Lonely Planet Food - Lonely Planets Ultimate Eats

Youll need to jostle your way to the bar to order, poised for an opening to appear.

Un pincho de anchoas con pimientos, por favor. Y una copa de chacol. Gracias!

A small plate comes back with your first pintxo and a glass of Basque sparkling wine. Salud! Welcome to San Sebastin in Spain, one of the worlds greatest cities to eat your way around. Sandwiched between the Baha de le Concha and the citys river, the grid of narrow streets in San Sebastins old town are packed with pintxos bars, each serving their own speciality of these Basque bites. In Bar Txepetxa on C/Pescadera, anchovies are the go-to snack. A few doors down at Nestor, its a beefheart tomato salad dressed with just olive oil and salt, or a tortilla so sought after that you have to put your name down on a list for a slice. Further along C/Pescadera, Bar Zerukos theatrical creations include a morsel of cod on a miniature smoking grill. Its as if the city has been designed to delight every sense and your sense of adventure, as you meander from bar to bar, meeting different people, trying new and inventive Basque flavours.

Trips like this inspired Lonely Planets Ultimate Eats, our collection of the worlds most memorable eating experiences. Food and place are inextricably connected: local dishes evolved according to what grew nearby or what was in season. Occasionally a gastronomic genius will create a classic that is recreated in restaurants around the world: how many versions of salad Nioise might ever have been made? But only on the French Riviera can you try it in its home and there, in the golden light and sea breeze, everything makes more sense the tuna from the Mediterranean, the sun-ripened Provencal tomatoes. Thanks to migration and globalisation, its easy to find kimchi in Los Angeles or manoushe in Melbourne but only in Korea or Lebanon can you dig down to their cultural roots. In these places, you dont just taste the dish but experience the whirl of people, languages, aromas and sounds that are unique to that destination. Thats what makes each dish memorable.

So, how did we draw up our selection? First, we canvassed the Lonely Planet community our writers, bloggers and staffers, a globetrotting group of people known to obsess over food and travel for their most delicious discoveries. We also asked 20 chefs and food writers with an interest in world cuisines from Jos Andrs to Andrew Zimmern for their five favourite food experiences (see the coloured panels). With this long list to hand, we sought to rank the entries: where should you go for the worlds must-have food experiences? Our team of expert food editors were aided by a panel made up of chef and TV presenter Adam Liaw and food blogger Leyla Kazim that evaluated the entries according to the taste of the dish, its cultural importance, and the special atmosphere of the location.

This book is the result of their deliberations. Looking at our top ten, it seems that shared, communal food experiences rated highly pintxos in San Sebastin, dim sum in Hong Kong and sushi in Japan and we wondered what caused this. Clearly, we enjoy eating food around other people with the extra local interaction and the sense of place these experiences offer. Perhaps the added variety also rewards the more intrepid gastronaut, who is not always completely sure what theyre ordering

Eating local has wider benefits too. Arguably, sustainability is higher when food is seasonal and grown in the vicinity, supporting local communities. An advantage of going to these places in person is that you can ask the server before ordering about the restaurants sourcing policies of seafood, which figures prominently in our top 20, for example - or where the ingredients come from. Vote with your dollar or yen or euro.

This book travels the world with an insatiable appetite. It takes in the culinary melting pots of London, New York and Melbourne, and also such dont-miss destinations as Lima, Singapore and the Yucatn. A few of the experiences we recommend are really off the beaten track: bush tucker in outback Australia or Faroese cuisine for example. But what they all have in common is that they will put you in thrilling touch with a place, its people and their way of life all thanks to some delicious food. In the Eat It! section of each entry we tell you exactly where to go to try each dish. Turn to our guidebooks and lonelyplanet.com for more detailed directions.

So, dont delay! Pack your passport (and loose-fitting clothing) and start ticking off your favourite food experiences from our list of Ultimate Eats.