Every morning starts with the press of a button on my trusty electric kettle. Whether I’m making a pour-over or brewing a cup of tea, this essential part of my day wouldn’t be possible without the Fellow Stagg EKG kettle, which I’ve had for over six years. It’s incredibly fast, quiet, and has a temperature control feature that’s adjustable down to the degree. In fact, it’s one of the best electric kettles we’ve tested and is our top gooseneck kettle pick. The kettle has come with me along multiple moves and is usually the first appliance to be plugged into the wall. For serious coffee or tea drinkers, it’s a must-have in the kitchen. As I always say: Buy it once and enjoy it for ages. Plus, it’s on sale right now.

Why It Won Our Review

It’s Speedy and Accurate

This kettle is so fast that by the time I’ve selected my tea and mug, the water’s already at the desired temperature. I love that the smooth control dial can be set it to the exact temperature I need, down to the degree. It’s accurate, too. In our tests, it nailed the measurements when we checked the water with an instant-read thermometer at varying intervals. It also has a handy “hold” function to keep contents warm for up to an hour.

It Pours Exceptionally Smoothly

Thanks to the temperature control kettle’s thin, curved spout (hence the name), it pours smoothly to evenly saturate coffee grounds or tea leaves. The handle has a counterweight that helps stabilize pouring, no matter how full the kettle is. It’s no surprise that the Fellow Stagg EKG is a go-to for many professional baristas.

It Lasts a Long, Long Time

Look, I’ve had this electric kettle with temperature control for years and it’s still just as fast and accurate as the day I got it. Its consistently great performance is essential to my morning routine. As someone without a microwave, I even use it for baking when I need water at a precise temperature to bloom yeast.

Why We Recommend It

Fellow Stagg EKG Electric Gooseneck Kettle

This is an all-around great electric kettle that’s fast, accurate, and reliable. It lasts a long time, too. Plus, it’s easy on the eyes and comes in a range of colors. The latest upgrade to the original model even has a built-in scheduling mechanism to streamline your mornings. Don’t miss your chance to grab it while it’s on sale.

Why We’re the Experts

• An Uong is a writer for Serious Eats.
• An has been testing kitchen gear for Serious Eats for over two years.
• She loves a hot beverage and always has a cup of tea on hand.
  

A good cup of coffee can make or break your day, which is why it’s so important to ensure you’re using the best tools to brew it. Trust us: We’ve tested nearly every piece of coffee gear under the sun, including 29 espresso machines and 17 gooseneck kettles. If there’s anything we know, it’s what you need to make the perfect brew. You don’t have to break the budget either; we’ve tested plenty of affordable coffee gear that’s impressed us over the years. Our top picks under $50 include the best espresso scale and an editor-favorite Yeti Rambler tumbler.

The Best Coffee Gear Under $50 at a Glance

• The Best Budget Coffee Grinder: Krups Precision Burr Coffee Grinder
• A Great Milk Frother: Instant Pot Milk Frother 4-in-1 Electric Milk Steamer
• A Portable Coffee Maker: AeroPress Original Coffee Press
• A Clever AeroPress Attachment: Fellow Prismo Attachment for AeroPress Coffee Maker
• Our Favorite Budget French Press: Coffee Gator 34-Ounce French Press Coffee Maker
• The Best Espresso Scale: OXO Brew Precision Coffee Scale with Timer
• The Best Spring-Loaded Tamper: LuxHaus 53-Millimeter Espresso Tamper
• A Great Moka Pot: Bialetti Moka Espress Stovetop Espresso Maker
• The Best Single-Serve Coffee Maker: Kalita Wave Series Wave Dripper 155
• An Editor-Loved Coffee Tumbler: Yeti Rambler 20-Ounce Travel Mug

Krups Precision Burr Coffee Grinder

If you’re still using a spice grinder to grind your coffee, this is your sign to please—please—upgrade to a burr grinder. Don’t want to spend too much on one? The Krups is under $50 and gives you more control over the grind size, so it’s already a step up from using a blade grinder that simply chops your coffee instead of grinding it.

Instant Pot Milk Frother 4-in-1 Electric Milk Steamer

This milk frother heats up quickly and produces excellent foam at an approachable price. Its simple interface has four functions: cold foam, light warm foam, thick warm foam, and warming without foaming. We liked that it heats up quickly and can differentiate between latte and cappuccino foam.

AeroPress Original Coffee Press

Whether you’re camping or avoiding hotel coffee, the AeroPress is the way to go for portable, strong coffee. It brews quickly and packs up to about the size of a soda can. You also can’t beat the $34 price tag.

Fellow Prismo Attachment for AeroPress Coffee Maker

If you want to get as close to espresso as possible with the AeroPress, we recommend grabbing this attachment from Fellow. It has a pressurized rubber valve and a micromesh metal filter to enable an even stronger brew.

Coffee Gator 34-Ounce French Press Coffee Maker

This insulated French press coffee maker is a steal at $35. It produces a solid cup of coffee and demonstrates excellent temperature retention during our tests. It also comes with a mini coffee canister.

OXO Brew Precision Coffee Scale with Timer

We’ve always loved the OXO food scale, and the brand’s coffee scale is no exception. It has a large display with clear digits and delivers fast, accurate readings. We also liked its built-in timer and the 3,000-gram capacity, making it suitable for other measuring tasks in the kitchen.

Normcore V4 Coffee Tamper

This coffee tamper is spring-loaded to deliver a precise tamp every time. You can also adjust the springs to choose the amount of pressure you need. We liked its sturdy build and tapered handle that’s comfortable to hold.

Bialetti Moka Espress Stovetop Espresso Maker

You can’t get a more classic coffee experience than this moka pot. It makes consistently strong, flavorful brews, and all its pieces fit together without trouble. Its heavy-gauge aluminum construction conducts heat well for strong steam pressure and well-extracted coffee.

Kalita Wave Series Wave Dripper 155

If you like a slow, thoughtful coffee routine, grab our favorite single-serve coffee maker. The Kalita is loved by beginners and experts alike for its consistent brews and ease of use. We also liked that the comfortable handle doesn’t get hot when brewing.

Yeti Rambler 20-Ounce Travel Mug

After you’ve carefully brewed your coffee, the vessel is just as important to consider. After testing 15 coffee tumblers, the Yeti Rambler mug emerged as an editor-favorite. It’s leakproof, smooth to sip from, and keeps coffee hot for hours.

Why We’re the Experts

• An Uong is a writer for Serious Eats.
• An has been testing kitchen gear for Serious Eats for over two years.
• She has coffee every day and has more coffee tools than she does storage space for them.
  

Though I make my own marinara sauce most of the time, I have a soft spot for the jarred stuff because I grew up on it. Even today, despite my preference for homemade, I still like to keep a jar of marinara sauce in my pantry: Whether you’re using it as the base for chicken or eggplant Parmesan, baked ziti, or simply tossing it with pasta for an easy dinner, a jar of premade tomato sauce is especially handy in a pinch. Today, there are an overwhelming number of marinara sauces to choose from. But which is worth buying?

To find the very best marinara sauces, our editors sampled 24 different marinara sauces you’re likely to find at your local supermarket or online. We placed each in bowls, then sampled them in random order without knowing which sauce was which. After tasting our way through 24 marinara sauces (and suffering some serious heartburn), we tabulated the results and crowned two winners that we’d be happy to keep in our own kitchen.

The Criteria

Marinara sauce should be well-seasoned and balanced. It should have a natural sweetness and acidity from the tomatoes, but taste neither aggressively sharp nor overly sweetened with additional sugar. There should be savory depth and a hint of herbaceous flavor from oregano and/or basil. It should also have a nice, thick texture that’s neither too watery nor too chunky, with some noticeable pieces of tomato and specks of herbs or alliums.

Overall Winners

Mezzetta Marinara Sauce

Every single one of our tasters loved this marinara sauce, which was well-balanced and flavorful in all the right ways. Our senior social media editor Kelli found it pleasantly tangy, and our associate visuals editor Amanda thought it had a nice tomato flavor. This sauce had just the right texture, too: “A little chunky in a nice way,” Amanda wrote. Similarly, our associate editorial director Megan, found it “nicely thick but not pasty.” Our editorial director Daniel enjoyed this sauce so much he decided that the two best sauces should be tied for first. (See below.)

Rao’s Marinara Pasta Sauce

Like Mezzetta’s marinara sauce, Rao’s had great tomato flavor and just the right amount of chunk. “Fruity, fresh tomato flavor,” Daniel wrote. “Classic marinara vibes.” (He correctly clocked this as Rao’s.) Megan described it as “nicely salty and not too sweet,” and appreciated that there was “no weird aftertaste.” Our editors liked the sauce’s crushed texture, which had an appropriate amount of chunks without being too thick. “Good crushed/puréed texture with some tomato-y bits,” Daniel wrote. 

The Contenders

• 365 by Whole Foods Market Organic Marinara Pasta Sauce
• Bertolli Traditional Marinara sauce
• Bionaturae Organic Marinara Pasta Sauce
• Botticelli Marinara Sauce
• Carbone Marinara Sauce
• Cento Marinara Pasta Sauce
• Classico Marinara Pasta Sauce
• Franceso Rinaldi Marinara Sauce
• Kirkland Signature Organic Tuscan Marinara Sauce
• Matriark Gentle Marinara Sauce
• Mezzetta Marinara Sauce
• Michael’s of Brooklyn Marinara Sauce
• Muir Glen Classic Marinara Pasta Sauce
• Newman’s Marinara Sauce
• Paesana Marinara Sauce
• Pomì Marinara Sauce
• Prego Classic Marinara Sauce
• Ragú Old World Style Marinara Sauce
• Rao’s Homemade Marinara Pasta Sauce
• Target Good & Gather Marinara Sauce
• Trader Joe’s “Trader Giotto’s” Tomato Basil Marinara
• Victoria Marinara Sauce
• Wegman’s Smooth Marinara Sauce
• Yo Mama’s Original Marinara

In Conclusion

Many marinara sauces are made with tomato purée, a cooked and strained tomato product. Both our winners start with whole plum tomatoes, according to their ingredient lists: Mezzetta’s from Italy and California, and Rao’s from Italy. As we touched on in our guide to canned tomato products, whole peeled tomatoes are often made from the ripest fruits, and allow manufacturers and home cooks to have more control over the final texture of whatever they’re preparing. 

Other common ingredients in marinara sauce are sugar, dried flavorings like alliums and herbs, as well as calcium chloride to help the tomatoes keep their shape and citric acid for additional tartness. Our editors' ratings indicated that marinara sauces with added sugar were often described as excessively sweet, while those made with citric acid were often described as unpleasantly tart (keep in mind, the tasters didn't know which sauces they were tasting nor their ingredients). 

Neither of our winners contain sugar, calcium chloride, and citric acid, and are instead made with just a handful of ingredients: whole peeled tomatoes, olive oil, onions, salt, garlic, basil, black pepper. The only difference between the two is that Rao’s contains oregano and Mezzetta’s contains “spices,” which according to the Food and Drug Administration, could refer to any “aromatic vegetable substances.”

The takeaway? For the most balanced and flavorful marinara sauce, look for one that’s made with whole peeled tomatoes and contains a short ingredient list, with no added sugar or citric acid.

Our Testing Methodology

All taste tests are conducted with brands completely hidden and without discussion. Tasters taste samples in random order. For example, taster A may taste sample one first, while taster B will taste sample six first. This is to prevent palate fatigue from unfairly giving any one sample an advantage. Tasters are asked to fill our tasting sheets ranking the samples for various criteria. All data is tabulated and results are calculated with no editorial input in order to give us the most impartial representation of actual results possible.

When I imagine the colors of spring, I think of yellows and pinks, grassy greens and pastel blues. Or maybe those are the colors of Easter—or...has Peeps marketing fully conquered my brain? Well, whatever the origin of my associations, the result when transmogrified to deviled-egg form are the little snacks you see here: fragrant cups of egg white filled with a light and bright yolky mixture that's folded with both mayonnaise and crème fraîche, minced tarragon, quick-pickled red onion, Dijon, and lemon juice. Suffice it to say, if you're doing a casting call for vernal deviled eggs, these both look and taste the part.

Deviled eggs are a fairly straightforward food, which means I don't have a ton to say about these, except to offer the following tips:

• Try to find eggs that are not too fresh. The freshest eggs tend to stick to the shell after boiling, making peeling a pain and often resulting in pitted and scarred whites. It's better to use eggs that are a bit older—still good, edible eggs, of course—but not straight from the hen's cloaca (wow, both graphic and safe for work! I impress myself sometimes).
• Get a jump start on your pickled onions. I love what I call rapid pickling, in which onions are submerged briefly in vinegar and left to sit just long enough to soften their texture, tame their raw-onion bite, and give them a bright acidic pop. When you use red onions and red wine vinegar, they turn an amazing shade of magenta, which is especially apt for a spring-themed egg. I recommend getting them started first (here the onion is minced instead of thinly sliced, but otherwise it's exactly the same as the recipe linked in the ingredient list). By the time you've boiled your eggs, the onion should be more or less ready. If you can let them sit a little longer, even better.
• Feel free to just use mayo. I call for a combination of crème fraîche and mayonnaise for the yolky filling, which produces a particularly light and bright result that fits the theme well. But if you have everything you need to make these except the crème fraîche, please go ahead and just use all mayo instead; they'll still be good. You may need to up the lemon juice slightly for a touch of acidity if you do, but otherwise it'll be fine. (To that end, you can also use different herbs—dill or parsley are both good stand-ins for the tarragon, obviously with very different flavors, but none of them will be bad.)

In a large bowl, set up an ice bath by partially filling it with a combination of cold water and ice; set aside. Fill a medium pot with water and bring to a boil. Carefully lower eggs into pot and continue to boil for 30 seconds. Cover tightly, reduce heat to low (water should maintain a bare simmer), and continue cooking for 11 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, immediately transfer eggs to prepared ice bath and let cool, about 3 minutes. Peel eggs under cool running water, then slice each egg in half lengthwise.

Transfer yolks to a medium bowl. Add mayonnaise, crème fraîche, pickled onion, lemon juice, Dijon, tarragon, and cayenne. Using a fork or sturdy whisk, mash and stir together until thoroughly combined. Season with salt.

Transfer yolk filling to zipper-lock bag or piping bag. Cut off corner of zipper-lock bag or piping bag and pipe filling mixture into egg white halves, overstuffing each hole. Garnish deviled eggs with more minced pickled onion and small tarragon leaves. Serve.

Special Equipment

Slotted spoon, zipper-lock bag or piping bag

Notes

Very fresh eggs tend to have their shells stick to the whites more, making peeling more difficult. Eggs that are slightly older are best for hard boiling.

If desired, you can substitute the crème fraîche in the recipe with additional mayonnaise; you may need to add a touch more lemon juice to balance the flavor.

Throughout India, pickles are enjoyed as a condiment with many meals, eaten with dal, rice dishes, parathas, or even many breakfast dishes such as pohé. Mango pickle is one of the most popular pickles throughout the country. There are many regional variations of it, each with its own unique blend of spices and flavors. But at its core it’s most often made from green, underripe mangoes, spices, and mustard seed– and spice-infused oil. 

My mother loved to make pickles this way, often with whatever fruits or vegetables she had on hand. They were a welcome burst of flavor to most of our meals, and my favorite was her mango pickle. On evenings when we had guests over to our home for dinner, the first thing she would do that morning was start macerating the pickles in plenty of salt and a spiced-infused oil, so they would be ready to serve later that night. She’d pickle whatever was on hand: carrots, cauliflower, peeled ginger, or my absolute favorite, mango. 

How Indian Pickles are Prepared 

In Western cooking, the term “pickling” most often refers to the food preservation method involving submerging food in an acidic solution, like vinegar, or via lactic acid fermentation. But most Indian pickles go through neither of these processes, and instead are preserved, or “pickled” by coating the mixture in salt and sugar and submerging in spiced oil.

Most homemade Indian pickles involve mixing vegetables or fruits (sometimes blanched or cooked first, but not always) with plenty of spices, salt, and oil. The pickle is then either packed into large ceramic pots known as bharani (or barni) and put in the sun for several days to ferment—the layer of oil on top inhibits mold growth while excluding oxygen—or it's allowed to macerate for a short period at room temperature and then transferred to the refrigerator for storage, which skips the fermentation in favor of speed and ease.. This recipe is the latter type—a quick refrigerated pickle that comes together in little time but is still bursting with flavor.

How to Make Quick Mango Pickle

This quick pickle is simple to make, but there are a few key things to get right so you end up with robust, zesty flavor and a crunchy, salad-like texture.

Selecting and Preparing the Mango

First, make sure to use green, unripe raw firm mangos that are not fully mature, not to be confused with underripe mangoes that will ripen soon (and have a thicker skin on them). As they sit in the salt and oil mixture, the mango pieces will soften slightly, but they'll still retain some of their firm texture. If you were to start with ripe mangos, the mango pieces would fall apart and become mushy. 

I personally prefer to leave the skin on my mangos when I make this pickle. I enjoy its chewy texture, and I find that it helps the mango flesh retain its shape even when cut into smaller sizes. That said, many people will prefer the pickle without the skin (and some may even have a mild allergic reaction to it), so the recipe below instructs you to peel the mango; note that when peeled, the mango should be cut into slightly larger pieces (the 1/2-inch size in my recipe below is a good ballpark) so they can better retain their shape even without the skin..

Tips on Preparing the Spiced Oil

One of the key components of the mango pickle is a spice-infused oil that adds flavor and a glistening, slippery texture. When I prepare the oil, I like to use an Indian seasoning wok, which is a small vessel specifically for this type of purpose. Many of you won't have this exact piece of cookware, but any small, flat-bottomed saucepan or carbon-steel skillet will work well.

The order of which spices are added to the hot oil also matters. The brown mustard seeds are added first. They will (and should) pop while cooking, so make sure to have a lid or cooking screen handy to contain the splatter.

The asafoetida, ground turmeric, Kashmiri red chile powder, and fenugreek seeds are then bloomed in the hot oil to round out its flavor. Asafoetida is a dried and ground gum resin that drips off the roots of an herb called ferula asafoetida, a central Asian plant in the celery family, and I love its assertive, oniony-garlic smell and flavor. (In the Indian state of Maharashtra, where my family is from, the combination of asafoetida, mustard, and turmeric is often considered the “holy trinity” of seasonings.) 

The oil mixture is then tossed with the mango and left at room temperature to macerate—just make sure the oil has cooled before adding it to the mango, or it risks heating the fruit and turning it mushy. During the maceration time, the flavors will blend together, and the salt and sugar will soften the mango.

This recipe works well with other fruits and vegetables as well. I like to prepare it with carrots, cauliflower, or apples, or under-ripe pears. I’ve included measurements for these variations below the main recipe.

In a large metal bowl, toss diced mangoes with salt and jaggery or sugar until combined; set aside.

In a seasoning wok (see notes) or small heavy-bottomed saucepan or small carbon-steel skillet, heat oil until smoking, about 3 minutes. Test oil temperature with one mustard seed. If it pops right away, your oil is ready; if not, return heat to medium-high for 1 additional minute and retest. When ready turn off heat and immediately add mustard seeds to the saucepan and cover with the lid/screen. The mustard seeds will pop, making a sound like popping corn, about 30 seconds.

Once the popping stops, uncover the pan and add the turmeric, red chile powder, asafetida, and fenugreek to the pan, stir gently to mix. Let the oil cool completely, about 30 minutes.

Scrape the cooled oil onto the mango and mix well. Taste the mango and add more salt or sugar if desired.

Let mango stand at room temperature, stirring occasionally until well macerated, at least 3 and up to 4 hours. Then transfer to an airtight glass container or jar and refrigerate until ready to use. Before serving, stir to combine and serve in a small bowl as a condiment.

Variations

Carrot Quick Pickle: Substitute mango with 2 1/2 pounds medium carrots, cut into 1/4 -inch pieces, and continue with recipe as written.

Cauliflower Quick Pickle: Substitute 1 large head cauliflower (about 2 pounds), trimmed and cut into 1/2-inch florets and continue with recipe as written.

Pear or Apple Quick Pickle: Substitute 4 crisp apples or slightly underripe, firm pears; core and cut into 1/2-inch chunks, leaving the peel on. Continue with recipe as written.

Special Equipment

Metal or glass mixing bowl, large metal spoon (so turmeric does not stain it), Indian seasoning wok or a small sauté pan, canning jars or glass containers for storage

Notes

Make sure to use unripe mango that are not yet mature and will not mature, and not to be confused with underripe mangos, which are mature mangos that just have not peaked in ripeness yet.

If using jaggery, a couple seconds in the microwave will help soften it. Then you can chop it just like chocolate with a bread knife. Alternatively, a microplane works as well.

Asafetida can be found at most Indian grocers. I recommend the powder sold in small jars, rather than large plastic containers, because the plastic can hold the aroma. Keep it tightly shut between uses, otherwise the smell will pervade your entire kitchen. While it adds a distinct flavor to the chutney, you can omit it if unavailable, though the chutney will be less aromatic.

A seasoning wok is a small wok that is used in Indian cooking for toasting spices and for making seasoned oil blends. They generally are made from thicker metal than Chinese woks. I often use a seasoning wok at home to make spice blends for a variety of dishes, but a small sauté pan or skillet will work well in its place.

Make-Ahead and Storage

The pickle can be stored in airtight jars and refrigerated for up to 1 week.

For some home cooks, whipping up a homemade dessert that's delicious and Passover-appropriate sounds too daunting even to attempt. While there's certainly nothing wrong with going store-bought, that's not your only option. Below, we've gathered 12 of our favorite Passover-friendly sweets—including coconut macaroons, flourless chocolate cake, and a light and fluffy angel food cake—that will impress everyone at your seder.

A note about the recipes that follow: Though some were designed with Passover in mind, others are meant to be more all-purpose, which means some of them contain ingredients not considered kosher for Passover—or, at least, not considered by everyone to be such. Ordinary vanilla extract and vanilla paste are not considered kosher for Passover; you may substitute a kosher vanilla extract or the scraped beans from a vanilla pod. As dietary restrictions and traditions vary widely, we've chosen here to offer a range of recipes to meet a range of preferences, with the hope that everyone will be able to find a dish that they love.

Chocolate Mousse

Rich with bittersweet flavor and light as a cloud, chocolate mousse is a simple, elegant dessert that’s deeply satisfying to eat. And because it has to made ahead of time, it's the ideal dessert for entertaining.

Double-Caramel Flan

This gorgeous custard is chock-full of caramel, while a higher-than-usual ratio of egg yolks and cream makes it pleasantly rich. Tempering the eggs before combining them with the caramel, cream, and milk ensures that they incorporate smoothly.

Chocolate-Dipped Coconut Macaroons

In our version of the classic Passover dessert, we toast unsweetened coconut flakes to deepen their color and flavor. For subtle vanilla and almond flavors, this recipe calls for vanilla paste and nut liqueur instead of the typical extracts; substitute kosher vanilla extract or vanilla beans if necessary to keep the macaroons kosher.

Honey-Vanilla Almond Cake

Ground whole almonds or store-bought almond meal serves as a flavorful stand-in for wheat flour in this pretty cake. The dessert gets its airy texture from whipped egg whites, and little acid in the form of lemon juice helps stabilize the whites before they're mixed into the batter. This recipe calls for butter to grease the pan, but you could easily swap it out for oil to make this a parve dessert.

Flourless Chocolate Cake

This flourless chocolate cake is rich and pleasantly bittersweet, with crisp edges and a fudgy interior that comes from folding melted chocolate into a mixture of whole eggs and sugar that have been whipped until thick and pale. (To make this cake truly flourless, skip the baking spray with flour. Grease the cake pan by brushing it with softened butter, dusting it with cornstarch or your gluten-free flour blend of choice, then shaking out the excess.)

The Ultimate Gluten-Free Angel Food Cake

This cake is phenomenally light and fluffy, thanks to a blend of gluten-free flours and whipped egg whites. Combining egg whites and sugar all at once creates a dense but stable meringue, and whisking it in stages creates a fine network of air cells for a delicate crumb.

Chocolate-Meringue Cookies

Chocolate lovers will love these light little meringue cookies, which put the bittersweet flavor of high-quality dark chocolate front and center. Making the meringue itself constitutes the lion's share of the work here, and even that isn't as tough as you might think it is.

Earl Grey and Vanilla Poached Pears

For the simplest dessert, poach your pears in a fragrant mixture of Earl Grey tea and vanilla. This dish is subtly sweet with a delicate floral flavor—plus, it comes together in one pot and requires just about 30 minutes to make.

Meyer Lemon Ice Cream

Brighten up your Passover table with this zesty Meyer lemon ice cream, which is packed with fresh Meyer lemon juice and zest, along with a dash of citrus liqueur. Note that this recipe contains a small amount of cornstarch, which some may want to avoid during Passover.

Tishpishti (Sephardic Jewish Nut Cake)

Our version of this festive dessert features grated apple—which tenderizes what might otherwise be a heavy cake—and a heady mix of spices and citrus. A final soak in apple brandy–ginger syrup infuses it with a subtle spice and sweetness.

Creamy Whipped Greek Yogurt

Looking for a tasty dairy dessert that's about as easy as it gets? Whipping Greek yogurt using a stand mixer may sound a little too simple, but the texture it takes on—like a hybrid of thick yogurt and fluffy whipped cream—makes it an extremely luxurious dessert, especially when layered with fresh or roasted fruit. Heavy cream thickens the yogurt, a touch of honey lends gentle sweetness, and rosewater or vanilla bean gives it a floral note.

Mango Sorbet

Sweet, buttery Ataúlfo mangoes are in season this time of year, so Passover is the ideal occasion to make a batch of this simple yet devastatingly good sorbet—all it takes is mangoes, lime juice, sugar, and a little salt. Thanks to the high ratio of fruit to water, the sorbet churns up extremely rich and creamy, with a beautiful deep-golden color.

Kitchen essentials are the foundation of successful home cooking. You’ll want an excellent frying pan, a Dutch oven that’ll last ages, and a trustworthy toaster oven. If you’re looking to upgrade some gear to make your kitchen run more smoothly, we’ve sniffed out some deals at Williams Sonoma that are too tempting not to share. We sorted through the brand’s spring sale and found an enameled Staub cocotte for 50% off, plus our all-time favorite Breville toaster oven for $50 off.

Staub 3-Quart Enameled Cast Iron Deep Oven

Staub makes one of our favorite Dutch ovens, and this 3-quart deep version is a steal at 50% off. It has the same durable cast iron construction as the one we love, with a dark enameled interior that resists chipping and staining. Staub cast iron sears well, heats uniformly, and cleans up without a hitch.

Breville Smart Oven Pro

This toaster oven has been our editors’ favorite for years. It produces toast that’s golden brown across the entire surface, with no light or dark spots. It can also cook a 10-inch frozen pizza to perfection.

Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro

Get two countertop appliances in one with this air fryer toaster oven that produces crispy fries and crunchy chicken wings. It also toasts, bakes, broils, roasts, dehydrates, slow cooks, and more.

Le Creuset 8-Quart Enameled Cast Iron Oval Dutch Oven

This Le Creuset oval Dutch oven is ideal for your grandest of meals, like a Biryani-style whole roast chicken. Its spacious 8-quart capacity fits enough food to feed a large group of people. Plus, we’ve always liked that a Le Creuset is well-designed enough to go straight from the oven to the dinner table.

Le Creuset Round Straight Wall Ramekin, Set of 2

Every kitchen needs a set of stoneware ramekins. They’re great for serving snacks or baking individual chocolate soufflés. We loved that the inset bottoms on these Le Creuset ones allow them to stack neatly (no more toppling towers). They cook food thoroughly and clean up quickly by hand or in the dishwasher.

Staub Enameled Cast Iron Grill Pan

We recommend this Staub grill pan to get deep char marks on your paninis or burger patties. Thanks to its tough enamel coating, it’s a breeze to clean—even stuck-on food bits don’t stand a chance. It’s also nearly $100 off.

Global Classic Hollow-Ground Vegetable Knife

This is one of our top nakiri knife picks. It’s super sharp, well-balanced, and cleaves cleanly through produce. Be it fibrous carrots or thick sweet potatoes, it slices and dices smoothly. 

All-Clad D3 Tri-Ply Stainless-Steel Fry Pan

Many of our editors swear by All-Clad stainless steel cookware. This pan has been among our top picks for frying pans for a long time thanks to its excellent searing and heating capabilities. It can produce crispy salmon fillets and release delicate fried eggs without a problem.

Why We’re the Experts

• An Uong is a writer for Serious Eats.
• An has been testing kitchen gear for Serious Eats for over two years.
• She loves a good deal, especially on kitchen equipment.
  

One of the best parts about Easter is, arguably, the big piece of lamb—impressive, succulent, and delicious—at the center of the table. Lamb can be gamey and dry, especially when it's poorly prepared. Made thoughtfully, however, lamb can be a delicious, tender, and mild cut of meat with just the right amount of gaminess. Below, you'll find our nine favorite lamb recipes for the Easter table, including an impressive crown roast of lamb and a slow-roasted leg of lamb rubbed with fragrant rosemary and garlic. (Need some help picking the best lamb for your celebration? Check out our guide to buying and cooking lamb.)

Pan-Roasted Rack of Lamb

With nothing more than a pan and some butter, garlic, and herbs, you can make an astoundingly delicious rack of lamb. An optional dry-brining step seasons the meat and dries the exterior for better browning, and basting the racks with hot fat helps it cook evenly.

Qidreh (Palestinian Bone-In Lamb With Spiced Rice)

Brimming with tender bone-in lamb and fragrant rice, qidreh is the hallmark dish of the Palestinian city of Hebron. Serve it with a side of plain yogurt and a chopped salad, which provide lightness and complement the dish's rich and earthy flavor.

Crown Roast of Lamb With Couscous Stuffing and Pistachio-Mint Sauce

Set on a bed of fluffy couscous and served with a pistachio-mint sauce, this crown roast of lamb is a show-stopping centerpiece fit for a holiday meal. Cook the lamb low-and-slow, then bump up the heat to give it a beautiful brown crust.

Grilled Butterflied Leg of Lamb With Rosemary, Garlic, and Mustard Crust

Rub your lamb with a fragrant mixture of garlic, mustard, olive oil, white wine, rosemary, lemon juice, and salt, then let it marinate for 12 hours. When you're ready to serve, all that's left to do is throw it on the grill.

Tender Braised Lamb Shanks With Bitter Herb Salad

A fragrant spice blend and a long, slow braise produce flavorful lamb shanks that practically melt off the bone. Here, anchovies give the dish a savory boost, and a mixture of spices—coriander seeds, fennel seeds, ground cumin, and smoked paprika—bring complexity and depth.

Roasted Spiced Lamb Ribs With Whole Grain Mustard Sauce

These lamb ribs are rubbed with a punchy mix of smoked paprika, fennel seed, chile flakes, and cumin, then slow-roasted until they're tender and juicy. Served with a whole grain mustard sauce, they're a meaty, satisfying main dish worth making for your holiday table.

Slow-Roasted Boneless Leg of Lamb With Garlic, Rosemary, and Lemon

Leg of lamb makes for a wonderful Easter roast. We especially like a boneless cut, which is easy to season inside and out and cooks more evenly than a bone-in leg. Rub the lamb with an aromatic mixture of garlic, shallots, rosemary, and lemon zest, then roast it until it has a crisp brown crust and a rosy medium-rare center.

Sichuan Roast Leg of Lamb With Celery-Mint Salad

Bring some heat to your Easter table with this Sichuan-inspired lamb dish. Seasoned with ground Sichuan peppercorns, cumin, dried red chiles, fennel seed, and star anise, each bite is satisfyingly hot and numbing—and will keep you coming back for more.

Braised Lamb Shoulder With Dried Chilies and Dates

Stressed about cooking for a crowd? This set-it-and-forget-it dish is as easy as it gets—and lets the oven do the hard work for you. A Dutch oven heats the meat evenly from all sides, allowing it to brown while becoming tender, and sweet dates balance the acidity of the tomatillos and the heat from the chiles.

Growing up in Ohio, I figured sauerkraut balls came over from Germany, or maybe Eastern Europe. Truth is, they’re probably from Cleveland.

I’ve heard a lot about these crunchy little pork-and-kraut fritters over the years: They’re the most popular appetizer at The Golden Lamb Inn, a hotel and restaurant in Lebanon, Ohio, that my family has owned since 1926. The kitchen rolled about 200,000 of them in 2024.

The Golden Lamb happens to be the oldest continuously operating restaurant in Ohio, but our sauerkraut ball recipe only dates to the 1960s, when an accountant named Edith, visiting from Cleveland, shared a version with longtime chef Norm Sims. That’s all I knew about its history for years. After doing some research, I’d bet a few orders that Edith got her recipe from the source, or somewhere close to it: a white-tablecloth restaurant in her hometown called Gruber’s.

Looking through decades of newspaper articles, I didn’t find any mention of sauerkraut balls as we know them (as opposed to meatballs cooked with sauerkraut, which have been around for a long time) until the late 1940s. That’s when diners and food writers began taking note of the signature appetizer at Gruber’s—created as a tasty and economical way to use up meat scraps, per various accounts.

In 1949, the nationally syndicated columnist Erich Brandeis wrote about trying “a delicious concoction such as neither my wife nor I had ever seen or tasted before” at a party. He went on: “The hostess gave my wife the recipe—you take some sauerkraut and put it through the grinder together with boiled ham. You mix this with some thick white sauce, form it into little balls, and roll them in bread crumbs. Then you deep-fry them until they turn nice and brown and serve, first sticking a toothpick in each ball." I don’t know where Brandeis, who lived in Connecticut, had his first sauerkraut ball, but that feels a lot like the Gruber’s recipe that ran in papers nationwide in the years after World War II. So does the recipe we use at the Golden Lamb.

In the decades since, the city of Akron, about forty-five minutes from Cleveland, has formally adopted the sauerkraut ball. Readers at the Akron Beacon-Journal voted it the city’s official food in 1996. If you search “sauerkraut balls” on Newspapers.com, you’ll see that that paper has run about twice as many articles about the heartland croquettes—1,278, at the time of publication—as any other in the country. Judy Orr James’s 2022 cookbook “Akron Family Recipes” concludes with an entire chapter on sauerkraut balls, subtitled “It’s An Akron Thing.” 

But even James acknowledges that Cleveland did it first, noting that the Beacon-Journal didn’t mention sauerkraut balls for the first time until November 1952, after Gruber’s had already impressed the famous food writers Clementine Paddleford and Duncan Hines with theirs.

And while the sauerkraut ball has evolved over the years, including at the family restaurant, which now has its own secret recipe, the Gruber’s version was a national phenomenon for a reason. I went through dozens of reference recipes when researching this dish, and though I experimented with more recent additions and substitutions including cream cheese (very common), breakfast sausage (common), and pork shoulder (less common), none improved on the original formula. So, I cleaned it up for a modern audience, making only relatively minor changes to improve the texture and flavor. The foundational recipe is all about balance—between pork chops and ham, hearty meats and zingy sauerkraut, a tender center and a crisp, crumb-coated crust. This recipe maintains that.

There are similar dishes in Europe, including Dutch bitterballen, rich with beef and gravy, and Spain’s well-known croquetas de jamón. Sauerkraut balls follow a familiar formula—sautéed meats and aromatics bound with a roux, shaped, breaded, and fried. And the combination of pork and sauerkraut is common in European cookery, of course, especially in Germany and Eastern Europe, where many northern Ohio families trace their roots. In the melting pot that is the Midwest, those imported ideas came together to form a perfect little appetizer, bar snack, and party bite. Drawing on European tradition but almost certainly native to the Buckeye State, these sauerkraut balls balance the flavors and techniques of the Old World with the playfulness and ingenuity of the New.

In a small bowl, whisk to combine 1/2 cup flour, salt, pepper, and mustard. Set aside.

In a large Dutch oven or large skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Add pork chops and cook, turning occasionally, until browned on at least two sides, 5 to 7 minutes. Add onion, and cook, lowering the temperature if necessary to prevent burning and stirring occasionally, until softened and translucent, about 5 minutes. Add sauerkraut and ham and stir to combine.

Sprinkle seasoned flour mixture over sauerkraut mixture and cook, stirring continuously, until no flour is visible, about 1 minute. Slowly add milk in a steady stream while stirring continuously and cook until mixture thickens and clumps together, 1 to 2 minutes. Remove from heat.

Let mixture sit at room temperature until cool enough to handle, about 10 minutes. Using a meat grinder or pulsing in a food processor, pulse (about 25 pulses for a food processor) into a cohesive mixture of small, uniform pieces. It should resemble ham or tuna salad in texture. Spread mixture evenly across a plate and let it cool to room temperature, about 15 minutes. Cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate until chilled and firm, at least 2 hours.

Once chilled, use hands to roll sauerkraut mixture into 1-ounce balls (about 30 total).

Set up a breading station with 3 shallow bowls: Fill 1 bowl with remaining 1/2 cup flour, 1 with eggs, and 1 with panko breadcrumbs. Using separate hands for wet and dry ingredients, roll each ball in flour, then egg mixture, then breadcrumbs, pressing lightly to ensure an even coating at each stage.

Heat oil to 375°FF (190°C) in a large Dutch oven or heavy-bottomed pot (oil should measure 2-inches deep, add more if needed). Working in batches of about 10 balls at a time, fry sauerkraut balls until golden brown and cooked through, turning if needed for even browning, 2 to 3 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to transfer to a paper towel-lined wire rack set in a rimmed baking sheet. Lightly season the fried balls with salt. Repeat with remaining sauerkraut balls. Allow to cool for 5 to 10 minutes before serving. Serve with ramekins of cocktail sauce and mustard for dipping.

Special Equipment

Large Dutch oven or large skillet, meat grinder or food processor, large Dutch oven or heavy-bottomed pot for frying, slotted spoon or spider skimmer

Make-Ahead and Storage

The sauerkraut balls are best enjoyed immediately.

As far as cookware goes, there’s arguably no better investment than a cast iron or carbon steel skillet. Take a modicum of care with either one and it’ll last forever. (I’ve heard of cast iron pans passed down for generations.)

Both types of skillets get rip-roaring hot—and stay that way—and withstand high temperatures. This allows cast iron and carbon steel to put gloriously browned crusts on steaks, bake golden cornbread, shallow-fry anything, and even go on the grill. But because the world is expensive and kitchen storage is at a premium, the question then becomes: Which one should you buy? 

What Is Carbon Steel vs. Cast Iron?

Cast iron pans are typically a single piece of metal. To make one, a molten mixture of pig iron and steel (and other proprietary ingredients) is poured into a mold. Lodge—the maker of our favorite cast iron skillet—uses molds made from sand, which has a higher melting point than metal. “Once the cast iron pan or pot has cooled, the sand mold is broken, leaving behind a brand new piece of cast iron cookware,” Lodge says. 

Carbon steel, on the other hand, is a mixture of carbon and iron. The percentage of carbon varies, but, according to Misen, it’s often less than 3.5%. Carbon steel pans are stamped, not molded, meaning a sheet of metal is pressed into a shape. The handles are later welded or riveted on.

Which Weighs More?

There’s no getting around it: Cast iron is heavier than carbon steel. Our top-recommended Lodge skillet is five pounds, seven ounces, whereas our winning carbon steel pan is a little over three pounds. Cast iron’s weight (as well as its maintenance—more on that below) is what I hear the most complaints about. That being said, its heft has its advantages. Namely, its sheer mass gives it the edge over carbon steel for searing and browning. 

When Do You Use Cast Iron vs. Carbon Steel?

Sear, brown, roast, pan-fry, and bake: Both cast iron and carbon steel go neck and neck with each other and can be used for all of these core tasks. They also have supremely high maximum temperatures—cue “the limit does not exist”—though our favorite carbon steel pan from Mauviel lists a max of 680ºF. (Note: Some skillets, like this one from Misen, have lower max temperatures. Always double-check the manufacturer’s specifications.) The differentiators? Carbon steel pans have flared, sloping sides that make them better for sautéing, as does their lighter weight. Conversely, I find cast iron’s higher, straighter sides more reassuring when shallow-frying chicken cutlets or baking a skillet cake.

What you shouldn’t use cast iron or carbon steel for is the same. Namely, skip either when simmering acidic sauces like ye olde tomato, as the acid can eat away at the pan’s seasoning. And neither would be my top pick for delicate, stick-prone dishes like a French omelette.

Which Costs More?

As with most things in life, you can spend as much as you want on a cast iron or carbon steel pan. I have Smithey and Blu Skillet Ironware pans that cost hundreds of dollars. That said, you don’t need to, which is the beauty of both materials. Our tests showed that relatively inexpensive cast iron and carbon steel pans performed as well or better than their pricier counterparts. Our favorite Lodge cast iron skillet is about $20, whereas our carbon steel pick from Mauviel is under $100.

Which Is Easier to Season?

While most cast iron pans come pre-seasoned, the same can’t be said of carbon steel. Only half of our favorite carbon steel pans are pre-seasoned. Seasoning carbon steel requires heating the pan, applying a thin layer of oil, and then burning that oil off so it forms a polymer all over the skillet’s surface—and then repeating this whole process until the pan takes on a deeply browned hue. Seasoning a cast iron skillet is not entirely dissimilar, though is arguably less smoky, since we recommend doing so in the oven.

How Do You Care for Them?

Care for both cast iron and carbon steel is simple, though often overblown. The one rule? Don’t leave ‘em wet. As we explain here, to clean, either you’ll want to scrub it with hot, soapy water—yes, soap is fine once the seasoning’s built up—rinse, dry immediately, and apply a light layer of neutral oil that’ll act as a protective barrier, preventing rusting. 

So, Which Is Better? 

Sorry, but neither is unequivocally better. If you don’t have either, I’d opt to get a cheap cast iron skillet first. But I do love carbon steel and find myself reaching for this lighter pan more than its cast iron counterpart. The annoying answer is I think it’s worth having both. They’ll only get better with age, proving their versatility and durability again and again. 

Why We’re the Experts

• Riddley Gemperlein-Schirm is the associate editorial director of Serious Eats. 
• She’s been with the site since 2021 and has been testing gear professionally for more than six years. 
• Riddley owns several carbon steel and cast iron pans.
  

It's April. Daffodils have sprung up, trees are beginning to bloom, and the produce at my farmers market is getting greener and greener. Still, the weather in the Northeast continues to keep most of us on our toes as it oscillates between freezing winter temperatures and moderately warm days. Thanks to Mother Nature's erratic behavior, some of our staffers are still whipping up comforting and warming meals, while others are dusting off the grill or tossing together crisp spring vegetables to make a refreshing salad. Our list of editors' picks this month includes minimal-effort recipes, like Caesar deviled eggs, a savory carrot tart, and clay pot rice with silky chicken and mushrooms. You'll also find a simple mocha tres leches cake, which takes just about 20 minutes to prep, and fluffy almond rolls that taste like a mash-up of almond croissants and cinnamon rolls.

Cantonese-Style Braised Brisket

"I love when Genevieve publishes a savory recipe because—to be honest with you—the chances that I attempt to tackle one of her delicious baking endeavors is almost always close to zero. I tasted this during a photo shoot and have been thinking about it since." - Amanda Suarez, associate visuals director

Grilled Whole Cauliflower With Teriyaki Sauce

"The image of this golden brown head of cauliflower stopped me in my tracks. With the weather finally thawing out a bit, I can't wait to try this at home. I'm especially excited about the teriyaki glaze—yum!" - An Uong, writer

Cantonese Clay Pot Rice With Velveted Chicken and Mushrooms

"It is not a new recipe, but I have been dreaming of Lucas Sin's clay pot rice with chicken and mushrooms almost daily for weeks. I must make it, and soon." - Daniel Gritzer, editorial director

Fluffy Almond Rolls

"Contributor Zola Gregory's almond rolls—basically cinnamon rolls filled with almond cream instead of the classic cinnamon sugar mixture—sound absolutely delightful, and I can't wait to make a batch this weekend." - Genevieve Yam, senior editor

Fried Pickles

"I love fried pickles—tangy, crunchy, zesty. And even better when they're dipped in ranch." - Grace Kelly, senior editor

Mocha Tres Leches Cake

"I love tres leches cake, and I especially enjoy it when the weather starts to heat up. I've never had a mocha version, but it’s tres leches flavored with chocolate and espresso. What's not to love? Seems perfect for a dinner party when you could use a little pick-me-up at the end of the night." - Kelli Solomon, senior social media editor

Carrot and Raisin Salad

"Carrots are a truly underrated vegetable. I love them raw as a snack or roasted as a side, but I rarely put them in my salads. This salad looks so refreshing and positively screams spring. Plus, it seems like a fast and flavorful side for an Easter roast." - Kelli

Harcha (Moroccan Flatbread)

"Nargisse's harcha are my new go-to weeknight biscuit—the semolina flour gives them such a wonderful sweet and nutty flavor. Plus: They require just a handful of ingredients and come together in just one bowl." - Leah Colins, senior culinary editor

Caesar Deviled Eggs

"I love deviled eggs any time of year, but they're a must-have for Easter for me. I love the classic deviled eggs my mom always made—with mustard, dill pickle relish, and plenty of mayo— but I'm also a fan of creative spins. I was on-hand to taste these Caesar salad–inspired eggs when Daniel was developing the recipe, and they're phenomenally savory and satisfying." - Megan O. Steintrager, associate editorial director

Savory Carrot Tart

"This is the perfect Easter brunch recipe, and you cannot convince me otherwise!" - Rochelle Bilow, editor

Spring Salad of Asparagus, Ramps, Snap Peas, and Peas With Lemon Zest Vinaigrette

"Former editor Kenji's spring salad has everything I want to eat right now: crisp-tender asparagus, sweet peas, and ramps. I am desperate for all of these ingredients to come into season, and can't wait to make this salad when they do." - Genevieve

Some people like to clean out their fridge by making a soup, stew, or stir-fry. I prefer to do it with warm, buttery biscuits, which are a versatile vehicle for the odds and ends in your kitchen. Have rogue cheese, fresh herbs, and random nubs of cured meats? Toss them into your dough. It’s an effective and delicious way to curb food waste, and allows you to come up with whatever flavor profile you want for your biscuits: cacio e pepe, maple syrup and bacon, or, my favorite, sour cream and chives. 

The recipe below comes from my Birmingham, Alabama-based test kitchen colleague Tricia Manzanero Stuedeman, who baked batches and batches of biscuits to land on a formula for tender, flaky sour cream and chive biscuits that are also quick and easy to make. The sour cream gives the biscuits a pleasant tang, and a touch of garlic powder helps amplify the chives’ allium notes and natural sweetness. Making biscuits from scratch may feel intimidating and sound labor-intensive, but Stuedeman’s recipe comes together in just about an hour (only half of that is active prep time). And, with a few tips and tricks, you’ll be able to make light, fluffy bakery-worthy biscuits. 

The Key Techniques for Making Tender, Flaky Biscuits

Add a Little Cornstarch

Gluten is a network of protein molecules that gives doughs and batters their structure. The higher a flour’s protein percentage, the more gluten that flour can develop when hydrated. While gluten is essential in baked goods, developing too much of it can result in tough, chewy pastries. To reduce the gluten potential of a flour, bakers often incorporate cornstarch to “soften” a flour’s proteins. This is what Harold McGee, the author of On Food and Cooking, describes as diluting the gluten proteins. Adding a small quantity of cornstarch reduces the overall gluten in the dough, resulting in tender biscuits.

Triple the Dairy

Butter, sour cream, and whole milk all play a very important role: They provide fat. Butter and sour cream, in particular, help coat the flour particles (and a pair of gluten proteins called glutenin and gliadin) in fat to minimize gluten development, resulting in softer, lighter biscuits. Here, we cut half-inch cubes of butter into the dry ingredients until they’re pea-sized, then toss to evenly coat the flour mixture with fat.

Like buttermilk, an acidic ingredient frequently used to make biscuits, sour cream provides a nice tang and reacts with alkaline baking soda to help the biscuits rise. But because sour cream is so thick, it’s crucial to add extra liquid to hydrate the dough and help it come together, which is where whole milk comes in. Together, they produce soft, flavorful biscuits with good rise.

Laminate the Dough

Laminating refers to the technique of folding pastry over and over itself to create numerous layers. It’s a common technique many French pastry chefs use to create puff pastry or viennoiserie, like croissants. Below, we roll the dough into a rectangle, fold it into thirds like a business letter, then repeat once more for biscuits with plenty of layers.

Keep the Biscuit Dough Cold

Chilling the dough allows the gluten to relax, but it also ensures that the specks of butter in the biscuit dough remain intact. As the biscuits bake, the small pieces of butter melt, creating pockets of steam that give the biscuits their flaky layers and lift.

Adjust oven rack to middle position, and preheat oven to 425°F (220ºC). Line a 13- by 18-inch rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, cornstarch, sugar, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and garlic powder. Using a pastry blender or two forks, cut in butter until mixture is crumbly and butter is pea-sized. Stir in chives until combined.

In a small bowl, whisk sour cream and milk to combine. Stir sour cream mixture into flour mixture just until combined and dry ingredients are evenly moistened. Using clean hands, gently press and fold flour mixture in bowl until dough just holds together.

Turn out dough onto a clean, lightly floured surface; using your hands or a rolling pin, gently press or roll dough into a rough 9- by 5-inch rectangle. Fold rectangle into thirds like a business letter. (Dough may still be a bit crumbly at this point but will come together. If you are struggling to lift and fold the dough, use a bench scraper to help fold the dough.) Repeat process one more time, very lightly flouring surface or dough if needed; press or roll dough to 3/4-inch thickness.

Using a floured 2 1/2-inch round cutter, cut dough into 8 biscuits, rerolling and cutting scraps once, if needed; very lightly flour surface or top of dough only if needed to prevent sticking. Arrange biscuits on prepared baking sheet, spacing them at least 1 inch apart. Freeze, uncovered, until firm, 10 minutes. (If your freezer is too small for a 13- by 18-inch rimmed baking sheet, you can chill dough on parchment-lined plates, then transfer to prepared baking sheet once biscuits are firm.)

Brush tops of chilled dough with egg. Bake until tops are golden brown and biscuits are cooked through, 15 to 17 minutes. Set baking sheet on a wire rack, and let cool for 5 minutes. Serve warm with softened butter.

Special Equipment

13- by 18-inch rimmed baking sheet, parchment paper, whisk, rolling pin, bench scraper, 2 1/2-inch round cutter, pastry brush, wire rack

Notes

Onion powder can be used in place of garlic powder, if desired.

Make-Ahead and Storage

These biscuits are enjoyed fresh. Once cooled, leftovers can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.

To freeze biscuits, place them on a parchment-lined rimmed baking sheet and freeze. When frozen solid, transfer biscuits to a large zip-top bag or airtight container and freeze for up to 1 month.

Guacamole is old—really old. The word itself comes from "ahuacamolli," which means “avocado sauce” in Nahuatl, and the dish dates back at least the Aztec empire in Mexico, before the Spanish arrived in the 16th century. At its most basic, it requires little more than avocados and serrano or jalapeño chiles, traditionally mashed in a large basalt mortar and pestle with some salt. The Aztecs prepared such avocado-based sauces for hundreds of years, making guacamole and its progenitors among the oldest continuously prepared dishes in the Americas.

An early written recipe for guacamole appeared in the 17th-century autobiography of the pirate William Dampier. He described a mash of avocado, sugar, and lime that he was introduced to near modern-day Panama. It was one of many forms of guacamole, both then and now. They vary in texture and consistency, ranging from thin and saucy all the way to something so chunky it might be described as a salad, and anything in between. These differences can reflect regional or personal preferences, as well as how the guacamole is intended to be used; whether as a condiment on tacos, alongside roasted meats and rice and beans, spread on sopes, or as a dip with tortilla chips.

The guacamole recipe I'm sharing here is not sweetened or mashed into a chunky salad, and it isn’t your standard game-day chip dip either. Instead, it's a taquero-style guacamole. Think of it more as an avocado sauce: pourable, creamy, and spicy with a zesty kick of cilantro. It’s ideal for spooning over (or into) tacos, quesadillas, burritos, nachos, and whatever else your heart desires. It goes particularly well with tacos de asada, tacos capeados or a hearty papa loca (a grilled potato mashed with cheese and topped with carne asada). 

Many taco shops throughout Mexico have some version of this sauce. If it’s watered down too much, clients might complain that they’re being served “aguamole.” In some cases you may even encounter a "guacamole" that doesn't even have avocados in it, but instead is made with cheaper summer squash, sometimes referred to as “fake guacamole.” 

I learned the recipe below from second-generation taquero Paco Gaztelum, who often serves it at Tacos El Veneno, his taco cart in Mazatlán, Sinaloa. Paco has prepared variations of this taquero-style guacamole hundreds if not thousands of times, adjusting the flavor and consistency to pair perfectly with the dish it is being served with.

For this particular recipe, he designed a sauce that is avocado-forward with a pleasant hint of heat.He says the key to his sauce is as simple as picking good avocados. Ultimately, if the avocado tastes good, the guacamole will taste good. Picking great avocados is a bit easier in Mexico for Paco, where high quality, fresh avocados are more abundant than in other countries. Still, Paco says cooks in the U.S. and elsewhere can find the best ripe avocados available by following a few guidelines.

How to Select the Best (and Ripest) Avocados

Paco recommends using Hass avocados in his recipe. Hass avocados are widely available in the US and their buttery, creamy texture and flavor consistently produces flavorful guacamole. But Hass are not the only good avocados out there, and if you have access to other types of avocados, it can be worthwhile to try them. Just make sure to measure the avocados by weight, and not by the number of avocados, to ensure the right ratio of avocado to water; otherwise the consistency may be way off.

As a Hass avocado ripens, it darkens in color, and its dark color is the first good indicator of whether it's ripe. But a dark color alone will not tell you if the avocado is at it's peak. Ultimately, the best indicator for when an avocado is ripe is its feel: A ripe avocado should be soft, especially near the stem, but it shouldn’t feel spongy or hollow. You can also wiggle the stem—if it’s ripe, the stem will easily peel away from the fruit. 

Avocados have a short window of perfect ripeness, so make sure to take ripening time into consideration when shopping and meal-planning, and be prepared to purchase your avocado a few days before making the guacamole. (For avocado ripening tips, check out our guide on how to ripen and store avocados.)

Fine-Tuning the Guacamole’s Aromatics

If you don’t like spice (or your chile smells particularly pungent), you can cut it in half and remove the seeds, which carry a lot of the heat. This works for both serrano and jalapeño peppers. Another tip from Paco: For jalapeños, the spiceness can be gauged by looking at the veiny white striations on the outside of the chile. The larger and more visible these marks are, the spicier the pepper. 

Another parameter to keep an eye on is the salt level. Paco says that when seasoning this guacamole, it’s important to keep in mind the dish you plan to serve the sauce with. Serving it with salty, heavily seasoned pork tacos? You might want to scale down the salt amount in this guacamole. Is it going on a lighter fish dish? You might want to be more heavy-handed with the salt. “The quantity [of salt] is about balancing the dish, taco or chip, whatever you’re going to eat,” Paco says.

Like any really good guacamole, this recipe is almost infinitely flexible. Try it without cilantro, with a squeeze of lime, or with more or less salt or water to dial in your favorite version. I’ve had taquero-style guacamoles with a hint of garlic, a little finely chopped tomato, and even small chunks of queso fresco. As Paco’s father, a retired taquero, likes to say, “En la cocina, el cocinero manda”—in the kitchen, the cook is in charge. 

The Best Way to Store Taquero-Style Guacamole

This guacamole, like all guacamole, is best enjoyed very shortly after it’s prepared, but what about leftovers? Is there a way to prevent leftover sauce from browning? Oxygen is what causes avocado to turn unsightly brown. As is discussed in Serious Eat’s perfect guacamole recipe, there are a few hacks out there that claim to prevent this, such as the common tip of putting the pits on top of the guacamole to prevent browning or adding acid (most often lime juice). But the best option is to is to store the guacamole in a container that minimizes the amount of air it’s exposed to (a squeeze bottle works best) and to press a double layer of plastic wrap directly onto the surface of the guacamole if it is going to be exposed, to minimize oxidation.

In a blender, blend avocado, cilantro, serrano, water, and 1 teaspoon salt until completely smooth. Season to taste with additional salt as needed. Serve.

Special Equipment

Blender 

Notes

A seeded jalapeño can be substituted for the serrano chile for an even less spicy option.

Make-Ahead and Storage

The guacamole sauce is best eaten the same day it's made. It should be refrigerated in an air-tight container when not in use (a squeeze bottle works great). Second-day leftovers still taste good, and light oxidation on top disappears with stirring. After that, the loss of flavor and color become increasingly noticeable.

Hyperlocal pizza traditions are no longer just local—many have gone national. I’ve met Seattle natives who swear the best pizza in the country is New Haven apizza, and one of my favorite pizza shops in New York is a Chicago-style joint known for—get this—their thin crust.

I spent countless hours of my youth in Jersey slice shops, refining my skills in pizza identification: a square vs. a grandma slice, margherita vs. cheese. Now I'm an adult with a tendency toward culinary fixations as well as a more refined pizza palate developed while working in Brooklyn pizzerias like Roberta’s and Barboncino. I constantly think about the next trend to take this pizza-loving country by storm, and right now my money is on a pizza subculture within a subculture (a "pizz-ception," if you will). AND it’s from my home state. I’m talking about Trenton’s own mustard pie.

A mustard pie is exactly what it sounds like, a fantastic slice of NJ pizza with the zip and heat of spicy brown mustard spread just below the cheese. It adds depth and complexity, accomplishing more than many more bombastic pies ever manage to, without being overpowering.

Now for those who have alarm bells ringing just at the thought of this combination, I remind you that tomato and mustard are a savory dynamic duo. The sweet acidity of the tomato brightens the earthy heat and slight bitterness of mustard. French chefs knew this when they developed tarte à la tomate, a savory pie made with tomatoes, Gruyère, and Dijon mustard. And need I remind you of the two brightly colored bottles that sit on every diner table and are used to top fries, burgers, and dogs, often in combination?

Where Does the Mustard Pizza Come From?

Of course, making a mustard pizza isn’t as simple as squirting some of the yellow stuff onto your dollar slice. The recipe is an evolution of the tomato pie, a Jersey icon with roots in Trenton, New Jersey and surrounding areas.

The tomato pie is reminiscent of New Haven coal-oven pizza with a thin, well-done crust. The unique thing about these NJ pies is that they eschew the typical pizza construction: Instead of building pies by topping dough with sauce and then cheese, they go dough first, then cheese, then blots of sauce. The result is a tomato-forward experience that brings the acidity and sweetness of the juicy red fruit to the forefront. A pizza befitting a state known for its tomatoes, if you ask me.

Though I haven’t uncovered the full backstory behind the momentous innovation of adding mustard to the classic tomato pie, I do know it took hold when Bill Schuster of Schuster’s—a now-defunct Trenton pizza shop—began drizzling spicy brown mustard onto his pies. Against all odds, people fell in love with the tangy bitterness, and it quickly became a cult favorite in the area.

It was such a hit that, when Schuster’s closed, their customers flocked to nearby Papa’s Tomato Pies, demanding they put mustard on their pizzas. Not wanting to disappoint, Nick Azzaro, the current owner of the 113 year-old restaurant and grandson of the founder, obliged and now Papa’s, already an institution in its own right, has become the de facto home for the mustard pie. In fact, the exterior of their shop is adorned with a sign that proclaims, “Home of the Mustard Pie.”

The Key Steps to True-to-the-Original Homemade Mustard Pizza

I am not new to the mustard pie, and I have spent many nights staring down at an empty Papa’s box with bits of mustard remaining, contemplating this piece of niche pizza history. Deep down, I knew as the food-fixated, pizza-possessed cook that I am that I needed to pay homage with my own recipe. So here we are.

I am not going to give a custom dough recipe here, since I think this wonderful NY Style Pizza Dough recipe plays the role well in a mustard pie. I also tested my recipe with store-bought dough and got similarly awesome results, so you should feel comfortable using whatever is most convenient or appeals to you. I will only say that I do not think a super-thin Neapolitan crust holds up well to the moisture of the mustard and tomato sauce in this pie; I suggest avoiding it here.

Step 1: Pick the Right Mustard

In my research, I found a few local news stories that reported that the mustard used by Papa’s is a brand of spicy brown found in every grocery store. But I wouldn’t be honoring my inner food nerd if I just picked up a bottle of Golden’s and called it a day. I tried six mustards and mustard combinations including straight Dijon, yellow mustard, and a mix of spicy brown and stone-ground to find the one I like best. While each had their merits (I especially loved the pops of the mustard seeds in the stone-ground), I settled on a choice that seems to deviate from the mustard at Papa’s: a combo of Dijon and spicy brown.

Straight spicy brown was great and came the closest to matching the flavor of Pop’s, but I found myself longing for a slightly punchier hit of mustard. After eating far too many slices, I settled on a mixture of equal parts Dijon and spicy brown. The Dijon does not take center stage, but instead makes the spicy brown taste a bit more robust and helps to make the mustard flavor stand out amid the cheese and tomato.

Step 2: Keep the Sauce Simple

My professional pizza-making experience has been exclusively in spots known for their Neapolitan pies. In Naples, the sauce tends to be quite straightforward, not much more than canned tomatoes blended with olive oil and salt. According to the folks at Papa’s, they do the same.

However, I had to do my due diligence. I tested a few pies with a variety of sauces, some barely cooked at all, others simmered for a half hour up to a full hour (in line with this site's NY-Style Sauce). But I found that the more cooked sauces overpowered the mustard with their deeper tomato-paste character. Much better were high-quality canned tomatoes that taste bright and fresh, simply blended and slathered directly onto the pizza. I was still craving a bit of that sweetness typical of many NY/NJ pizzas, so I added a small amount of sugar to bring the sauce more in line with that profile. 

Step 3: Be Selective With Your Mozz

The go-to cheese in most American pizza shops is whole milk, low-moisture mozzarella (I call it WMLM for short). This cheese is different from both fresh mozzarella and also the much more common low-fat, low-moisture mozzarella sold at most supermarkets, but it's the best choice for the cheese on this pie. In contrast to fresh mozzarella’s subtle creaminess, WMLM mozz is comparatively much sharper with a firmness that makes it easy to grate. Fresh mozzarella makes creamy pools of cheese, but what we want is that shiny, cohesive layer of melted cheese you see on most NY-style pies. Low-fat mozzarella, on the other hand, melts into a more rubbery blob that doesn't have the richness of whole milk.

The challenge is that WMLM mozz can be hard to find. If you have trouble tracking it down, whole-milk string cheese is a good alternative, bringing the sharpness and firmness we’re looking for. You could freeze it and grate it or, if you’re not so committed to classic grated cheese shreds, simply slice the string cheese sticks into thin coins.

Step 4: Cook it Right

Cooking spectacular pizza at home without the right setup can be very difficult. Commercial and dedicated home pizza ovens have floors that can reach temps around 800ºF. This ensures that the dough cooks through and browns quickly while the lower ambient temperature melts the cheese a bit slower, ensuring perfect pizza equilibrium. In the lower heat of a home oven, you can easily dry out the cheese and break its emulsion so the fat pools in the time it takes to fully cook the dough below it.

The best luck I’ve had with avoiding this issue in a home oven is by using a thick, high-quality pizza stone or steel and a long preheat time of at least a half hour. These steps, along with cranking your oven to its highest temp, will combine to bring your oven as close as possible to the power of the multi-deck behemoths you see at your local slice shop. Keeping your shredded cheese in the fridge just until ready to bake is also really helpful in balancing out the cheese and dough cooking times.

If, after your first few pies, you’re still ending up with the broken cheese issue, I’d suggest you par-bake your crust for a third of the total time, then, with measured mise at the ready, pull the oven rack out and quickly and carefully add the toppings before sliding the rack back in place to finish. The stone will retain its heat while the reduction in ambient temp from opening the oven will aid you in keeping your cheese from overcooking.

Set oven rack to lower-third position and place a pizza stone or baking steel on it; preheat oven to 500°F (260°C) or as high as your oven will go. Wait at least 30 minutes before baking.

In a food processor, combine tomatoes, olive oil, and sugar and process until mostly smooth with only small chunks remaining. Season to taste with salt. Transfer to a bowl and set aside.

In a small bowl, stir together Dijon and spicy brown mustards and set aside until ready to use. If mixture is too thick, stir in a drop or two of water to loosen slightly for easier spreading.

Set one ball of dough on a well-floured work surface and, using your fingers, press down repeatedly to dock the dough and flatten slightly. Then, using the base of your palm, press the dough into a slightly larger circle roughly 7 inches wide. Next, stretch dough into a 12-inch circle either by draping the dough over your hands and using your knuckles to evenly stretch the dough, or by quickly tossing it back and forth between your hands, rotating the dough to maintain an even circle (this second method is the most effective but also takes the most practice). Lay the dough on a lightly floured pizza peel.

Dollop 1/3 of the mustard mixture onto the center of the dough, then use the back of a spoon to spread the mustard all over the dough, leaving a 1-inch border. Top with 1/3 of the cheese, staying within the border of the mustard.

Using a large spoon, drizzle 2 1/4 ounces (64g), about ⅓ cup, of sauce over the pie. Carefully, but confidently, slide the dough off the peel onto the pizza stone. Cook until the crust is thoroughly browned and the cheese is melted, 12 to 15 minutes.

Using the peel, transfer pizza to a clean work surface and immediately slice. Repeat with the remaining dough balls and topping ingredients.

Notes

If using the linked recipe, prepare it including the instructed 2-hour rest in step 2, then proceed with the dough in this recipe as instructed. If using store-bought dough, each dough ball should be about 9 to 10 ounces (255 to 285 grams); this means that for 3 pizzas you’ll need about 2 pounds of store-bought dough. Most store-bought doughs (both fresh and frozen) are fully proofed, but if not, follow package instructions to prepare for baking.

Special Equipment

Pizza stone or baking steel, pizza peel, food processor

Make-Ahead and Storage

The sauce can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 5 days.

For the food lover, a visit to any city is an invitation to eat—and eat, and eat. What makes cities such incredible dining destinations is that they are, by nature, dense: with people, with culture, with history, and with food.

City life is often disconnected from agriculture, which might suggest worse food, but in reality, it often means better. Urban dwellers need quick lunches, comforting dinners, and everything in between. The demand feeds an industry of restaurants, market stalls, bakeries, and street carts that thrive on volume, competition, and creativity.

Cities are also crossroads. They rise on ports, along rivers, rail lines, and trade routes. Their foods are among the most immediate and delicious gateways to understanding their histories and the many different people who have passed through or settled down in them. As a result, each city has its own distinct gastronomic fingerprint—encoded into its unique pattern are the influences of rulers and the rich, of workers and the poor, of diasporic communities and religious groups.

All of this makes cities some of the most exciting—and overwhelming—places to eat. A lot of cities have so many places to eat that you could dedicate a lifetime to trying a new one every single day and still not visit them all before you die. So when you're going for just a week, where do you start?

That's where we come in.

At Serious Eats, we’ve long worked with a global network of culinary experts—writers, cooks, and researchers who live and breathe the food of their home cities. They’re the ones we email before we travel. They know where to go, what to eat, and why it matters.

In our Global Eats series, we’re sharing that insider knowledge with you, along with recipes you can cook before you go, while you’re there (if you’ve got a kitchen), and after you return home. Whether you’re prepping for a trip or just hungry for inspiration, this series is designed to get you closer to the cities you’re excited about, one plate at a time.

This is the second installment of Global Eats. In our first, we covered London, Paris, Cairo, Bangkok, Taipei, Buenos Aires, and Mumbai. This time, we’re taking you to seven more cities with distinct culinary identities: Kingston, Rome, Marrakesh, Kuala Lumpur, Santiago, San Juan, and Hong Kong. Think of it as your ultimate dining-out hook-up—a traveler's crib sheet from the people who know these food scenes best.

Cantonese Delights, Soy Sauce Western, and Desserts Galore in Hong Kong

Hong Kong is a shimmering metropolis often referred to as “Asia’s World City” and the “Gateway to China." It's where East meets West, and every twist and turn presents an opportunity for food. The city is packed with cha chaan tengs (Hong Kong–style cafés), dai pai dongs (outdoor hawker stalls), street carts, and eateries dishing out local specialties, such as congee and clay-pot rice.

Your guide to Hong Kong is Serious Eats senior editor Genevieve Yam, who grew up in the city during the 1990s, when it was rapidly changing. Now based in the U.S., Genevieve frequently travels to Hong Kong to visit family and eat, eat, eat. Hot off of her most recent trip to the city, she's sharing some of her favorite eateries for brothy noodles, dumplings, French toast, pork chop sandwiches, seafood, and so much more. Inside the guide, you'll also find Serious Eats recipes for many of Hong Kong's most iconic dishes, so you can keep eating like a Hong Kong local when you return home.

Forget Sit-Down Restaurants and Start Liming Like a Local in Kingston

Far too many Americans who visit Jamaica stray no further than the buffets and hotel restaurants they frequent between sunbathing sessions at their gated, all-inclusive resorts. But for any food lover, that's a big mistake. Step away from the resorts, and you'll find a vibrant, ever-evolving food culture that’s a mélange of the island’s African, British, Spanish, and Taino cultures, spiced up with contributions from Portuguese Jews, French Huguenots, Syrians, Lebanese, Germans, Scots, and Irish immigrants—all built upon Jamaica’s agricultural bounty and access to both reef- and deep-sea fishing. 

Visitors from the U.S.—where dining out is the norm—are often surprised by how few sit-down restaurants exist outside Jamaica’s resorts. But incredible food is everywhere, if you know where to look. That’s where our guides come in: sisters Michelle and Suzanne Rousseau, acclaimed Jamaican cookbook authors, caterers, and food TV personalities. They’re sharing their favorite spots for jerk pork (yes, it’s more popular than chicken), pan chicken, beef patties hot from the oven, cornmeal porridge, ackee, and more local specialties. Inside the guide, you’ll also find recipes for iconic Jamaican dishes you can make at home—the ones below are just a taste. Oh, and if you don’t already know what it means to lime, you will soon.

Kuala Lumpur—the Middle Child of Southeast Asia—Claims Its Spotlight

Serious Eats contributor Alia Ali compares Malaysia's capital city of Kuala Lumpur to a middle child: “There’s something kind of like wanting to prove herself, but she also doesn't realize she’s already cool," she says. "We’re surrounded by places that are more popular and touristy, like Thailand and Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam. People are like, ‘Where is Malaysia?’”

But Kuala Lumpur has so much to offer food lovers, namely a culinary scene that reflects the city's diversity, and is not so much a melting pot as it is an all-you-can-eat buffet, with mouth-puckering fish soups, fragrant rice dishes, rich curries, and an abundance of the sweet-and-savory finger snacks known as kuih. Alia is a native Malaysian and home cook who’s contributed more than a dozen recipes to Serious Eats, and she knows Kuala Lumpur inside and out. She is our guide to the “Muddy Confluence” (the city name’s literal meaning in Malay) and in addition to her picks for where to eat in KL, you'll find her recipes for making many of Malaysia's most delicious dishes at home inside the guide.

Souk to Nuts: The Best Places to Eat in the Ancient City of Marrakesh

Ringed by pinkish, millennium-old walls that give it its nickname, "the Red City," Marrakesh is a city that's "deeply rooted in Berber history with Arab and Andalusian influences, a blend of the Atlantic coast, the Mediterranean, the desert, and the Atlas mountains," says chef, cookbook author, Serious Eats contributor, and your guide to Marrakesh, Nargisse Benkabbou. “But it’s also a city that’s always looking forward—an overload of colors and sounds and smells where ancient history coexists with modern life, like with the ancient souks that have been widened to accommodate bigger crowds.”

The city's food reflects this coexistence of ancient history and modern life, and you'll find different restaurants serving traditional takes and contemporary spins on tagines, harira soups rich with the aromas of stewing tomatoes, turmeric, and cinnamon, and glistening lamb kefta. A native Moroccan and restaurant owner, Benkabbou truly knows the food scene of Marrakesh. She’s also the author of an internationally acclaimed cookbook on Moroccan cuisine, and inside this guide you'll find many of her recipes for bringing a taste of Marrakesh home.

When in Rome: A Short List of Where to Eat in the Eternal City

Rome is one of the few cities in the world that have a distinct cuisine that stands on its own. “How many cities could support dozens of cookbooks dedicated to their local dishes alone? Rome is one of them,” says Serious Eats editorial director Daniel Gritzer. Suffice it to say, the number of wonderful things to eat in Rome is just about limitless—classics such as Roman-style artichokes, pasta alla gricia, amatriciana, carbonara, pizza al taglio, and gelati, for starters. But while many in Rome are staunch cuisine traditionalists, there are also innovative chefs, turning out spins on classics and adding whole new foods to the canon. 

To help you ever-so-slightly narrow down the list of must-eat foods at must-go spots in Rome, we tapped experts Peter Barrett, the author of the Things on Bread Substack and a Roman resident for two years, and Sara Levi, a native Roman and chef at the Rome Sustainable Food Project at the American Academy at Rome, to share their insight into what—and where—to eat in the Capital of the World. Our guide also includes recipes for those aforementioned classics, and many more Roman dishes, so you can do as a Roman does even when you're not in Rome.

Sofrito, So Good: An Expert's Guide Eating Your Way Through San Juan

San Juan has long served as the capital of Puerto Rico, not only in political terms but also as the island’s culinary and cultural heart. Its food reflects a blend of Taino, Spanish Criollo, and African traditions. Almost any Puerto Rican will tell you that a trip to San Juan wouldn't be complete without mofongo—tender plantains, crunchy pork cracklings, punchy garlic, and a savory broth, all mashed together to make this beloved Puerto Rican dish—but there are plenty of other can't-miss dishes, including lechon, pernil, a wealth of seafood, and crispy twice-fried tostones.

Your guides to dining in San Juan are Serious Eats contributor and cookbook author Reina Gascón-López and chef and food entrepreneur Manolo López, who was born and raised in Puerto Rico and now lives in New York City. In this guide, they talk about what makes Puerto Rican food so special, what to eat if you’re not already familiar with the cuisine, and where to get the best representations of those dishes in and near San Juan. The guide also includes recipes from Gascón-López to make several Puerto Rican classics so you can better understand how the flavor is built from the ground up (hint: the sofrito is key).

From Hot Dogs to Oysters: Your Guide to Santiago's Eclectic and Excellent Food Scene

Apologies to Serious Eats' home-base of New York City, but if you want to eat the best hot dog of your life, you need to fly to Santiago and get your hands on completos—oversize hot dogs generously heaped with sauerkraut, diced tomatoes, mashed avocado, mayonnaise, and more. Of course there's much more to eat in Chile's capital city than loaded franks, including hearty charquicán, empanadas, and platters overflowing with enough briny oysters to make your eyes pop out of your head.

Santiago, which sits midway from north to south, is where everything in the country flows to, at least food-wise, making for a “very rich and very vibrant food culture,” in the words of Isidora Díaz. Díaz is a Serious Eats contributor and recipe developer, cookbook author, the director of the Chilean food and wine magazine Revista Fondo, and your guide to how to eat like a local in Santiago. Our guide also includes recipes for some of the iconic dishes you'll find in Santiago, including—yes—Díaz's recipe for making completos at home, complete with the sog-resistant homemade buns you'll need to contain a whole avocado and all those other toppings.

In Hong Kong, every twist and turn presents an opportunity for food. The city is packed with cha chaan tengs (Hong Kong–style cafés), dai pai dongs (outdoor hawker stalls), street carts, and eateries dishing out local specialties, such as congee and clay-pot rice. 

The city, a shimmering metropolis often referred to as “Asia’s World City” and the “Gateway to China,” is where East meets West. Towering skyscrapers stand proudly next to regal Victorian buildings, temples, and compact tenement apartments. Neon signs hang off the buildings, and below, double decker buses and trams from the 1900s rumble past, a reminder of the city’s British colonial past. Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China, is home to about 7.5 million people, which consist of Cantonese locals, Mandarin-speaking Chinese nationals, expats from the West, and immigrants from other parts of Asia.

The food, like its population, is diverse. Cantonese food and Soy Sauce Western, a genre of Western-inspired Chinese food, reign supreme. But you’ll also find an abundance of regional Chinese cuisines and South Asian, Southeast Asian, Japanese, and Korean food. At swanky hotels, the British tradition of afternoon tea—complete with scones, clotted cream, and jam—continues. Traditional Cantonese joints dish out clay-pot rice, congee, and noodles, while cha chaan tengs serve rich milk tea alongside spam and egg sandwiches.

The city’s cuisine, for the most part, is a little British, a little Chinese, and distinctly Hong Kong. Chef Tony Tan writes in his book Hong Kong Food City, “While it’s undeniable that Hong Kong is a quintessentially Chinese city with temples and noodle shops, it is also tempered by its British legacy and sensibilities." 

I grew up in Hong Kong in the 1990s, a transformational time for the city. After 156 years of colonial rule, Britain returned Hong Kong to China in July 1997. China was just beginning to open up to the world, and businesses and investors flocked to Hong Kong, eager for a share of the Chinese market. Hong Kong—and Asia, in general—experienced rapid economic growth, and with it came great wealth and drastic income inequality, something that has continued to shape the landscape and social fabric of the city. Many of the beloved restaurants and shops my family frequented when I was a child are long gone, replaced by newer, shinier, international chains.

Though much has changed about Hong Kong, one thing has not: The food remains excellent and plentiful. Local markets sell fresh sugarcane juice and fruit from all over Asia—ripe Carabao mangoes from the Philippines, pungent durian from Malaysia, and sweet, tangy Kyoho grapes from Japan. Wet markets stock locally caught fish for pan-frying and steaming, including grouper, threadfin, and big-eye fish. Food, for the most part, remains affordable. A bowl of tender brisket, tendon, and tripe with rice noodles will run you about $12 USD, and a plate of roast goose and white rice costs just about $8 USD. 

For our second round of Global Eats—a food lover's guide to the culinary capitals of the world—I'll be your guide, sharing some of my favorite restaurants and meals around the city. (You'll find the first Global Eats series here.) A bad meal in Hong Kong is possible, but you’d have to try really hard—and if you eat like a local, you can’t go wrong.

Cantonese Delights

Duen Kee

57-58 Chuen Long Estate
Route Twisk
Tsuen Wan, Hong Kong
+852 2490 5246

No website

This dim sum restaurant is located at the base of Tai Mo Shan, Hong Kong’s highest mountain. Tucked away in the tiny village of Chuen Long, the restaurant is surrounded by mountains and is a hidden gem frequented by hikers and locals. The restaurant is self-serve: An assortment of tea leaves are available for you to brew your own tea. Stacks of steamer baskets, filled with Cantonese delicacies such as pork and shrimp siu mai, beancurd skin rolls, and fluffy barbecued pork buns, are lined up against pink- and white-tiled walls. Sit outside on the terrace, and you’ll be able to enjoy the scenery of Hong Kong’s lush mountains.

“You just feel so far from the chaos of the city,” Charmaine Mok, the deputy culture editor of the South China Morning Post, says. “They still do a lot of the traditional dim sum dishes, like preserved sausage buns. They have their own watercress farm in the back. It’s a wholesome experience and shows a different side of Hong Kong, like the nature surrounding it.”

Hop Yik Tai

121 Kweilin Street
Sham Shui Po, Kowloon
Hong Kong
+852 2720 0239

No website

Cheung fun (rice noodle rolls) are typically made with rice flour and water, with a small quantity of tapioca starch, glutinous rice flour, or mung bean starch for a slight chew. The batter is poured in a thin layer onto a steamer tray or piece of cloth, steamed until translucent, then rolled into noodles. They vary in shape and size: At dim sum restaurants, the noodles come filled and rolled with shrimp, beef, barbecued pork, or youtiao (Chinese fried dough sticks). Another popular method is to stir-fry noodle rolls—trimmed into two-inch lengths—with XO sauce and bean sprouts. Eaten as a street food, the rice noodle rolls are usually left unfilled and garnished with an assortment of sauces.

Locals and tourists alike flock to Hop Yik Tai for the cheung fun, which are silky smooth—a texture locals refer to as “wat loot loot”—with just enough spring. A little cart filled with fresh rice noodle rolls stands at the front of the shop; it’s manned by a gruff employee with a pair of scissors, ready to trim rice noodle rolls to-order. Each portion comes drizzled with sesame sauce, sweet sauce, and soy sauce, with a generous sprinkling of sesame seeds. Word on the street is that Hop Yik Tai seasons their soy sauce with lard, which gives the rice rolls an additional richness and savory flavor. At Hop Yik Tai, you’ll find other local street food favorites, including fish balls and siu mai (pork and shrimp dumplings).

Kwan Kee Claypot Rice

Shop 1, G/F
263 Queen’s Road West
Sai Ying Pun, Hong Kong
+852 2803 7209

No website

Hong Kong’s subtropical climate means the city’s temperatures rarely dip below 59°F (15°C). When it does, however, crowds flock to eat clay-pot rice, a dish of rice steamed and crisped over charcoal stoves. The dish is Hong Kong’s version of a one-pot meal: Assorted toppings like funky preserved pork sausage, spare ribs marinated with black bean sauce, and velveted chicken are nestled onto the raw grains. The toppings gently steam as the rice cooks, and the grains at the bottom char, forming a beautifully crisp crust. 

At Kwan Kee, the demand for clay-pot rice is year-round: The queue for dinner begins long before the doors open at 5:30 p.m. each day, and some wait as long as two hours for a bite of the restaurant’s famous clay-pot rice. The restaurant is particularly well known for its white eel clay-pot rice: Plump morsels of white eel are drizzled in fermented black bean sauce and garnished with fresh scallions and chiles. The soy sauce, subtly sweet and fragrant, has a savory depth that brings the entire dish together. Kwan Kee may be known for its clay-pot rice, but I also recommend ordering several of their excellent side dishes, such as the eggplant braised with salted fish or steamed minced pork patty with salted duck egg, to go with your rice.

Sang Kee Congee Shop

7 Burd Street
Sheung Wan, Hong Kong
+852 2542 1099

No website

Sang Kee has been around since the 1960s; the congee shop operated as an outdoor food stall before moving into its current location in the 1980s. Over the decades, Sang Kee has amassed a loyal following. The no-frills shop is known for its congee with tender fish belly, though its congees with beef meatballs and fish balls are also popular. “Pure, thick, and snowy white with fully bloomed grains of rice, Sang Kee’s congee has an elegance that far exceeds the term ‘savory rice porridge,’” writer Betty Richardson raved in the South China Morning Post earlier this year. The congee comes with small bowls of soy sauce with julienned ginger and delicate ribbons of spring onions, but the porridge is so delicious you likely won’t need it. Do, however, order a side of Chinese fried dough—zha leung in Cantonese, youtiao in Mandarin—for dipping.

Shui Kee

2 Gutzlaff Street
Central, Hong Kong
+852 2541 9769

No website

This tiny, crowded noodle stall has been a mainstay of the city’s Central district since the 1940s. In 2014, Lam Kin Wing, the third-generation owner of Shui Kee, told the South China Morning Post that his grandfather opened up the shop in the 1940s, just after the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong. Located in an alleyway amidst the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong, Shui Kee specializes in beef offal, which supposedly comes from freshly slaughtered cows and is never frozen. Diners vie for bowls of soup noodles with beef lungs, spleen, or intestines, though cuts like skirt steak and brisket are available, too. 

Prepare to go early: Shui Kee often sells out before 2:00 p.m., and hungry diners begin lining up around 11:00 a.m. Like Sister Wah below, Shui Kee’s broth has layers of savory depth, and each sip is infused with the rich flavor of beef. Also worth ordering with your offal soup: A side of crispy fried fish skin and a glass of housemade chrysanthemum tea.

Sister Wah Beef Brisket

13 Electric Road
Tin Hau, Hong Kong
+852 2807 0181

Sister Wah is known for its broth, which simmers all day long. When I asked an employee how much broth they make each day, they responded: “We never stop making broth. We make it all day long, until we close.” Clean and clear as the broth is, it is also deeply flavored—there is a touch of sweetness, a hint of star anise that gives it a very subtle warmth, and rich, savory depth from beef. 

The shop is small and cramped, and in true Hong Kong style, I shared a table with three other solo diners: two locals and a tourist, all silently slurping their noodles. The beef brisket, tendon, and tripe noodles here may very well be the best bowl of noodles I’ve ever eaten in Hong Kong. The tangle of wide rice noodles was topped with tender brisket, soft, chewy tendon, and tripe with just enough bounce. The other dishes on the menu, such as the wontons, are worth ordering, too, but the beef brisket noodles are an absolute must.

Sun Hing Restaurant

Shop C, 8 Smithfield Road
Sai Wan, Hong Kong
+852 2816 0616 

No website

Sun Hing is an old-school Hong Kong dim sum spot that’s open from 3:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. each day. It’s loud, chaotic, and very Hong Kong: Diners, perched on shabby plastic stools, crowd around small tables as servers shuffle stacks of steamer baskets back and forth. Order the fried milk—a milk custard that’s coated in batter and fried until crisp—a retro dim sum dish that’s rarely found on menus nowadays. The tripe, cooked in a mild Hong Kong–style yellow curry, is tender and springy. Don’t leave without ordering one of the light, fluffy custard buns that Sun Hing is well known for: Filled with a salted egg custard that oozes out, it’s a salty-sweet treat that people trek here for.

Wing Restaurant

29/F, The Wellington
198 Wellington Street
Central, Hong Kong
+852 2711 0063

https://wingrestaurant.hk/

When I asked Mok how she thought Hong Kong’s dining scene was changing, she mentioned that many chefs and restaurants in the city—long enamored with European cuisines such as French and Italian—have been returning to Chinese culinary traditions. One of those chefs is Vicky Cheng, a Canadian-born cook who is an alumnus of Daniel Boulud’s legendary French restaurant Daniel in Manhattan. Cheng moved to Hong Kong in 2015 and dove straight into learning everything he could about Chinese cuisine. “He started experimenting and really began to try to understand what defines Chinese cookery,” Mok says. “What are the ingredients? What are the techniques? That’s when he came up with Wing, which is a love letter to Hong Kong cuisine.”

At Wing, Cheng offers a contemporary take on traditional Cantonese dishes. Ingredients local to Hong Kong and southern China star in his cooking: Braised pomelo pith, a local delicacy that’s difficult to come by nowadays, is seasoned with savory shrimp roe and served in a sumptuous abalone sauce. Threadfin, a local variety of fish popular in Hong Kong, is steamed and topped with umami-rich salted pork and preserved vegetables. His signature dish is a “golden crystal egg,” a housemade century egg with amber whites and a jammy yolk, served with slippery Japanese oysters in a housemade chili sauce. It is, Mok says, a meal to remember—and one to make time for when visiting Hong Kong.

Yan Wo Dou Bun Chong

55 Jardine’s Bazaar
Causeway Bay, Hong Kong
+852 2808 4738

No website

Every time I visit Hong Kong, I visit Yan Wo Dou Bun Chong, an eatery that specializes in freshly made soy products. Their soy bean dessert—a silken tofu pudding—is tender and quivers on the spoon. It’s excellent plain with a sprinkling of rock sugar, but is especially delicious when topped with fresh ginger juice for a subtle kick. The savory smell of pan-fried tofu stuffed with fish sausage fills the air, and diners gulp down glasses of fresh, nutty soy milk before heading on their way.

Soy Sauce Western

Cheung Hing Coffee Shop

9 Yik Yam Street
Happy Valley, Hong Kong
+2572 5097

No website

Walking into Cheung Hing Coffee Shop feels like stepping into the 1950s. The tiled floors, ceiling fans, and mid-century wooden dining chairs give the cha chaan teng a nostalgic feel. Opened in 1951, the coffee shop is popular among locals for its puff pastry egg tarts and pineapple buns. The egg tarts—crisp, flaky, and filled with a golden custard that wobbles ever so slightly—are the best I’ve had, and for me, a visit to Hong Kong would be incomplete without one. The pineapple buns are available with various fillings, including satay beef or ham and egg, or stuffed with a generous slab of butter. The scrambled eggs are velvety and delicious on their own, or sandwiched with fried spam between two slices of buttered white bread. I’ve tried to replicate the silkiness of the eggs in my own recipe for the classic Hong Kong sandwich, though in my honest opinion, nothing will compare to the real thing from Cheung Hing. Of course, everything must be washed down with a cup of strong Hong Kong milk tea. Cheung Hing’s is silky smooth, and the evaporated milk’s richness balances the pleasant bitter, tannic notes of the tea. 

Yee Shun Dairy Company

506 Lockhart Road
Causeway Bay, Hong Kong
+852 2591 1837

No website

Macaroni and ham in soup and French toast drizzled with condensed milk may not sound like food from Hong Kong, but these local interpretations of Western dishes are cha chaan teng staples. Though Yee Shun Dairy Company hails from Macau, another special administrative region located an hour away from Hong Kong, the cafe is a Hong Kong stalwart frequented by both locals and tourists. My mother often brought me here for an afterschool snack when I was a child, and we’d each demolish a bowl of the shop’s specialty: delicate “double skin” milk puddings. The first skin is the one that forms when boiled milk cools; the second is one that forms when the pudding—a mixture of milk, sugar, and egg whites—cools.

The puddings are available hot or cold, and plain, chocolate-flavored, coffee-flavored, or with ginger juice. Ginger juice is my go-to—its warm flavor complements the natural sweetness of the milk. If you’re in the mood for savory food, consider the macaroni with satay or the Macanese pork chop sandwich, which is really just an excuse to eat a crispy, well-seasoned piece of meat between a toasted bun. Like the pork chop sandwich at Yee Shun, my recipe for the Macanese dish delivers a chop that's well-seasoned and crisp.

Chinese Bakeries and Desserts

Traditional Chinese pastries and desserts aren’t particularly sweet: They’re typically made with nuts, seeds, beans, rice, and fruits. There are dessert soups called tong sui, which means “sugar water,” though most of these aren’t very sweet at all. Most of them use nuts and seeds like walnuts, sesame, almonds, or coconut milk as the base. Sago, grass jelly, taro, sweet potato, and ginger are also other commonly used ingredients in hot and cold desserts. Cakes and dumplings like sesame paste-filled tong yuen are usually made with glutinous rice flour, giving them a pleasantly chewy texture. Fruits have a starring role, too: Mango, durian, lychees, and longan are especially popular.

C Dessert

Shop 1D, G/F, Newman House
35-45 Johnston Road
Wan Chai, Hong Kong
+852 2493 3349

When the beloved Hong Kong dessert spot Cong Sao Dessert (“Auntie Cong’s Dessert”) shuttered in 2020, locals mourned. The shop offered creative and contemporary spins on Chinese dessert, including longan sorbet with jellies and nata de coco and mango milkshake–flavored steamed milk puddings. Much to everyone’s delight, Auntie Cong returned with C Dessert in 2023. And every evening, you can expect to see a queue of hungry diners—eager for something sweet—snaking around the block. 

The desserts are bold and flavorful: Creamy durian, sweet and funky with notes of gasoline, sits on top of a refreshing bed of shaved ice. Chilled mango soup with pomelo and sago, a classic Cantonese dessert, is bright and refreshing, with pops of acid from the pomelo. The warm coconut milk with black rice, taro, and taro rice balls is creamy and comforting, a cozy dessert best enjoyed on a cool evening. Eat your way through the menu, and you’ll understand why the queue persists night after night.

Fook Yuen

7 Fook Yuen St
North Point, Hong Kong
+852 3106 0129

No website

Fook Yuen is a Chinese dessert spot renowned for their tong yuen. It is tiny and cramped, with barely any room to sit; still, people queue for a taste of the legendary dumplings, with some purchasing a box or two to cook at home. Their tong yuen is pillowy soft with just the right amount of chew, and both the sesame paste and peanut paste used to fill the dumplings are richly nutty and deeply fragrant, with small bits of nuts and seeds that provide a satisfying crunch. 

Kai Kai Dessert

29 Ning Po Street
Jordan, Kowloon
+852 2384 3862

No website

Kai Kai Dessert has been open since 1979, and serves up traditional Cantonese desserts like creamy walnut soup, taro soup with sago and lotus seeds, and fragrant almond soup. (Fun fact: Chinese almonds, called hung yun, are actually apricot kernels. If you ever spot “almond” on the menu of a Chinese restaurant, chances are they’re actually referring to apricot kernels.) Since 2015, Kai Kai has been on Michelin’s Bib Gourmand list, making it even more popular among locals and tourists. Over the years, I’ve eaten my way through most of their menu, and my favorite dessert from them is the black sesame soup and walnut soup combination, which allows you to enjoy the best of both worlds. Prepare yourself for brusque service, which is a norm in Hong Kong but may be considered rude by tourists.

Happy Bakery

66-68 Queen’s Road East
Wan Chai, Hong Kong
+852 9490 0156

No website

In July 2022, Happy Cake Shop, which opened in 1977, announced it was closing after their landlords decided to take the space back. Loyal customers prepared to say goodbye, and queued outside the mom-and-pop shop for the bakery’s famous horn-shaped cream puffs, egg tarts, and pineapple buns. Fortunately, Happy Cake Shop returned in 2023 as Happy Bakery just a few doors down from its original location, and today it sells many of the same baked goods it sold at its former spot. On my most recent trip to Hong Kong, I was lucky to visit when fresh egg tarts had just come out of the oven—they were warm and slightly sweet with a crumbly cookie crust. Don’t skip their cream horns and the fluffy buns covered in salty-sweet pork floss.

Hanging in Hong Kong

It’s very easy to get around Hong Kong: The city is extremely walkable, and a vast network of MTR subway stations, buses, trams, and minibuses makes it seamless to get from place to place. There’s plenty to do besides eating, too: Spend the morning hiking the Dragon’s Back, a popular trail in Shek O Country Park, go surfing in Big Wave Bay, or head up to The Peak for a glimpse of the city’s skyline. Or take a page out of my book and go on a food crawl through different neighborhoods. Wherever you end up, something delicious awaits.

Dissecting the food culture of a city as ancient and eternal as Rome is like conducting an archaeological dig—only the site is still bustling with the daily rhythms of modern life.

“Very few cities have such distinct cuisines that stand so strongly on their own,” says Serious Eats editorial director Daniel Gritzer. “How many cities could support dozens of cookbooks dedicated to their local dishes alone? Rome is one of them.”

Rome’s storied, deeply rooted cuisine is fiercely protected by the city’s culinary traditionalists, who are wary of anything they deem “un-Roman.” At the same time, it draws waves of starry-eyed visitors on a mission to eat their way through the canon of classic dishes.

“You have these two monolithic entities that are exerting a major gravitational force on the food scene: One is the tourists, who want all the things they’ve read about, like pasta alla gricia, amatriciana, carbonara, and pizza al taglio, and the other is the traditionalists—and Italians are largely pretty conservative when it comes to food,” says Peter Barrett, a food writer and former Rome resident who we turned to for insight into the city's food scene. “So for the new generation of chefs, the challenge is threading the needle—pushing the envelope while still maintaining a deep respect for the ingredients and traditions.”

Luckily, a new wave of Roman chefs is striking that balance admirably—serving dishes that nod to tradition without being confined by it. They’re not throwing out the classics, but they’re refusing to stop there.

The result is that Rome—seat of emperors and popes, home to one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world, and shaped by generations of cooks, butchers, and bakers from across its layered history—remains one of the world’s great food cities, still thriving as a 21st-century crossroads of cultures.

And the ultimate beneficiary of all of this? You, the visitor to Rome, who can eat incredible meals, whether tried-and-true classics, pitch-perfect modern innovations, or both.

For our second round of Global Eats—a food lover's guide to the culinary capitals of the world—we asked Barrett, the author of the Things on Bread Substack and a Roman resident for two years, and Sara Levi, a native Roman and chef at the Rome Sustainable Food Project at the American Academy at Rome, to share their insight into what—and where—to eat in the Capital of the World. (You'll find the first Global Eats series here.)

Where to Eat in Rome

Sora Margherita

Piazza delle Cinque Scole, 30

Both our experts started off their tours of Roman dishes by delving into carciofi alla Romana, Roman-style braised artichokes, a highly seasonal spring dish requiring someone in the kitchen who knows how to prepare them properly. In the right hands, the result is meticulously cleaned hearts braised with white wine, extra-virgin olive oil, garlic, and herbs.

“I think of this as a really iconic Roman dish,” Levi says. “People coming from the United States, where people eat artichokes much more rarely, tend to think of them as a vehicle for dips, but here they're unadorned, so you get the purity of this perfectly cooked artichoke that is literally put on a plate with a little bit of braising liquid and oil and nothing else.”

Arguably the best thing about the Roman style of serving artichokes? They eliminate all the work for you, unlike, say, the French style, where they’re typically served with the leaves on for dipping into melted butter or vinaigrette.

“If you’re used to French-style artichokes, you have to work till you get to the heart,” Barrett says. “In the Roman artichoke, you don’t have to wade through a thicket of leaves to get to the good stuff. What ends up on the plate is entirely edible—you can fork-and-knife the whole thing. It’s still kind of al dente with a little resistance, and the olive oil and artichokes have this grassy green kind of simpatico—they really have something to say to each other, and it’s fantastic. It’s one of my favorite vegetable dishes.”

Barrett is still a fan of the first place he ever had the dish in Rome, Sora Margherita. “I went there when I was 19, 20 years old as a student and it was just the local place,” he recalls. “It didn’t even have a sign, it just had newsprint tablecloths, and you went in and looked at the piece of paper with the five things they were making that day. We’d usually get an artichoke to start if it was in season, and then a pasta, and at that time you could get all of that plus a liter of wine for 10 bucks apiece.”

Still under the same ownership, Sora Margherita hasn’t changed that much since, even though word’s gotten out about the great food there.

“Now the walls are covered with newspaper clippings about the restaurant, postcards from customers, and the service is brusque but congenial,” he says. “Think of tumblers of fruit water and wine and communal seating where if you can’t fill a table you sit next to strangers in almost school-desk chairs of chunky wood.”

Piatto Romano

Via Giovanni Battista Bodoni, 62

Levi is a fan of the carciofi alla Romana—and almost anything else in season—at Piatto Romano.

“The thing that stands out about that restaurant is that the owner, Andrea, really goes out of his way to source fruits or wild foraged greens that are hard to find these days,” she says. 

When you enter his restaurant, you see Andrea’s foraged bounty of the day in baskets laid out on a table right in front of the kitchen. “He’ll find things like these crazy lemons where you can eat the whole thing, and people will walk in and say, ‘What is this? Where’d you find them? Where’d they come from?’ And it’s always from some town not far away, and he’ll put whatever he’s found that day in one of his dishes that day.”

Barrett’s also a fan. “Very unostentatious, no pretense whatsoever, paper tablecloths, the whole thing,” he says. “Just reliable bangers across the board on the menu.” 

Testaccio Market

Via Aldo Manuzio, 66b

Not surprisingly, Piatto Romano’s Andrea seems to find many of his hard-to-source foraged treasures at Testaccio Market nearby. It’s a sprawling, covered marketplace of over 100 vendors that’s geared toward local food lovers rather than tourists.

“My advice, if it’s not your first time in Rome, is to rent a place with a kitchen and get the fixings for breakfast every morning and then make yourself lunch or dinner based on what you’re finding at the market,” Barrett says. “It helps you feel like more of a local because you have to visit six or seven stalls for each meal, you’re meeting people and you’re getting what Romans are eating right then and there, seeing what’s in season. If you’re interested in food, there’s no better way to understand the city, even if it’s just making a bowl of pasta and salad.”

Between all the grocery shopping, stop by Mordi e Vai, a grab-and-go, glass-countered panini stall inside the market, for a classic Roman offal sandwich, which is “absolutely as O.G. Roman as it gets,” Barrett says of the “excellently made tripe or tongue or brain” on white bread (though a brisket sandwich is usually available “if you’re too queasy for tripe or spleen”).

Armando al Pantheon

Salita de' Crescenzi, 31

Many Americans have a fantasy of indulging in classic Roman dishes in the shadow of one of its many beautiful, historic monuments, and there’s no shame in it. But if you do so, make sure you go to a restaurant with worthy food as well as spectacular views.

“One of my glib rules is never eat within sight of a major monument,” Barrett says. “The one exception to that is Armando al Pantheon.”

Both locals and foreigners crowd under the exposed wooden beams of this tiny, 14-table place with booth seats, big Art Deco windows, and wood-paneled walls to take in perfectly executed renditions of the classics.

“It’s absolutely one of the great go-tos for straight-down-the-middle, fastball-after-fastball of classic Roman fare, especially pasta. I would go for the classics, like carbonara, cacio e pepe, as well as the offal, like the oxtail stew and chicken livers—it’s a great place for quinto quarto fare,” Barrett says, using the Roman term—literally “the fifth quarter”—for offal-based dishes, a tradition rooted in the city’s historic slaughterhouse district.

This is where to go to find perfect examples of the simplest but hardest to make dishes. They can serve as models on which to base your home cooking for, say, cacio e pepe: that creamy, perfectly emulsified sauce of finely grated Pecorino Romano that coats each spaghetti strand with just the right amount of rich, cheesy, peppery flavor.

Trapizzino

Multiple locations

Like the beautiful, brilliant love child of a pizza and a sandwich, the trapizzino has taken Rome by storm and won over even those normally suspicious of culinary innovations. 

“I always find it an immensely satisfying food—you eat one and it’s a snack, you eat two and it’s a meal,” Levi says. “They’re kind of saucy, and when you stuff them into these triangular pizza pockets, the bread soaks up the sauces. The cacciatore’s my favorite because the chicken is braised in this garlic, rosemary, and vinegar combo, and the whole thing just pops in your mouth along with the texture of the beautiful bread with a nice, crispy exterior and soft interior.” 

Barrett, also a fan of the chicken cacciatore, likes to sometimes squeeze into the narrow Trapizzino in Trastevere, where throngs of fans line up for their turn at the counter before taking their trapizzini on the go or to the small, functional tables along the opposite wall or scattered on the sidewalk outside.

“It’s great for people-watching in the evening,” he says. “Trastevere is the hip nightlife neighborhood, and you have a lot of young, beautiful people spilling out onto the streets when the weather’s nice.”

SantoPalato

Piazza Tarquinia, 4 a/b

Just as Pablo Picasso mastered classical painting before moving onto his experimental phases, Rome’s best modern cooks demonstrate a command of the Roman classics while moving the needle of the 21st-century Roman table. Take Sarah Cicolini at SantoPalato, which serves “super hip, elevated trattoria fare” in an elegantly simplified setting of ochre walls and 1920s Italian cubist posters in a working-class district outside the tourist-filled city center.

“She makes one of the best carbonaras in the city and has unimpeachable cred,” Barrett says. “But then she'll take the famous Roman oxtail stew and turn it into fried meatballs dusted with dark chocolate and set it on a peanut-and-mustard purée. She manages to do this in a way that doesn’t outrage Roman traditionalists—she’s really admirably threading the needle, and part of the way she gets to do that is because her carbonara is ridiculous and she’s one hell of a cook.” 

According to Barrett, the perfection of her carbonara begins with the visuals. “It starts with the incredible red-orange color of the yolks, almost fluorescent yellow. It’s cooked until custardy enough to cling to the noodle but not so overdone that it’s congealed. She’s got it dialed in and understands that because Italian food is so simple and uses so few ingredients, the ingredients have to be perfect.”

Miraggio Trastevere

Via della Lungara, 16A

An iconic winter dish (and traditional Christmas Eve first course) in Rome is minestra di broccoli e arzilla, a soup of skate, Romanesco broccoli, and pasta that follows the tradition of la cocina povera, “thrifty dishes made from anything people could get their hands on while being extremely nutritious,” Levi says. 

She recently enjoyed the dish at Miraggio Trastevere, an unassuming place near the Tiber that serves hearty plates on red-checked tablecloths in an unadorned, almost homey yellow-walled setting.

“We had it with a carafe of red wine, and it was aromatic—maybe a little bit of garlic and anchovy paste and tomato,” she says. “And when you eat it, it’s satisfying, chewing on skate and vegetables, with everything soft.”

Retrobottega (& Retrovino)

Via d'Ascanio, 26A

Despite its industrial look—exposed ductwork, stark white walls, and dining rooms split by arches reminiscent of the Ponte Cestio spanning the Tiber—Retrobottega is considered one of the most exciting restaurants in Rome’s contemporary food scene.

“You sit next to strangers but by the end of the night you’re friends,” Barrett says. “Truly elegant, really imaginative, deeply talented, and they go foraging every week. It’s a terrific stop to see the state of the people pushing the envelope.”

He’s a fan of their sweetbread ravioli in a creamy sauce—"absolutely, perfectly tender pillows of meaty goodness in this foamy, frothy, decadent sauce"—and says the risottos are ”creamy and profound.”

Forno Campo de' Fiori

Campo de' Fiori, 22

Though it’s primarily a utilitarian bakery where locals order their daily bread, Forno Campo de' Fiori is also a renowned pizzeria, and is “beloved by locals and tourists alike” despite its perfunctory, matter-of-fact service, long lines, and the fact that there aren’t any tables or seats, just counters to order the pizza in the standard Roman style from along with a long glass case full of the regular bakery items (Barrett especially likes the zucchini bread).

“They make these very long, super thin pizzas that are about a foot and a half by five feet long, take them out with these peels that are five or six feet long, spread them on a big cutting board,” Barrett says. “You order them by weight: Ask for ‘200 grams of rosso,’ and they cut you a square, wrap it in brown paper and hand it to you. It’s glistening with oil, it’s piping hot, and it puts a smile on your face—it’s the ultimate to-go snack.”

Sinosteria

Viale Guglielmo Marconi 586

Rome has always been a city with a complicated relationship to its immigrants, but now the native-born generations of the more recent waves are making their marks in the Roman culinary scene, including the Chinese, who began forming increasingly significant communities there starting in the 1980s.

At Sinosteria, the menu meshes Chinese and traditional Roman cooking sensibilities to form a new genre in a sparingly decorated place that’s the brainchild of a father-son restaurateur duo.

Think kung pao chicken made with friggitelli peppers; coconut-milk risotto with Pettorano broccoli, zucchini, carrots, and crispy leek; or a giant, fried coconut dessert raviolo atop a sweet red wine glaze.

“Sinosteria points the way toward the future and continues to evolve,” Barrett says. “It’s a really bright light to me.”

Bar Gelateria, Alberto Pica

Via della Seggiola, 12, Centro Storico

Unprepossessing but renowned among fans of gelato, Alberto Pica is a beloved place in the Jewish ghetto that churns out exquisite traditional flavors such as pistachio as well as more unusual ones that are equally good, such as a crunchy, cinnamon-y rice pudding and candied rose petals.

Though the interior features the standard format that anyone who has ever stepped foot in a gelateria will instantly recognize—glass freezers with huge trays loaded with pastel-colored treats, each with a classic paddle-scoop stuck in it—you can take your laden cone outside to the small tables on the cobblestone street and gobble them up as passing Romans look on with envy.

All Meals Lead to Rome

Though it’s no longer the center of a continents-spanning empire, Rome has never given up its role as one of the world’s most important cities when it comes to sustaining food traditions, while also forging new gustatory identities in the 21st century. On your next trip to the Eternal City, make sure you take a nibble of the new along with the old, with the help of our Roman experts, then recreate your experiences at home with our recipes.

“Marrakesh.” Even the way the name of the Moroccan city trips off the tongue and echoes down the back of your throat evokes visions of an opulent Middle Eastern city redolent of rich, earthy spices, ornate Islamic architecture, and denizens in flowing robes clinging to a past as old as the dust coming off the Atlas Mountains.

“The soul of Marrakesh is unpredictable, chaotic, deeply rooted in Berber history with Arab and Andalusian influences, a blend of the Atlantic coast, the Mediterranean, the desert, and the Atlas mountains,” says chef, cookbook author, and Serious Eats contributor Nargisse Benkabbou. “But it’s also a city that’s always looking forward—an overload of colors and sounds and smells where ancient history coexists with modern life, like with the ancient souks that have been widened to accommodate bigger crowds. It’s a very unique place in Morocco.”

At sunset, the pinkish, millennium-old walls of the ancient old city turn a striking orange-red, giving the city its nickname, the Red City. This is when the city’s grand main square and its branching souks, under the watchful eye of the nearby ancient mosque, fills with food vendors opening their stalls, ladling out turmeric-perfumed bowls of rich, red tomato harira soups or handing out skewers of cumin-y lamb kefta dripping with fat while visitors gawk at performing monkeys and hissing cobras. 

But the Marrakesh of today is also a distinctly 21st-century city—one that has embraced its diversity. Recent influxes of French and British residents have made it a second home, bringing European sensibilities to the restaurant scene that mingle intoxicatingly with the city’s deep Berber and Arab cultural foundations.

“The food scene is very eclectic nowadays, and Marrakesh has evolved a lot in the past 15 years,” Benkabbou says. “A big chunk of the people who live in Marrakesh now are not from Marrakesh, which is great because they bring a modern perspective and a diversity that makes the most out of our traditions and celebrates them in that modern way. You can find places where people still eat like they used to communally 40 years ago, and then you can go to a place like Le Jardin that’s also traditional Moroccan but very modern.”

A native Moroccan, Benkabbou truly knows the food scene of Marrakesh, the city where she opened the restaurant L’Mida Marrakesh as executive chef five years ago. She’s also the author of an internationally acclaimed cookbook on Moroccan cuisine, making her an ideal guide for our tour of one of the world’s food capitals in this second installment of Global Eats—a food lover's guide to the culinary capitals of the world. (You'll find the first Global Eats series here.)

A Food Day in the Life of a Marrakesh Local

From morning to night, the rhythms of Marrakesh sway to the beat of its eats—from bakers pounding out dough at daybreak, to the scraping of clay tagine lids at midday, to the gentle splash of mint tea being “pulled” from pot to cup and and then deposited into a dainty teacup after dinner.

“You wake up and get a coffee or fresh orange juice or Moroccan mint tea or harcha filled with butter and honey, followed by a big meal for lunch or dinner,” Benkabbou says. “Lunch is often a tagine, which could be a chicken tagine or a prune tagine, accompanied by what we call salads, including raw salads like tomato and cucumbers or cooked salads like pea, olive, and preserved lemon salad.”

Sometimes a meal comes with dips, which are eaten with flatbreads like harcha, made with semolina and cooked on a griddle, or khobz, which is pita-like and made with regular flour. “You dip the bread and use it to scoop up peas and other foods—you eat with your hands a lot in Moroccan food,” she says.

Around 4 p.m., Moroccan tea time—which they call “gouter” after the French word for “to taste”—is sacred. You might take your tea with harcha, m’semen (a multiply folded griddled flatbread), fekkas (biscotti-like almond biscuits), or ghriba (a nutty, cinnamon-laced, sugar-dusted cookie).

That's how to eat in Marrakesh; now on to what and where.

Restaurants

Dar Marjana

5 Derb Sidi Ali Tair Bab، Doukala

Marrakesh is very much a city that embraces modernity, but that doesn’t mean that it’s forsaken its past. Dar Marjana is a restaurant that’s made itself a haven for those thirsting for the Marrakesh of yesteryear. 

The restaurant is built as if it were in a shaded oasis, inside an interior courtyard with a burbling fountain, checkerboard marble floors, and fringed with palm trees. Diners sit or lounge on low-lying, pillow-strewn couches called seddari. The place was once a riad, a palace or wealthy home built around that inside courtyard, and features ornately tiled and chiseled columns, dramatically hung velvet curtains, and soaring archways. The ceilings here are high—some 20 or 25 feet, making you feel like you’ve been invited to dinner at the behest of some sort of Moroccan prince.

Servers in traditional Moroccan caftans bring enormous tagines in the classic conical clay pots, along with smaller, elaborately decorated plates of salads and dips and other dishes, which you and your companions help yourselves to communally. Sometimes, you eat accompanied by a musician playing an oud, a traditional 11- or 13-stringed instrument similar to a lute. Or you eat as you watch people performing traditional Berber dances like an ahidous, in which the men and women stand shoulder to shoulder and move in rhythm to a central drummer.

“Dar Marjana reminds me of my grandmother’s house, because it’s like stepping back in time,” Benkabbou says. “It’s a big ceremony, and if they serve tea, they make the whole ceremony of the tea,” including the tradition of “stretching” the tea by pouring it back and forth between vessels in improbably long pours that make the liquid look like it’s defying gravity. 

One of the dishes to get here is the lamb and prune tagine, cooked the m’qualli way. “In Morocco, there are rules to cooking the tagine the m’qualli way,” Benkabbou says. “It’s traditionally made with ground ginger, ground turmeric, garlic, salt, and pepper, and that’s the core of the tagine—some people add coriander or saffron if they’re feeling fancy.” From there, the choice is whether to make the tagine savory—in which case it’s finished with preserved lemons or olives—or sweet, in which dried fruits and nuts are added.

“The secret to a good tagine is to let it simmer for as long as it can,” Benkabbou says. “I like to remove the meat and let the sauce reduce for an hour or more—in Morocco, there’s a debate about whether a thick or runny sauce is better, and I like a thick sauce, with the Maillard reaction and caramelization."

Benkabbou's own lamb and prune tagine recipe pays homage to her mother's version. "I think, to be honest, I was just recreating a recipe I ate all my life. After I left my parents’ house in my 20s, I would ask my mom for it first when I’d come home," she says. "It hits all the notes when it’s saucy and the meat is falling off the bone and you can smell what kind of tagine you’re having 10 meters away from the kitchen.”

Le Jardin

32 Souk Jeld Sidi Abdelaziz

Fast-forward half a century and you may find yourself at Le Jardin, a modern take on traditional Moroccan cuisine by young and inventive local chefs. Set in a greenery-festooned garden that could be the backyard patio space of a hip Brooklyn restaurant, Le Jardin is the place to go for smaller, less party-size portions of excellent chicken tagine under the illumination of hanging wicker lanterns. 

“They have their menu of traditional things, but keep it fresh and with a modern twist, like chicken bastila served with sour cream and cherry coulis,” Benkabbou says. Bastila is, to be as reductive as possible, a Moroccan chicken pie. But it’s much more than that, as she conveys in her streamlined bastila recipe.

“It’s definitely one of the most emblematic dishes of Morocco, a pie of nuts and scrambled eggs, chicken, and warqa that every single Moroccan has eaten growing up, especially for celebrations,” she says. “We serve it at weddings, at births or engagements—any big thing. If it’s your birthday, you ask your mom to serve bastila. I served it to the guests at my wedding.”

Bastila is a "labor of love," and is typically a dish that families trot out to impress a lot of people—Benkabbou recalls helping her mother make three or four very big ones for their family gatherings of over 200 people.

“You have to purchase the warqa [a Moroccan pastry dough similar to phyllo] from the women in the souk who make it in front of you, then put on layers of chicken cooked with with lots of spices and onions, then reduce the sauce and put eggs and almonds and so on in layers until you get that beautiful, golden, crinkled, crispy, crunchy pastry topping,” she says. “The recipe I developed [for Serious Eats] is a cheat version, all in one pan. It preserves the soul of the dish but saves you three hours minimum.”

Le Jardin’s contemporary take is made with cherries and sour cream for a "modern twist” that builds on a traditional foundation that every Moroccan knows as intimately well as their alphabet. “You take something so traditional and iconic and add something only to make it better. It’s a reflection of modern Moroccan chefs trying something new but not making it too crazy.”

Markets

Jamaa el-Fna

The closest thing Marrakesh has to a central square is Jamaa el-Fna, a millennium-old public space in the city’s medina, or old town, which is ringed by those 11 miles of pinkish-orange walls that give the city its moniker, “the Red City.”

Just as in the past 10 or so centuries, Jamaa el-Fna is still where people congregate to sell, buy, eat, drink, and celebrate. Looming over it is the 253-foot minaret of the 12th-century Kutubiyyah Mosque, which seems to look on as the square fills every day with musicians and dancers, buskers with performing monkeys on chains, snake charmers with hissing, swaying cobras, and other sights and offerings from all over North Africa and the Mediterranean.

But it’s at night when most of the food hawkers set up their stalls, filling the entire square with the smells of turmeric, cumin, and fried onions and garlic.

This is a good place to get a steaming bowl of harira, the thick, bright reddish-orange vegetable-and-legume soup that Moroccans traditionally break their Ramadan fasts with every day, along with a date. 

“My memory of harira is from when I started fasting at 12 or 13,” Benkabbou says. “Ramadan was always a special time because that’s when everyone would gather every night to break the fast no matter how busy my brothers or parents were, like a family reunion every night for a month. Everyone was just so happy to be eating that nobody was arguing!” 

For a large, hungry family, harira was the perfect solution to a day without meals, offering a hearty dish that filled their home with the fragrance of stewing tomatoes, turmeric, and cinnamon—all essential ingredients in Benkabbou's harira recipe.

Harira is a versatile dish that can be made myriad ways, and Benkabbou’s is just one version among many. When you’re not making your own, you can find good representatives of harira at the food stalls in Jamaa el-Fna. They start setting up in the early evening, around 6 p.m., and stay until they sell out. Benkabbou says she liked stall No. 35 on her last visit, but what’s there changes constantly, and you’re better off finding your own new favorite.

“I recommend people be adventurous and try out different stalls—you can always ask for a small taste before you decide to buy, and they will say yes because it’s part of our culture not to say no to people when they ask for food,” she says.

Jamaa el-Fna is also an excellent place to get sfenj, fried rings of dough that resemble roughly textured doughnuts but without the intrinsic sweetness. “They are light, chewy, and crispy on the outside,” Benkabbou says. Made from a simple yeast dough, they’re fried until golden and typically enjoyed warm, either plain or dipped in honey or jam, or sprinkled with sugar.”

Moroccans commonly eat sfenj for breakfast or a late-morning snack, usually along with mint tea, though vendors also sell them in the afternoons on weekends. When you buy sfenj, it’s customary to buy five or six at a time. The merchant loops them together on a length of twine, and ties the twine into a loop, which you hook your finger into and carry home to share with your family.

Mellah Market

Souk el Kheir

Salads play an essential role in many Moroccan meals, even if they’re often side dishes rather than the main attraction and generate less buzz from tourists than, say, a show-stopping tagine in a conical clay pot. 

One Moroccan salad Benkabbou likes to make at home is a joyful and complex ode to spring, built around the fresh spring peas that pop up at Marrakesh’s souks after the chill of winter fades away. She contrasts the pop of freshness from the just-warmed spring green peas and with the briny, sour power of olives and preserved lemons.

“It’s very common to use seasonal vegetables to make our mint salads, and peas are something we have in spring that we cook in the m’qualli way,” she says. “For me, it’s something very Moroccan and homey with the olives and the preserved lemon, a savory salad that’s a great side dish.” 

Radiating out from Jamaa El-Fna are the city’s historic souks, the honeycomb of open-air marketplaces that have fed and clothed the people of Marrakesh for centuries. Among these souks is the Marché du Mellah, or Mellah Market, which Benkabbou counts among the best places to buy fresh fruits and vegetables—including the key ingredients for her pea, olive, and preserved lemon salad. You might want to take home souvenirs or Marrakchi spice mixes, jars of preserved lemon, or essential Moroccan clay cookware, like a charmingly decorated tagine.

“This bustling market is a feast for the senses, with vibrant colors, fragrant spices, and the chatter of vendors calling out their daily specials,” she says. “Stalls overflow with seasonal produce, sun-ripened fruits, and briny olives, while the air is filled with the aroma of fresh herbs. It's lively, chaotic, and offers an immersive glimpse into the daily rhythms of Moroccan life.”

Making the Most of Marrakech

Considered by many to be the most beautiful city in Morocco, Marrakesh is an enticing destination for its stunning architecture, the vibrant melange of cultural influences on display, and tradition of hospitality. But this jewel of North Africa should also be on the bucket list of any world-trotting food lover. You’re sure to find your own culinary oasis here, whether it’s under the lid of a tagine or among the vegetable hawkers of a souk.

In Puerto Rico, every meal seems to be infused with joy—and that’s despite its many trials and tribulations, from natural disasters and population decline to financial crises and a fraught relationship with the rest of the United States.

The food we think of as Puerto Rican today is a mix of culinary influences, including Taino, Spanish Crillo, and African, reflecting the tastes and needs of the various waves of inhabitants of the island. Since the mid-19th century, when the island’s first restaurant opened there, San Juan has been the capital not just of Puerto Rico as a political entity but as a food culture. Today, of course, as a territory of the United States, much of the island’s culture in general can be seen as part of an extended dialogue between Puerto Rico and the rest of the U.S., with the large Puerto Rican diaspora to places like New York City and Philadelphia serving as two-way conduits.

And who better to guide us through San Juan’s food scene than those who are both celebrated food professionals and borinqueños. For our second round of Global Eats—a food lover's guide to the culinary capitals of the world—we talked to Serious Eats contributor and cookbook author Reina Gascón-López and chef and food entrepreneur Manolo López, who was born and raised in Puerto Rico and now lives in New York City, about what makes Puerto Rican food so special, what to eat if you’re not already familiar with the cuisine, and where in and near San Juan to get the best representations of those dishes. (You'll find the first Global Eats series here.)

There’s Something About Sofrito

Before you can even begin to talk about Puerto Rican foods, you have to talk about sofrito, the aromatic mixture that typically contains finely diced and pounded onions, green and red peppers, garlic, cilantro, ají dulce peppers, cilantro, culantro, and tomatoes that forms the base of almost every core Puerto Rican dish.

“Oh my gosh, it just reminds me of home, it reminds me of the caldera, of my grandmothers,” Gascón-López says. “It reminds me of their mortars and pestles—my most cherished possession is one that belonged to my grandmother and great-grandmother and still smells of garlic in the wood. There’s no better smell than sofrito hitting hot oil in a pan. The minute you smell it, you know it’s like, ‘Oh man, dinner’s going to be good.’”

The secret to a good Puerto Rican sofrito? Not that secret, it turns out. “I like putting a lot of garlic in my sofrito,” she says. “Any sofrito is supposed to taste fresh, herbaceous, and super strong with lots of garlic, lots of pepper,” Gascón-López says. “It adds a lot of body to the dish and adds another pop of flavor.”

As you make your tasting tour of San Juan and the island, be sure to try to get a feel for how sofrito can vary from place to place and what it adds to every dish. As for where to try these dishes, we’ve got you covered in the next section.

Where to Eat in San Juan, Puerto Rico

Manzana de Java

105 Cll Pomarrosa, San Juan

No website

Ask a Puerto Rican expat the food they miss most, and odds are good they’ll say mofongo. "Mofongo’s the first thing I seek out when I go back to Puerto Rico," Gascón-López says. "My dad’ll pick me up from the airport, bags in the car, and we’ll get some mofongo to eat. Texturally, it’s like mashed potato, and it should be a little creamy but a little firm to hold its shape—if the mofongo’s falling apart, it’s too dry. If it’s wet, it’s too mushy.”

López is a fan of the mofongo at Manzana de Java, a former ramen place in a residential neighborhood that the owners converted into a small (roughly 16-seat) Puerto Rican eatery that’s “very sleek and very to the point,” he says. It's filled with Puerto Rican-born millennials looking for new takes on traditional dishes. 

Not only are the plantains prepared perfectly, but the mofongo comes with a beautiful pork broth. “You can’t miss the pork cracklings and the seasonings, and you get the adobo spice and cumin and salt and pepper, and the raw garlic—those are the scents you’re getting as you eat this.”

Of course, if you can’t make it to Manzana de Java this trip, you can always try cooking at home with Gascón-López's own recipe for mofongo.

Playa Aviones

PR-187, Carolina, 00772

Though Gascón-López’s favorite mofongo place has closed down, she recommends hitting up any of the street-side food stalls, or kioskos, along Playa Aviones on the way from San Juan to Loiza, the beach town about 30 minutes east of San Juan. There’s a single road between San Juan and Loiza, and it’s lined with these modest shacks, many of which sell excellent mofongo, platters of rice, and other treats—though they rarely accept anything but cash. 

This is also a good place to get bacalaitos, salt cod fritters, palm-size bites that are crispy and golden-brown, sometimes flecked with little green bits of cilantro, pillowy soft on the inside, and fishy and salty and spicy enough to stave away any hint of blandness.

“They have these huge vats of oil and then pour in the batter similar to how you’d make a funnel cake, and then they use a kebab or big metal skewer and stab them out of the oil and let them drain,” she says. “You see the rows of fritters just sitting under the heat lamps, and then somebody next door is feeding chickens, and someone else at another kiosko is cutting coconuts as you sit in your little shack across the street from the beach eating your bacalaitos.”

La Alcapurria Quemá

251 C. Duffaut

Everyone in Puerto Rico seems to be, quite understandably, wild about tostones. Everyone also seems to have a favorite place to get them—Gascón-López, for example, swears by the tostones at almost any Chinese takeout joint.

“I’m not even kidding—I don’t know what they do to them, but they’re very thin and crispy and still kind of fluffy in the middle from the plantain,” she says. “And then they smash them in this ajo sauce, which is phenomenal”—and in line with her own recipe for tostones, which was “the way my mom made them: really garlicky.”

For a less-garlicky, arguably more traditional Puerto Rican tostone, you could also try them at La Alcapurria Quemá, a nondescript, no-A/C, cafeteria-like place in the lively neighborhood of La Placita de Santurce, where you take your food to sidewalk tables as old-school salsa music blasts from the speakers and pigeons try to sneak crumbs of your delicious fresh tostones off your plate. It’s a favorite of López’s.

“Oh my God, it’s a crispy, gold coin of perfection, with crispy edges and a crunchy bite to it but still soft in the middle, and always hot,” López says.

El Rancho Original

km 27.5, Carr. 184, Cayey

El Rancho Original is a lechonera, or roast pork restaurant, on Puerto Rico's "Pork Highway" in Guavate, in the mountains about an hour south of San Juan. It’s a popular place for San Juan families to go for special occasions and easy, cooler-weather day trips—and barbecued pork from the lechoneras that line the road up the mountain. 

Gascón-López’s family counts El Rancho Original among its favorites, despite its utilitarian aesthetics. You queue up at counters to order your food and then take them in Styrofoam clamshells back to aluminum benches. You do, however, get to set up shop next to a waterfall and a bridge over a babbling stream. Here, innumerable rows of pigs and chickens spin slowly on spits over licking flames and dripping pans. It’s the place to get tender, garlicky lechon and pernil (“with super crispy, paper-thin skin”), little cups filled with sides of yucca, boiled green bananas, morcilla (blood sausage), menudo (tripe soup), arroz con gandules (rice with pigeon peas), and enough cold beers for the group, and then hang out all afternoon. 

“It’s literally on this hill with a waterfall, and it’s the most picturesque thing you can ever see, just sitting there eating a ton of pork in the jungle,” she says.

Pollos Scharneco

1050 Av. Juan Ponce de León

Like in many countries around the world, whole roast chicken is popular all over Puerto Rico, cooked over open flames on roadside shacks or served with more fanfare and actual tables and seats at higher-end restaurants. López likes his from a place somewhere in the middle, Pollos Scharneco, a newish corner restaurant in San Juan that clearly has ambitions of a franchise, with red cartoon roosters stenciled onto stark, clinically white walls, a walk-up fast-food-style counter and menu board, and fast-food style counter seating and stools that perfectly match the brand’s bright red-white-yellow palette. Even the food is delivered on bright red plastic trays that could have come from a McDonald’s circa 1980.

It’s also a good place for arroz con gandules, López says, which is the perfect dish for a well-rested, luscious roast chicken. The rice, loaded with little popping pigeon peas, lends a sofrito-driven richness and complexity that complements the juicy chicken.

Having grown up on the island, López still associates the side dish with his childhood. “My grandma used to have a pigeon pea tree in the back of her house, and back in the day you would go back there, fill up one bucket with the pods, and then your family would sit in the house and pop the peas out and throw the pods into another bucket, then wash the peas and cook them,” he says. “I remember the first time I saw pigeon peas in a can, I was like, ‘Why would you do that? You’re supposed to go get those in the backyard.’”

Celeste

100 C. Pelayo, San Juan

Ceviche is a popular dish in Puerto Rico, though Puerto Rican ceviche doesn’t get as much attention outside of the island as mofongo or tostones. At Celeste, the owners, two brothers, take each day’s catch and work wonders with it in a small, reservations-a-must space in an old San Juan building with tall, arched windows and a simple but elegant aesthetic of white plates on white tablecloth that lets the seafood itself take the spotlight.

“They nail the leche de tigre [the mixture of lime juice, onion, chiles, and other ingredients used to cure ceviche], using fresh coconut milk, sometimes passion fruit dressing on top or ají amarillo, or Valencia oranges when they’re in season,” López says.

Cocina Al Fondo

658 C. San Juan

James Beard-winning chef Natalia Vallejo opened Cocina Al Fondo in the Santurce barrio of the city. López likes her selection of fricasés, or stews, though the exact type can vary by what’s in season or at the market—López is fond of the goat.

“You’re talking about this really hearty stew, which at the base is the sofrito, and then she layers on the other vegetables and flavors,” he says. “By the time it gets to your table, the meat has still got a bite, along with your carrots, your potatoes—it’s really a comfort food for us.”

Vallejo designed her restaurant to look like an old-style Puerto Rican mansion filled with plants and understated artwork that are muted compared to the colors of the foods on her plates.

“You feel like you’re in an old casona, an old palace, with high ceilings, rustic wood, and nothing modern about it,” López says. “The seats are low, the plates are vintage ones she sourced in Puerto Rico, and when you’re sitting at the outdoor tables, you’re sitting on vintage seats on gravel.”

Santaella

219 C. Canals, San Juan

Seafood is a serious passion on the island, and beautiful, upscale Santaella is the place to get dishes like whole fried snapper with a side of tostones with mojo sauce or a starter of alcapurrias, a fritter of mashed taro and green bananas stuffed with meat or seafood. 

“They understand balance in food so well and have access to the freshest foods that come into the market at La Placita,” López says. “If it’s mango season, then you’ll eat diced mango and cilantro and a little oil and have that brightness throughout your dish.”

Bodega Esquina Gastronómica

Esquina Baldorioty, 6 C. Celís Aguilera, Caguas

About half an hour’s drive south of San Juan, in the seemingly untouched old town center of the sleepy town of Caguas, is Bodega Esquina Gastronómica. There, the chef-owners have earned a reputation for excellent locavore Puerto Rican food that's drawing in food lovers from all over the island. It’s much needed patronage in a town that, in recent years, has been battered by hurricanes and earthquakes and is still, much like the rest of Puerto Rico, slowly recovering.

“The crazy thing is that you step out of the restaurant and you’re in Old Puerto Rico—you have one of the old bakeries from the 1930s next to the restaurant, and then next to that, they sell birdseed,” López says. “And yet they’re bringing in clientele from San Juan and other parts of the island, building back their community and their town.”

The pink-and-white, sweet-16-cake exterior belies the sleek, modern scene inside, with softly yellow–backlit cocktail bar and shelves of liquors, executive boardroom-style upholstered seats, tables of dark wood, simple but elegant tableware and a hip, young, enthusiastic clientele clearly keyed into the cutting-edge food scene of the island. 

López especially likes it when they have octopus on the menu, as he finds the notoriously tricky seafood is done extremely well at Bodega. It’s braised and seasoned with smoked paprika and paired with confit potatoes.

“You cut into the octopus and it has a little bit of resistance, but when you bite into it, it’s super soft, just masterfully done,” he says.

Via Lactea

1353 Av. Juan Ponce de León

Finally, you could finish off the day with “desserts that are just out of this world” at the nondairy ice cream shop Via Lactea, López says.

“One fruit ice cream they’ve got is soursop, a great, green globe with pointy things coming out of it that’s one of the best fruits in the world,” he says. 

Using a base of coconut milk, the soursop ice cream, which smells like pineapple but tastes like a heavenly combination of strawberry, apple, and citrus, is “one of the most intense you can eat.” 

Paired with a black cone made from activated charcoal, the contrasting white soursop ice cream makes for “great optics” and memorable Insta pics.

¡Buen Provecho!

“Buen provecho!” is something you say to dining companions at the start of a meal—or even to a stranger you've made eye contact with on your way out of a restaurant. More than a simple “enjoy your meal,” it’s a signifier of community and manners and acknowledges the connection you and that person share as human beings and as two people both reveling in the bounty that is the island’s food scene.

“It’s a very local thing to do, but locals enjoy it when visitors to Puerto Rico say that to them,” Gascón-López says. “It’s like, ‘Hey, I’m in your space but being cool about it.’”

“It’s cool to partake in that,” López agrees.

So go visit Puerto Rico and enjoy its rich, diverse food culture—and buen provecho!

Founded by conquistadors as a base from which to extend European rule but now one of the brightest hubs of proud South American culture, Santiago is a venerable city that has reinvented itself several times over. Nestled among beautiful but inhospitable mountains, it's a bustling urban oasis that has absorbed wave upon wave of immigrants from all over the world to create one of the most eclectic food scenes in the world.

A city of parks and libraries, Santiago is an easy place to get lost, whether wandering through colorful vegetable markets, past briny-smelling fish stalls, or alongside graffiti-covered walls of modern apartment buildings with first-floor cafés that spill out onto awning-shaded sidewalks. Bulbous colonial towers and sky-high palms loom over plazas packed with impromptu markets, the vendors laying out their wares of secondhand clothes and tin cookware on brightly colored blankets. And everywhere you go, people are happily munching on New York-inspired hot dogs or hearty empanadas, or lugging home boxes of freshly shucked oysters on beds of ice for a weekend family get-together.

So when it came for the second round of Serious Eats’ Global Eats—a series of insider guides to the food capitals of the world—Chile’s capital city was a no-brainer. And who better to guide us in our exploration of Santago’s streets and eats than Santiago’s own Isidora Díaz, a Serious Eats contributor and recipe developer, cookbook author, and the director of the Chilean food and wine magazine Revista Fondo. (You'll find the first Global Eats series here.) 

The Skinny on Chile

Santiago can’t escape the geography of the country it officially leads. Chile is long and skinny, running nearly 2,700 from north to south along the Pacific coast of South America—almost the width of the continental U.S. or the distance from Denmark to Italy—yet averaging only 110 miles in width. It's hemmed in by the Andes to the east, the bone-dry and often exceedingly hot Atacama desert to the north, and a subpolar region in the south that sets Chile closer than any other nation to Antarctica.

“Chile, geographically, is very unique and very long, and usually people look at Chile on the map and don’t realize how truly long it is,” Díaz says. “The result of that is our food variety, which is why we have many different things to eat in many different places in Chile. So what you would eat in the north is very different from the things in the south.”

The capital city of Santiago, which sits midway from north to south, is where everything in the country flows to, at least food-wise, making for a “very rich and very vibrant food culture.”

That, of course, is layered on top of the fact that what is now Chile had diverse food cultures long before colonization—from the agriculture of the Incas in the north to the foraging traditions of the Mapuche farther south. After the arrival of the conquistadors, waves of immigrants from Spain, England, France, Germany, Italy, Croatia, Palestine, China, Korea, and Japan brought elements of their own culinary traditions to the country.

“If you go to Santiago to have tea, you get kuchen and strudel along with it,” Díaz says. “It’s common to find dolma and Middle Eastern sweets because we have one of the biggest Palestinian communities in the world. Lately, we have a lot of Peruvian immigrants, so Santiago is full of Nikkei restaurants that use Chilean seafood and fish to make Peruvian-Japanese dishes.”

A Food Day in the Life of a Santiago Local

In Santiago, a typical food day might start in the morning with a modest breakfast of bread, avocado, and coffee or tea. Lunch, the big meal of the day, is commonly a hearty stew of some sort, like a charquicán of beef, winter squash, corn, peas, diced carrots, and onions seasoned with paprika, cumin, and black pepper, then thickened with chunks of red potatoes until it’s the consistency of mashed potatoes. That usually comes with more bread with a little butter or hot sauce on the side. A less formal work lunch might be Chilean completos—two Chilean hot dogs smothered with fixings.

Following lunch is "once" (pronounced “ON-say,” as in the Spanish word for “eleven,” the original time to take it), related to the elevenses of various countries or English afternoon tea but now often taken between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Bread once again features here, along with a piece of ham, cheese, or avocado alongside cake, cookies, kuchen, or strudel. For many families, once takes the place of dinner.

When Santiaguinos have dinner, they have it late, usually between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. “Americans coming here planning on making reservations for dinner at 6 p.m. need to know that’s not going to happen here,” Díaz says. “The earliest they’ll do to cater to tourists will be 7, 7:30, but then it’ll be no one else in the restaurant but you and other Americans, probably.” Dinner is lighter than lunch but heavier than breakfast or once. It might consist of a seafood or meat dish, soup, and, of course, bread, possibly followed by sweets.

Bread, as you’ve probably gathered, is a big part of Chilean cuisine, and is heavily influenced by the French. Two of the more popular types are pan francés, which is like a soft, small baguette, and hallulla, something like a small, dense brioche.

Another common misconception Americans have about Chilean food is that it’s spicy. “Chilean food is not spicy at all,” Díaz says. “Though you usually have a hot sauce or diced hot peppers on the side and can add that to your food.”

Restaurants

Fuente Antigua

Av. Alameda Libertador Bernardo O'Higgins 58, 8331084 Santiago, Región Metropolitana

Hot dogs have been a passion in Santiago since the 1920s, when an enterprising Santiago chef came back from a trip to New York City and opened Chile’s first hot dog restaurant in Santiago’s main square called Quick Lunch Bahamondes. Díaz’s lifelong exemplar for classic Chilean completos comes from Fuenta Antigua, a restaurant that almost resembles a vaguely Bavarian-themed diner, with a wraparound wooden counter lined with barstools.

“I was going to Fuente Antigua in downtown Santiago with my dad a lot—there’s a classical concert musical venue nearby, and we’d go there after,” she says. “There’s a superweird German vibe, and the ladies are dressed in uniforms that almost seem clinical, with everything clean and stainless steel, almost like a cafeteria.”

The tradition at this decades-old institution is that all the cooks behind the counter are women, and they're stationed at huge griddles with all their ingredients lined up nearby and ready to go. You get in line behind the local workers and regulars and an increasing number of tourists who’ve been clued into the place, go up to the counter, order your food, and they griddle the meat in front of you, then load your sandwich or hot dog with heaps of typical Chilean toppings, such as avocado, sauerkraut, and mayonnaise.

“It’s in and out: You go, ask for your sandwich and a beer, and then quickly eat. It doesn’t even have tables—you can sit or stand at the counters against the cooking area or the walls,” Díaz says.

Though Chilean hot dogs were inspired by New York dogs, they have grown to enormous proportions compared to, say, a relatively anemic Nathan’s at the Coney Island boardwalk. First of all, the bread is sturdier and chewier than the easily soggified rolls Americans are used to. And the actual wiener has, in many ways, become besides the point.

“The sausage is not the most important thing in Chilean hot dogs,” Díaz says. “We love toppings and lots of them. The classic would have sauerkraut, tomatoes, mayonnaise, and sometimes what we call salsa Americana, which is ground-up pickles that are vinegary, not sweet like American relish. Other favorite toppings are mashed avocados—like one avocado per hot dog—and then mayonnaise, mustard, and hot sauce.

Fuenta Antigua’s matter-of-fact but over-the-top completos—”a truly Chilean experience”— are what Díaz had in mind when she developed her own completos recipe for Serious Eats. Her recipe includes instructions for making the sturdy, hoagie-like buns from scratch since a typical American hot dog bun can't hold up to the heft and moisture of a truly thick pasting of mayonnaise along with avocado mash, sauerkraut, and tomatoes.

La Flaca

Av. Apoquindo 2730, las Condes

Charquicán is deeply tied to Chilean culinary identity and holds a special place in Díaz’s family memories.

“My grandma, when she was still alive, would invite us every Wednesday to have lunch, and one of her preparations was charquicán, a winter dish you can also eat in summer with tomatoes, when it’s called tomatican,” she says. “It’s a very homey dish, and everyone grew up eating this at least once a week in Chile because we have potatoes all along the country and the rest is adjustable to what you have on hand.”

A good charquicán is one that showcases the quality of its individual ingredients, all working together to create a new whole. Díaz likes the way the dish is prepared at La Flaca, a relatively new, higher-end place that packs loads of enthusiastic fans into tablecloth-covered tables in a brightly lit dining room set within a Santiago food court. 

The secret to the best versions of the dish, whether from a restaurant or homemade, like Díaz's own charquicán recipe, is the sofrito, the aromatic vegetable base that’s the foundation of many dishes across the Latin world. “A good sofrito is the soul of charquicán,” she says. Hers includes onions, bell peppers, carrots, ají de color or sweet paprika, cumin, and oregano. 

Besides the sofrito, this thick stew also needs the right potatoes, which shouldn’t be surprising considering the root vegetable originated in the Andean mountains. “A good charquicán shows all the flavors of the potatoes and veggies and sofrito, all well-integrated,” she says. “You have a bite and it tastes like charquicán and not like potatoes that you’ve added the seasoning and beans to later. Because everything has different cooking times, you have to layer the ingredients into the pot so that everything has cooked just enough for you to mash them, with the beans still a little al dente so you get those colors.”

Ostras Chiloé

Del Monje 10530, 7700336 Lo Barnechea, Región Metropolitana

Ostras Bilbao

Avenida Francisco Bilbao 2946, Av. Las Condes 7164, 7500000 Santiago, Región Metropolitana

Seafood is a big part of eating in Chile, and for special occasions or weekly family get-togethers, it’s common to order raw oysters from places like Ostras Bilbao or Ostras Chiloé, seafood stores where the staff members shuck the shellfish for you, put them in a big box, and then either deliver them to your home or pack it up for you to take out. “This is a very common thing in Chile, just ordering oysters on a weekend or for a celebration or a party—like for my birthday, when I order 200 oysters,” Díaz says. 

You call the seafood store the day before, putting in an order for at least 50, and then pay in cash when you pick them up or they’re delivered. The bigger Chilean oysters are called ostras japonesas, which are less delicious. The small oysters, victoria, are the ones you want, especially if they’re from Chiloé Island to the south. 

“The oysters in Chile are super briny and tasty, and we eat a lot of them,” she says. “You serve them with lemons and a nice sauvignon blanc, and it’s an experience people can do when they rent an Airbnb or stay at a hotel”—just bring the oysters back to wherever you're staying and go to town.

La Calma by Fredes

Av. Nueva Costanera 3832, local 2, 7630357 Vitacura, Región Metropolitana

For a fancier Chilean seafood experience that you don't take home with you, Díaz recommends La Calma, which is renowned for its generous seafood platter of oysters, sea urchins, scallops, clams, razor clams, sea snails, sea squirts, and sashimi. The star here is the sea urchin, especially the ones from the north, according to Díaz.

“This has a relatively small tongue, very creamy with a bit of resistance, but a flavor that’s super intense,” she says. “It has a lot of iodine, and you don’t have to eat a lot of it to feel it—it’s more intense and tasty than a lot of other uni.” The sea urchin is served raw and straight from the shell, and Chileans often mix it with a salsa of diced white onions, cilantro, lemon juice, and hot sauce, mixing it with the flesh and eating it with bread.

La Calma is a modern, white-tablecloth place with nearly floor-to-ceiling windows looking out onto the street all the way around the front and side—this is the place to go to impress a potential business partner or future spouse (or their parents).

Los Ciervos

Av. Tobalaba 2113, 7500000 Providencia, Región Metropolitana

In Chile, empanadas—those half-moons of chewy dough filled with a juicy, stew-like filling of diced beef or other ingredients—can serve as a big once or a whole lunch. The best beef empanadas, of course, are the ones your mother or grandmother makes at home, but Díaz says that the ones at Los Ciervos are pretty much as close as you can get to homemade. 

“The filling contains paprika, cumin, and black pepper and is a good balance of the three seasonings with a light hand on the cumin,” she says. “The dough is fatty like the ones that my mother and grandmother made.” That dough, in fact, is close to the one Díaz recreates in her recipe for pequenes, a vegetarian version of empanadas based around an onion instead of a beef filling.

Los Ciervos is a venerable takeaway place, like an American deli with bakery ovens in it, and it’s the kind of spot where you can do your shopping for cold cuts, pickles, fresh bread, or even oysters, ordering empanadas to eat on a bench at the park nearby. Its clientele is a combination of older locals who’ve been coming regularly for decades and young, food-loving hipsters.

“The filling in their empanadas is juicy, fresh, and very close to homemade,” she says. “It’s very homey, with a dough that’s thick enough to hold the juicy filling but still thin enough to be crunchy on the sides when it’s baked—it’s an art.”

Chillin' in Chile

Santiago has the kind of eclectic food culture that you could spend days sinking into, and whether you end up prioritizing mayo-topped completos, oysters and sea urchins, a hearty charquicán mash, or empanadas like grandma made, you ought to find plenty to tickle your palate and fill your belly in Chile’s central city.