Metro New York

Good ol Home Cooking

Take your meals on the road in the hottest destinations for foodie travel

2007-05-09 | By Heidi Patalano

 Everyone knows that Italy is the best place for gelato, France is best for crepes and England wins for, well, anything slathered in grease and mayonnaise. But people everywhere are beginning to re-think foodie travel.

As editor-in-chief of Sherman's Travel Magazine, Norman Vanamee said in a recent interview with Metro, "Food tourism, with the Food Network and more and more food magazines, has become a bigger and bigger thing. At a certain point, like any other tourism, you really start having to be creative and think beyond what you're reading in the big places and think about places that aren't so obvious." Metro investigated some culinary destinations both domestic and abroad that are guaranteed to titillate the tongue with unique local flavor.

California's Napa Valley is always recognized as America's most-treasured wine region, but eastern Long Island - with the help of some irrigation techniques and wineries run by skilled artisans - is moving up in rank. Editors of both Bon Appetit and Sherman's Travel have acknowledged the North Fork as an emerging destination for foodie travelers in the past month. (northforkguide.com)

"You're going to find really great merlots and roses and other varietals that have really stepped up in recent years," says Bon Appetit Features Editor Hugh Garvey. While the Hamptons were previous known mostly for who was eating where, the cuisine itself has gotten more of the focus lately, emphasizing the use of locally produced ingredients.

Food and music festivals are also great ways to get a sampling of local flavor while taking in some authentic entertainment. Garvey suggests traveling to the heart of a food's origin in order to try the best of the best; most especially at the Memphis in May festival coming up next week.

"There's a great barbecue-cooking contest. Barbecue is a great summer dish, a great American treasure and this is one of the capitals of barbecue," says Garvey. "You can listen to some great music, check out the contest, the music festival. That's a really fun way of having some good food and also having a good time. It's not just about eating. It's about having a good party." (May 17-19, memphisinmay.org)

It's a common axiom that one should eat fresh and eat local in order to enjoy food at its optimum flavor. You can have the best of these things at the South Berwick, Maine, Strawberry Festival in late June, which is, according to Garvey, "the moment to eat strawberries." (June 30, www.southberwickstrawberryfestival.com)

You can also hit up the annual Green Mountain Chew Chew Food and Music Festival in Burlington, Vt., (greenmountainchewchew.com), which highlights local delicacies from the area.

If you're looking to go a bit further for a gastronomically pleasing getaway, Las Vegas may be your place, where Bon Appetit holds its annual Vegas Culinary and Wine Focus. Famous chefs such as Cat Cora of "Iron Chef America" fame attend and participate in the festivities.

Cooking competitions, cocktail workshops and cooking classes make this vacation educational and tasty, in a setting that already offer a bazillion options for entertainment. (www.bonappetitfocus.com)

But what if you're willing to take the plunge overseas? The suggestions of experts may surprise you. "Malaysia is where all the chefs are going for inspiration," says Garvey.

"Zak Pelaccio from Fatty Crab cooked in Malaysia and was so inspired that he opened a restaurant doing Malaysian street food. My advice to the hard-core foodie traveler is to go to Malaysia and experience it first hand." (www.tourism.gov.my)

Vanamee echoes that statement, remarking that places already famous for their cuisine may offer less of an authentic experience than they once did. Cities less known for their food are attracting chefs because of the lower rents, and the regions are benefiting.

Edinburgh, Scotland, and Mexico City, Mexico, for example, are both experiencing a boom in culinary innovation, using local ingredients to create adventuresome flavors.

Wherever you decide to travel for flavor, just take the advice of our experts: Eat local!

Top 10 New Foodie Destinations

According to Sherman's Travel, these are the newest places to test your palate: