Albania

Pull up a chair at a taverna on the Riviera, where the Ionian is almost too blue to be real, and lunch arrives in slow, generous waves: warm byrek, its pastry shattering over a spinach-and-cheese filling; a dish of fërgesë, peppers and tomato baked with soft white cheese; a carafe of house wine nobody will let you pay much for. Albania has sat at a crossroads forever, and you taste every era of it.

There's the Ottoman inheritance — grilled qofte, slow-cooked lamb, syrup-soaked sweets — laid over an Adriatic love of olive oil, herbs and just-landed fish, with an Italian accent drifting across the water in the pasta and the espresso. The national dish, tavë kosi, says it best: lamb and rice baked under a blanket of yoghurt and egg until it sets like a savoury custard. Finish with a slab of milk-soaked trileçe and a shot of homemade raki, and you'll wonder how the secret held this long.