Destination: International Culinary Heritage

Why our new culinary travel series begins in Istanbul

On my last visit to Istanbul, the part of lunch I kept thinking about was the oven. At Uğur Büryan in Fatih, I ate büryan: meat roasted in a deep pit and served on flatbread. The dish has roots in Siirt and Bitlis, far to the east of Istanbul. A cook can carry a recipe to a new city in their head. To put that lunch on the table, though, someone had to build the oven and know how to judge its heat.

That meal captures why I wanted to write Destination: International Culinary Heritage, a new series of travel books from Culin-Air Travel. In January 2027, Guardian Publish will publish the first volume: Istanbul – Taste the edible mosaic of two continents.

Istanbul rewards anyone willing to plan a day around a meal. A morning in the kitchens of Topkapı Palace reveals what it took to feed an Ottoman court. An afternoon among the fishmongers, pickle sellers and small restaurants of Kadıköy brings the regional cooking of Anatolia within walking distance. The book explores how trade, migration and generations of home cooks shaped the city’s tastes, and how those tastes found their way into its art and literature. Twenty-five flavours and six culinary routes give you places to start, with addresses for eating out and recipes for the dishes you’ll want to make when you get home.

Each book in the series will take its cue from the destination. In Abruzzo, Italy, coming in April 2027, we’ll follow the links between landscape and livelihood: from arrosticini, slender mutton skewers rooted in the region’s sheep-rearing tradition, to the fish stew cooked in Vasto on the UNESCO heritage Trabocchi coast. In September 2027, Delhi & Lucknow, Northern India will pick up a thread from Istanbul: how the cooking of a court becomes part of a city’s appetite. The Mughal heritage of Delhi and the Awadhi kitchens of Lucknow offer two delicious ways into that story, through curries, kebabs, breads and slow-cooked biryani.

We aim to publish the first 25 volumes by 2032, in English and Dutch. I’m writing them for the traveller with one free afternoon and for the travel professional planning an entire itinerary. In either case, I hope you’ll find somewhere you want to eat – and a good question to ask when you get there.

Would you like to know when the books come out? Email me at royvoogd@culin-air.nl to sign up for publication updates. Tell me which destination you’re waiting for, or ask to hear about the whole series.

Roy Voogd · Culin-Air Travel