How to find the food locals actually eat

The signals that actually correlate with good food

• A short menu. Six dishes means six dishes done repeatedly. Eighty dishes means a freezer.
• A queue of people not holding cameras. Locals queue for value; visitors queue for reputation.
• Turnover. Full at the local eating hour and empty an hour later is a very good sign.
• The dish the place is named after. If the sign says the name of a soup, order the soup.
• Visible cooking: open kitchens, street grills and somebody making food at the front.
• Handwritten or chalked specials. Something changed today, which means something is fresh.

The signals that mean walk on

• Photographs of every dish in six languages. The menu is designed for people who will not come back.
• Somebody outside trying to bring you in. Good restaurants do not need a doorman.
• A view of the single most famous thing in the city. You are paying for the view.
• Cuisine sprawl. Pizza, sushi, curry and burgers on one menu signal a microwave.
• Empty at the hour everyone else is full. The locals know something.

Eat at the local hour, not yours

This adjustment fixes more bad meals than any other. In Spain, a restaurant serving dinner at seven is serving tourists; in much of Latin America the main meal is lunch; in Japan the best ramen counters can sell out by early afternoon.

Find out when people eat and go then. You will wait longer and eat considerably better.

Markets: the fastest route to the real thing

A market solves the problem in one move. Everyone is standing, nobody is on a date, prices are visible, and cooking happens in front of you.

• Do a full lap before buying. You will always find a better version at the far end.
• Eat where the traders eat, at the hour they eat.
• Order what is already on the counter rather than asking for something to be made.
• High turnover is not a substitute for safe refrigeration or cooking. Check food handling, safe temperatures and clean water; popularity alone cannot establish safety.
• Go early. Produce markets are largely finished by nine.

Ask the right question

“Where is a good restaurant?” gets you sent somewhere good for foreigners. Ask instead where someone eats lunch on a work day, what you should eat here that you cannot eat elsewhere, or where they would take visiting family.

Ask the taxi driver, bakery worker or shop owner two streets from the square rather than only the hotel desk. Curiosity gets a different, better answer.

Ordering when you do not share a language

• Point at what somebody else is eating. It is universally understood and well received.
• Learn four words: hello, thank you, delicious and the local word for “the same”.
• Take a photo of any dish you loved and show it in the next town. Regional names differ; pictures do not.
• Write down what you cannot eat in the local language. Allergies do not survive mime.

The etiquette that matters

Small things carry weight and vary by place. Tipping is expected in the United States, unusual in Japan and rounded up in much of Europe. Bread, coffee and even a packet of tissues on a table can carry local rules.

You do not need to study everything in advance. Watch for the first ten minutes and copy what everyone else does.

The one meal worth planning

Most meals should be found rather than booked. But most places have one thing that genuinely requires a reservation, season or specific address. Identify that one before you go and book it, then leave the other meals to the signals above.

When something is very good, ask for the recipe. You will receive ingredients without quantities, it will take eleven attempts, and it will still not be right. That is the correct outcome.