01 Food Heroes
The stall-holders, home-cooks and market fixtures our guides defer to. One hero per city, each with a life story worth reading. All still cooking today.
Pad Thai Master
Khun Somchai
Bangkok, Thailand
Third-generation street cook, learned the recipe from his grandmother — still charcoal, still the same wok.
Tagine Artisan
Fatima El-Hassani
Marrakech, Morocco
Slow-cooks tagines in the same clay pots her mother used, over the same charcoal-fed alley kitchen.
Taco Legend
Don Miguel
Mexico City, Mexico
The last of the al-pastor purists — no shortcuts, no marinades from a bottle, just a spinning trompo and a knife.
Pho Grandmother
Bà Hai
Hanoi, Vietnam
Sixty years at the same corner. The broth has been simmering since before the country was reunified.
Nyama Choma Queen
Mama Njeri
Nairobi, Kenya
Wood-fire, hand-cut, patience — the three rules for great nyama choma. Mama Njeri built a following on all three.
Ramen Master
Yuki Tanaka
Tokyo, Japan
A ten-seat counter in a Shinjuku basement. Eighteen hours of tonkotsu bone broth. Twelve seats' worth of queue outside every night.