Roads and Kingdoms

While yellow trams and custard tarts make for a colorful poster campaign, Paulo Sousa Costa insists the real Lisbon is far more nuanced. Here, he shares how to navigate the city at a local pace. Access this and all our other premium articles by joining our membership program. Plans start at $6.50 per month and include twice-weekly digital features, access to in-person events, and more.

In Madrid, which is no stranger to sought-after bookings, few seats are harder to come by than those at Ugo Chan, an open-kitchen counter in the Chamartín district. There, chef Hugo Muñoz serves meticulous, Japanese-minded cooking without leaving his Madrid roots behind. When Ugo Chan opened in 2022, recognition came quickly: a Michelin star followed just eight months after launch. But Muñoz says it was no overnight success.

And other advice on India’s vibrant capital from this week’s fixer, long-time editor Jamal Shaikh. Access this and all our other premium articles by joining our membership program. Plans start at $6.50 per month and include twice-weekly digital features, access to in-person events, and more.

The first time I tried to reach Carlos Camañes Cobo for our scheduled interview, he didn’t pick up. A voice message arrived soon after. “We’ve had an incredible storm here,” he said. “It’s done quite a lot of damage to the houses and the fields. Call me tomorrow and we’ll talk.” It would take nearly a week before we managed to speak. Camañes was busy dealing with the damage from the storm, which came after months of extreme drought. Farming means dealing with nature’s surprises, often unwelcome ones.

She’s cutting, sharp, occasionally irascible, and pretty much always right. We go inside General Public with Jen Agg, the restaurateur who made everyone give a damn about Toronto. Restaurateur and bestselling author Jen Agg knows Toronto better than anyone in the business. She understands what her customers need—and what they deserve. As she launches her latest book, Table Boss, this week, we’re releasing a new episode of OPEN, filmed inside her newest restaurant, General Public.

Veteran food writer Dennis Lee’s walks us through the Second City’s best mom-and-pop kitchens, tavern pizza, and hidden neighborhood bars. Access this and all our other premium articles by joining our membership program. Plans start at $6.50 per month and include twice-weekly digital features, access to in-person events, and more.

In 1952, when Pascual and Josefa Blanco opened Mesón de Pincelín in Almansa, a town in the Castilla–La Mancha region of southeastern Spain, dictator Francisco Franco had already ruled the country for more than a decade. Although the Civil War had ended thirteen years earlier, the country was still mired in repression, poverty, and the lingering consequences of the postwar years.

She’s never really known Kenya, and Kenya has never known her. Nereya Otieno hopes a pot of stewed greens will bring her closer to her father’s homeland. Access this and all our other premium articles by joining our membership program. Plans start at $6.50 per month and include twice-weekly digital features, access to in-person events, and more.

Before they sold shellfish, the Oubiñas harvested it. Trace the family tree of Laureano Oubiña—founder of Mariscos Laureano, one of Galicia’s best-known shellfish companies, in the coastal village of Cambados—and every branch leads to the sea. Fishermen, shellfish gatherers: everywhere you look are “sea people,” as Laureano likes to call them. In the late 1980s, Laureano began farming oysters and mussels, sensing that Galicia’s shellfish deserved a more professional route to market.

The Macau of today has only just begun, and it’s also ending soon. Twenty-seven years ago, the Portuguese handed the territory back to China, ending 442 years of administration and closing the door on the last European colony in Asia. The handover came with a guaranteed fifty-year grace period under the “One Country, Two Systems” policy, allowing Macau to keep its own legal framework, economy, and culture until 2049. The end game?