11 UNESCO cities of gastronomy to visit

11 UNESCO cities of gastronomy to visit

Tucson, US

Tucson became a UNESCO City of Gastronomy 10 years ago, and it’s the diversity of its cuisine which bagged it this accolade. A mouthwatering combination of Indigenous, Mexican and Southwestern influences, its food scene has serious heritage – ancestors of Arizona’s Tohono O'odham American Indians first planted corn here 4,000 years ago.

Today, chefs go all out to honour the bounty on offer. Head to the Tucson Chocolate Factory, for example, to feast on chocolate made with chiltepin chilli, or to the Whiskey Del Bac tasting room to sip mesquite-smoked spirits. Tucson’s superstar chefs include Tyler Fenton at BATA, a fine dining restaurant famous for championing heritage ingredients (try the squash with tepary beans and red rock onion). Foodies keen to learn more should book a tour with Tucson Food Tours, which have a big focus on the city’s chefs.

Heraklion, Greece

Heraklion is the largest city on Crete – an island famous for cuisine steeped in history and rooted in simplicity, and both of these aspects were key to its UNESCO City of Gastronomy designation. Ingredients are the star of the show here, which is hardly surprising given that this is a place with 30 million olive trees and where fruits grown in its fertile soils include bananas, oranges, figs and pomegranates. So which dishes should be on visitors’ radars?

Topping the list is Cretan Graviera – a bright yellow cheese with a spicy flavour, followed by antikristo, cuts of meat cooked over an open fire. When it comes to the city’s best restaurants, Peskesi is famous for its dolmadakia (minced meat-stuffed grape leaves) and olive oil (including an olive oil-tasting experience), while Kafeneio O Tempelis serves up wallet-friendly tapas made with seasonal ingredients. Don’t skip the city’s gorgeous cafés, either. The coffee at Koudoumas is legendary, and owner and coffee connoisseur Konstantinos Kostas Koudoumas loves helping visitors find their perfect roast.

Table with several bowls of different olives — Credit: Municipality of Heraklion

Bergen, Norway

Bergen’s reputation for gastronomic greatness dates back thousands of years. A city surrounded by the sea, fjords and mountains dotted with fertile pastures, food was never in short supply here. UNESCO were particularly impressed by the passion for championing techniques which have been around since the Viking age – the smoking and curing of fish as a method of preservation is a great example. Mussels, scallops, crabs and prawns are found in abundance, and one of the city’s oldest (and most popular) dishes is persetorsk – a delicacy made with cod cured using salt and sugar.

A reminder of the diversity of Bergen’s cuisine is its three Michelin-starred restaurants – Lysverket, Gaptrast and Omakase by Sergey Pak, which specialise in Norwegian, seasonal and Japanese cuisine respectively. Planning a visit? There’s never a bad time to visit, but September is when the brilliant Bergen Matfestival food festival takes place.

Bergen credit bergen tourist board — Credit: Bergen Tourist Board

Florianopolis, Brazil

Florianopolis takes up most of Brazil’s lush Santa Catarina island, and its food scene has been shaped by everyone from the Carijó indigenous people to the Azoreans who arrived here before reinventing much-loved dishes using local ingredients such as cassava. It’s another destination famous for the diversity of its ingredients, whether it’s honey produced by the island’s stingless bees or oysters plucked from the Atlantic Ocean (hence the city’s moniker, Brazil’s Oyster Capital). Unsurprisingly, seafood appears on almost every menu.

As for the dish all visitors should try? Daniela Damasceno, head chef at Ponta dos Ganchos, a restaurant to the north of Florianopolis, suggests caldeirada. “It’s a seafood stew which perfectly sums up the city's gastronomy, and features crucial elements of local cuisine – shrimp, squid, octopus, shellfish and oysters.” When it comes to hotels, consider checking in at the sleek LK Design Hotel – the star of the show is Osli, its fine dining seafood restaurant, and the most popular dish is the grilled octopus with smoked almonds.

Phuket, Thailand

The island of Phuket in Southern Thailand is known for its fusion of Chinese, Thai, Muslim and Indian cuisines. In 2019 the Michelin Guide Thailand included Phuket for the first time, and several fine dining restaurants have opened here in the past few years. The UNESCO City of Gastronomy designation came in 2015, awarded not only for Phuket’s gastronomic diversity but the training opportunities for young local chefs (there are plans to open an Institute of Phuket Gastronomy) and the passion for sustainability.

Restaurants to know include PRU, helmed by Dutch chef Jimmy Ophorst and famous for its tasting menu packed with seasonal, local ingredients. Recently, a number of cooking schools have sprung up here. One of the best is at Blue Elephant, a Michelin guide-listed restaurant and cookery school inside a heritage mansion. Alternatively, consider a food-themed exploration of the city to learn more – book with Secret Food Tours and you’ll sample 10 dishes over three hours. Highlights include the slow-cooked pork belly and the crab curry.

Bendigo, Australia

The Victoria city of Bendigo is a place where culinary traditions are carefully preserved, although there’s also plenty of innovation. Take the city’s DJAKITJ enterprise, designed to reintroduce native foods and preserve farming techniques used by the Dja Dja Wurrung people, or Peppergreen Farm, a social enterprise where people with disabilities can learn how to grow healthy food. Bendigo is a former goldrush city – explore the downtown area and you’ll find several restaurants tucked into lovingly preserved goldrush-era buildings, and there are fantastic markets, too. The Bendigo Community Farmers Market, on the second Saturday of every month, is a great spot for local cheeses.

You’ll also never go thirsty. Try Bendigo Brewing for craft beers with an Australian twist (the Dragon City lager, made with Tasmanian raspberries, is a case in point) or The Shiraz Republic, a wine bar in the heart of a vineyard. One of the city’s newest openings is Terrae at Hotel Ernest, in a former bank. Head here for seasonal cuisine prepared using ingredients from the restaurant’s farm.

Bendigo Market, Australia — Credit: Visit Victoria

Santa Maria da Feira, Portugal

Santa Maria da Feira is a place with endless opportunities for deep dives into local cuisine, whether it’s during the ancient Fogaceiras Festival, when young girls carry fogaça (a sweet, baked bread) through the city’s streets, or the annual Medieval Journey, when visitors can feast on dishes which once sustained pilgrims visiting the city. To learn more about locals’ passion for preserving culinary traditions, book a guided tour of Lactimaf, one of Portugal’s oldest cheese factories, or of Confeitaria Castelo, an historic confectioner famous for its Fogaça da Feira.

Restaurants to make a beeline for include Casa da Estação, where you can feast on huge steaks cooked over a natural wood fire, and Terra Mãe for fresh fish plucked from the sea that morning. But for chef Sara Santos, roast cabrito is the dish which represents the city best. “Cooked slowly in the oven with garlic, white wine and fresh herbs, roast cabrito (young goat) is a true emblem of our festive tables,” says Chef Santos. “It captures the generosity and depth of our cuisine — rich, celebratory and designed to be shared.”

Bergamo, Italy

The valleys and the plains surrounding Bergamo, in Northern Italy, have been farmed for thousands of years, and there’s still a huge value placed on local produce. Schemes such as Parco dei Colli (Park of the Hills) were created to ensure the city’s farmers have space to develop innovative urban agriculture projects and many of Bergamo’s restaurants are part of the East Lombardy project, created to connect producers and restaurateurs who prioritise sustainability and diversity. Dining in Bergamo’s restaurants isn’t the only way to appreciate its cuisine, either – the food-themed walking tours of the city organised by the tourist board are especially popular, as are the regular medieval themed dinners held throughout the year in the banquet hall of Malpaga Castle.

Stay at Palazzo Santo Sprito, an historic hotel in a former monastery. Its main restaurant is Hortus, where the focus is on seafood, often prepared in unexpected ways. Don’t miss the chance to try the marinated salmon sashimi with teriyaki sauce, shallots and beet tartare.

Fribourg, Switzerland

This medieval city in western Switzerland was named a UNESCO City of Gastronomy for various reasons, including the way cultural events are used to preserve gastronomic traditions. At Bénichon (a thanksgiving festival in October), for example, biscômes (gingerbread with honey) are handed out, while local delicacies such as Vacherin Fribourgeois (a milky cheese) are cherished staples of St Nicholas' Day, in early December.

Despite the city’s relatively small population of just 40,000 people, it’s got almost 200 restaurants, many of which are family-owned. The city is in the heart of the Gruyère region, and a fantastic spot to sample local delicacies is La Schweizerhalle café, where menu highlights include the croque monsieur made with local cheese, and the meringue with double cream produced in the region.

Credit: fribourgtourisme.ch

Hatay, Turkey

Mediterranean, Anatolian and Middle Eastern flavours have shaped this Turkish city’s food scene, and chefs were never short of inspiration – the city was a key hub on the Silk Route, so exotic ingredients were easy to obtain. Characteristics of the dishes you’ll find here include the careful balance between acidity, spiciness and richness, and there’s a heavy reliance on herbs. The latter is what makes many dishes stand out – don’t miss the chance to try the hummus, made with the region’s famously smooth olive oil and pickles grown on the fertile farmlands surrounding the city. Another speciality is kunefe – a pastry made with cheese and syrup. Try it at Sultan Sofrası, a small restaurant on the banks of the River Asi.

Tsuruoka, Japan

The Yamagata prefecture city of Tsuruoka is known for its cherry blossoms, but it’s also famous for its food. It's location, close to the Sea of Japan and also at the heart of one of Japan’s most fertile regions, the Shonai Plain, means there's no shortage of ingredients. Whether it's the finest seafood (don’t miss the chance to try sazae, a type of sea snail) or the spectacularly wide range of vegetables, including the sansai (mountain vegetables) which appear in spring, or the dadacha-mame, a type of edamame famous for its rich flavour.

Tsuruoka’s proximity to three peaks – Mount Haguro, Mount Gassan and Mount Yudono – has also shaped its food scene. These mountains are considered sacred by the local yamabushi (mountain priests), whose diet consists largely of wild mountain plants – an approach which led to the creation of a Japanese version of Buddhist vegetarian cuisine known as shojin ryori.