier research trip to Tende, in the Roya Valley. It’s the inspiration for our first workday lunch in the house—a quick green salad with a garlicky dressing paired with the aforementioned tomme and walnuts—before we step into our temporary offices. Laila has claimed the dining room table, overlooking the long, stone-covered terrace outside.

I set up in the kitchen, as I will every day going forward, and empty my market bags onto the wooden counters until they overflow with local produce, eggs, honey, baguettes, braids of garlic, and bottles of Provençal wine and olive oil. I grab a pair of scissors from the wall and pop just outside the backdoor to the terraced garden. There are tidy lines of herbs to clip, radishes to pull, and small, bright kumquats to snack on. It’s a cook’s garden and sparser in the winter, certainly, but impossibly lush by my bare-pots-of-herbs-on-a-Parisian-balcony standards. Back inside, I embark on developing an egg-rich brioche for La Tropézienne and begin scrubbing vegetables for Daube Provençal.

As the linen-covered bowl of dough slowly rises on a stool in the corner and the combination of onions, carrots, beef, and red wine simmers gently on the stovetop, I grab a bowl of potato chips and leave the fragrant, quickly approaching clichéd, Provençal scene to regroup with Laila outside for apéro on the terrace. In summer months, this same terrace overlooking the pool below is coated in lush greenery, the long table shielded in dappled light; today, the winter sun grows the shadows long on our glasses (I’m sipping a gin and sherry cocktail that later makes its way into the book as the Martini Provençal). I note the time, take a sip, and text Joann Pai, the book’s photographer, who will be arriving later in the month to shoot. This is the light I want to capture when she arrives.

The next morning—and each one that follows—is spent writing. My writing routine is the same with every book: wake up early, light candles, make coffee. But pre-sunrise in the Provençal countryside hits differently than those at home in Paris. The house and its surrounding landscape are blanketed in a darkness so complete that it’s disorienting. I fumble my way to the kitchen with my computer and I open the refrigerator to take in my first, slumped attempt at a Tarte Tropézienne. Last night’s test was a fail: the brioche too dry, the pastry cream too thin, seeping from the sides and onto the platter beneath. It’s the kitchen and its former inhabitant’s well-documented tenacity that inspires me to mark up the recipe and start measuring flour anew, as my coffee silently brews.

Later that day, I hop in the car and drive to Antibes in search of a specific slice of pissaladière we ate on a research trip last summer. It’s still there, at the boulangerie just down the street from the marché, the crusty, oily (in a good way), nearly burnt (also in a good way) caramelized onion and olive-topped slice exactly how I remember it: an ideal afternoon snack, and an ideal inspiration for the the recipe I’ll write for le SUD.

This combination of the familiar and the new, as I breathe the air of the place I’m writing about, allows me to connect to the material in a way that is deeply invigorating—somehow, I barely resent those 5 a.m. writing wake-ups.

In the following weeks, I make steady progress on the headnotes that weave together the book; style, shoot, and eat with my team on those produce-studded countertops (we are later also joined by photography assistant Kate Devine and kitchen assistant Lise Kvan); steadily line the teal shuttered window outside the living room with our emptied bottles; make multiple imperfect Tropéziennes—none worthy of ink on the page—and absolutely nail recipes for garlic roast chicken, pissaladière, and candied kumquats.

It won’t be until I’m back home in Paris that I finalize both the manuscript and the recipe for La Tropézienne that now lives on page 232 of the book. But the spirit of my time in le Sud is in every bite.

Upon reaching Phnom Penh, our first act was searching for dinner. I will never forget my first meal that truly tasted like home, after fourteen years in exile: It was fitting that it should be prahok—our defining (and aromatic) national condiment. We found someone preparing a version very much like my mother’s splendid cooked prahok: mixed with kroeung spice paste, minced pork, and young tamarind leaves, all wrapped in a banana leaf and grilled. Although I had never developed a taste for raw prahok as a child, that day the luscious, pungent fish was, for me, the flavor of Cambodia. I closed my eyes and drank in the familiar aromas. A sense of relief and well-being washed over me. Something essential from that lost world had survived, after all.

That feeling lasted as long as my first few bites of prahok. No matter how hungry I’d thought we were in postwar Saigon, nothing prepared me for what I witnessed in Cambodia in 1984: people living in inconceivable starvation and squalor, with little relief. Which is why, even with the Khmer Rouge out of power, we Cambodians still streamed toward Thailand by the hundreds of thousands. And Thailand reeled from the onslaught.

Phnom Penh was a dark and crippled city. This was no longer the elegant capital that had bewitched me as a little girl, as I zipped around its glittering streets on the front of my brother Noh’s moto. The stately old buildings were chipped and faded or crumbling into the street, their courtyards and sidewalks overgrown and buckled. The usual big-city bustle of cars, cyclos, street-cart vendors, and families piled onto motos had stilled to a wary murmur. There were no young girls floating by in elegant dresses, no scrubbed and spoiled children dressed in their finery and dragged toward churches and pagodas, no whisper of music drifting out of windows.

A few saffron-robed monks had somehow survived. In the mornings, they strode in quiet rows, much as before. But most of the resplendent old churches, pagodas, and monasteries were now derelict shells or razed to the ground—the Khmer Rouge had demolished many places of worship. Others they had repurposed as storehouses, meeting halls, prisons, or extermination sites. They had converted the national library and archives into a kitchen, and its walled garden into a pigsty. The books and records had been burned; our written history used as firewood.

The city did not function in any meaningful sense. Electricity was rare, and clean water was nearly unobtainable. Trash and sewage were every where. Shops and businesses were shuttered and dark, and many houses sat empty. Except for the very occasional moto (or moto-remork towing a long cart), the only vehicles on the roads were military trucks. Everyone seemed to have the same idea: move into an empty house and find some miserable items to sell in the street. Postwar Phnom Penh was a ramshackle city of squatters, hustlers, and beggars. Of hollowed cheeks and protruding ribs. Even the Vietnamese soldiers looked hungry and haunted.

But the rats and flies thrived.