10 Iconic Dishes That Are Worth Traveling For

Though its name nods to Spain, Pamplona was born on the grills of Uruguay. It is a deeply delicious, deboned piece of meat, most often chicken, butterflied and gently pounded until thin, then rolled around a filling of cheese, ham, sweet peppers, sometimes olives, and occasionally bacon. It is tied with care, like a parcel you very much want to open, and cooked slowly on a parrilla (grill), where heat and smoke do their work. Pamplona crossed the river and the border, becoming beloved in Argentina too, and the place to get your hands on it in Buenos Aires is at El Pobre Luis, a steakhouse in the Belgrano neighborhood (you can’t miss the bright red façade). Here, the Pamplona arrives fragrant with herbs and the oozy cheese threatening to escape its confines at the slightest provocation.

No visit to Copenhagen feels complete without sitting down to smørrebrød, an open-faced sandwich built on dense, sour rugbrød, the dark rye bread Danes have eaten for more than a thousand years. Historians trace the word smørrebrød back to the early 18th century, when farmers packed buttered rye and leftovers from the night before for sustenance in the fields. By the late 19th century, smørrebrød had migrated from lunch pails to Copenhagen dining rooms, evolving along the way. As Denmark prospered, the toppings multiplied. Fish, meats, eggs, herbs, sauces, crunch, softness, acidity, richness. This dish is taken so seriously that for a time, a Copenhagen hospitality school offered a three-year professional training to become a smørrebrødsjomfru, a smørrebrød specialist. Get your bread, fat, flavoring, and topping-filled smørrebrød at Told & Snaps, Restaurant Palægade, or Schønnemann, which has been open since 1877.

Biltong may look like beef jerky at a glance, but that comparison does it a small injustice. Biltong is thicker, softer at the center, and far more nuanced. Long before refrigeration or even permanent settlement, southern Africa’s early hunter-gatherers learned to preserve meat by slicing it into strips and hanging it in the dry heat. The climate did the work for them, creating food that could endure. When European settlers arrived, they adopted these techniques, adding what they had brought with them, such as salt, vinegar, coriander, and pepper. From the Dutch word bil, meaning hindquarter, and tong, meaning strip, beef is the most common base for biltong, though it is also made from kudu, ostrich, or wildebeest. Biltong is a beloved snack and delicacy throughout South Africa and also neighboring Namibia.

Mussels in Brussels may rhyme like a joke, but in Belgium’s capital, it is a seriously tasty meal. When you order moules-frites, it arrives not as a dainty portion but as a generous, almost theatrical mound: a steaming pot of mussels with the shells slightly yawning open to reveal glistening flesh, alongside a bowl of golden fries that are dipped in the mussel sauce or the accompanying mayonnaise. Of the endless variations, moules au vin blanc (mussels cooked in white wine) is the most elegant. The proper way to eat the mussels is to remove the first one from its shell with a fork and then repurpose the empty shells as tweezers to pluck the rest. Get your serving at La Belle Maraîchère, Le Zinneke, L’Ancien Bruxelles, La Roue d’Or near the Grand Place, or Aux Armes de Bruxelles, a classic since 1921.

Pad Thai may be Thailand’s most famous export, but to stop there would be like eating only croissants in Paris. In Bangkok, when you want another zingy noodle creation, order Pad See Ew. This is a dish of wide, flat rice noodles (sen yai), glossy and languorous, wok-tossed over ferocious heat with soy sauces until they blister and char at the edges. That slight scorch gives Pad See Ew its caramelized depth. Egg is added, Chinese broccoli provides light bitterness, and there’s usually chicken, pork, beef, or tofu tucked in for substance. The dish has Chinese roots; it is a cousin of Cantonese chow fun and Malaysia’s char kway teow. When wandering around Bangkok’s Khao San Road or Soi Rambuttri, you’ll find many a street stall serving it in versions that range from politely peppered to unapologetically fiery.

Jerk is not a sauce or a seasoning but a method of preparing meat, most often chicken or pork, after marinating. The meat is slow cooked over fire until it is smoky, tender, and tantalizing. Its origins trace back to the Taíno people, Jamaica’s Indigenous inhabitants, whose techniques of preserving and cooking meat were later adopted and transformed by the Maroons, enslaved Africans who escaped British plantations and fled into the island’s mountains. There, they seasoned wild game with native spices and cooked it in underground, smokeless pits that wouldn’t give away their locations. In contemporary Jamaica, jerk is everywhere. You’ll fortuitously find it at roadside jerk centers, beach shacks, festivals, and family gatherings, with the inviting aroma curling around neighborhoods.

 Travel to the Netherlands and get your hands (literally) on raw herring, which some call the “Dutch sushi.” There is so much affection, pride, and ceremony around it. Traditionally, the head is removed, but the tail remains, and the ritual is that you lift the full fish by the tail, tilt your head back, and lower it into your mouth in one smooth motion. Its most prized incarnation is Hollandse Nieuwe, the first catch of the season, available from early June. When the season opens, the first barrel is auctioned for charity in Scheveningen, making the seaside enclave in The Hague an ideal place to try it straight from the North Sea. Chopped onions are available as a garnish, and you can have your herring sliced into pieces instead but never ask for mayonnaise and guard it closely. The seagulls, like the Dutch themselves, know exactly how lekker (delicious) it is.