10jili Food Tourism Is Dead, but Something More Interesting Is Emerging

Fil777 | 2025-01-06 04:53

I eagerly awaited my reservation last year at Rekondo in San Sebastián10jili, Spain — another predictable, if excellent, stop on the well-worn food tourist circuit. At my table, I lost myself in a wine list thick as a phone book, each page heavy with forgotten Riojas, until the pristine hake kokotxas arrived.

I was on a two-week family vacation on the Iberian Peninsula. What I didn’t expect was that my most memorable meal on the trip would come at Chila, a Hunanese restaurant in Madrid, where I could order chef’s specials through WeChat. As I savored premium Ibérico pork loin with fiery Padrón peppers and fermented black beans, watching Chinese families chat at nearby tables, I realized something fundamental had shifted in how we experience food through travel.

starlight princess

We can now observe food cultures develop in real time, shaped by migration and internet connectivity. The old model of chasing cultural cachet by traveling to specific destinations for “authentic” local cuisine is fading fast, worn down by streaming food documentaries, algorithm-driven Instagram recommendations that expose every hidden gem and the democratization of travel through budget flights and Airbnbs. With global foods more accessible than ever, the real cutting edge of culinary exploration lies not in destination traveling but in the next wave of third-culture cuisines at the intersections of tradition, immigration and diaspora.

Food tourism as we’ve known it has become a victim of its own success. You no longer need to visit Paris for macarons from Ladurée when you can find them at shops in major U.S. cities or have them delivered to your home via Goldbelly, a service that specializes in iconic restaurant dishes and regional specialties. Even Tokyo’s Tsukiji market experience has gone global: The chefs at Masa in New York and Sushi Zo in Los Angeles have told me that the same fish being auctioned in the famous bazaar arrives daily in their restaurants.

The obscure treasures in back alleys are now bookmarked on TikTok, with Uber dropping tourists at their doorstep. Patrons study menus before going to restaurants, they know the chef’s story, and they arrive at already rated “secret” spots through geotagging.

But the move backfired in a way that few supporters expected. Californians in 2021 actually tossed nearly 50 percent more plastic bags, by weight, than when the law first passed in 2014, according to data from CalRecycle, California’s recycling agency.

His debunked claims about Haitian migrants stealing and eating their neighbors’ pets in Springfield, Ohio, helped stir a firestorm over immigration in that community, which has dealt with bomb threats and evacuations after Mr. Trump made his comments.

But here’s where it gets interesting: What we’re witnessing isn’t just the decline of traditional food tourism; it’s the birth of something far more fascinating.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.