Food tourism is dead; something more interesting is emerging

I eagerly awaited my reservation last year at Rekondo in San Sebastián, 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.

- BRIAN LEE

I was on a two-week family vacation on the Iberian Peninsula. But 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.

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 US 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.