David Chang Says Istanbul Is the Most Exciting Place for Food Right Now

Courtesy of Michael Simon

Restaurateur, celebrity chef, and TV star David Chang has built an empire of restaurants around the world, including the two-Michelin-starred Ko in Manhattan. But besides simply serving mouth-watering food from Sydney to Los Angeles and back again, Chang has taught us how to appreciate food, to learn from food, and to respect it.

Take Chang’s Netflix show, “Ugly Delicious,” as an example. On a journey around the world, Chang and his pals explore what makes our favorite foods great — fried chicken, home cooking, pizza — by finding who’s doing it best, who’s doing it different, and why those stories matter.

With a new season of “Ugly Delicious” in the pipeline, plus too many new restaurants in the works to count, Chang teamed up with American Express and Boxed to launch a collection of summer essentials that will earn eligible Amex cardholders 10x rewards points.

We met up with Chang at an Amex party celebrating the return of the Amex Rose Gold card to talk about what’s going on in the culinary world, where to travel if you want to eat as good as him, and how to be a better home cook.

Travel + Leisure: What’s great about food in the U.S. right now?

David Chang: “Well, the good thing about food right now is that it's getting decentralized from the major, huge cities. So food is better than ever, but it may not be where you traditionally think it's going to be, the cities that you think it's going to be.”

What cities should be on our radar?

“I've been a huge fan of Houston. There's things going on in Dallas, Minneapolis. You know, cities with a lot of people, and you have cooks and restaurants that are opening up that maybe in the past have opened up in a city like New York. Now it’s flattening out elsewhere and that's very exciting to see people take big chances that it's getting harder to find a new york.”

You’ve traveled the world tasting food and exploring different regions. What advice do you have for travelers?

“I think that the best advice I can give is throw the travel guides away and just get lost and discover your own path.”

Is there a favorite place you’ve traveled recently?

“I was in Istanbul this year and I think that it is probably the most exciting city I've been to for food in a long time. It's beautiful, number one. But it's just got such a rich and storied history, but because of its storied history, it has all kinds of cuisine there that's sort of merged into something that's very unique and influenced that entire region. Most importantly, incredibly delicious.”

What should we eat in Turkey?

“Doner and all the kabobs — lot of grilled meats.”

Anywhere else you’d recommend?

“I was also in Cambodia. That was eye opening and also a place that I think a lot more people should visit.”

As someone who knows their way around a kitchen. What advice do you have for a novice cook at home?

“I think the best advice I can give is: you have to make mistakes. Unfortunately, that's the only way [people] get better — just by trying things out. That's the best way. I swear. No one's born a good cook.

“We have a lot of restaurants to work on. We have the next season of ‘Ugly Delicious’ coming up. Actually it's just freaks me out thinking about how much stuff we got. [Laughs]”

Note: This interview was lightly edited for clarity.

10 Secret Rooms Inside Famous Landmarks

There's something inherently fascinating about hidden rooms—doubly so when they're hidden inside landmarks visited by thousands of people every day. Take Mount Rushmore, for example. The attraction, visited by more than three million people every year, boasts a secret room behind Abraham Lincoln's head. Gustave Eiffel, the designer of Paris's famous tower, created an apartment at the very top of the landmark.

And that's just the beginning. Read on for the coolest secret spaces within monuments.

Travel Diary: Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro with 'Orange is the New Black' Star Laura Prepon

When Orange is the New Black star Laura Prepon was approached by her friend, Roberto Santos, to join his climb of Mount Kilimanjaro—Africa’s highest mountain—the actress, a self-professed adventure-travel enthusiast, found it hard to say no. “I tend to do things on the spur of the moment,” she says. “I was hanging out with Roberto, and he said, ‘I’m going to climb Kilimanjaro in Africa, want to go?’ And I was like, ‘Sure!’ And then I came home and Googled it, and I was like, this is a full-on mountain! It’s almost 20,000 feet, which I didn’t know. I’m not a climber—I just like adventure.”

The actress and her group flew into Tanzania (which, coincidentally, made our list of Best Places to Travel in 2016), and spent the first seven days hiking the mountain. “Summiting Kilimanjaro was so hard the last day, because you have to ascend 5,000 feet in one day, since it’s too dangerous to sleep at those altitudes," she says. "So we left at midnight and climbed for seven and a half hours. At 20,000 feet, you’re like, losing your mind because of the altitude; the human body is not supposed to be at that high of an altitude. But when you summit, something happens to you that’s so incredible, and it’s such an accomplishment. After coming down the next day, we celebrated with our whole crew; we had barbecue goat, which is a tradition, and we drank my favorite cider I’ve ever found in my life, which is called Savanna Dry Cider. We all hungout and celebrated—it was fantastic,” says Prepon.

But after seven days of roughing it, the star was in need of some pampering (we can’t blame her). So she looked to Amani Afrika (“the best tour company I’ve ever worked with in my life”), who had planned her climbing expedition, to help her pick where to go next. So where did they choose? “We went to the Ngorongoro Crater and stayed at andBeyond Crater Lodge, which was one of the most gorgeous hotels I’ve ever been to. Then, we went to central Serengeti, where we stayed at the Four Seasons Safari Lodge, and it was just unreal. We were at the pool, and an entire herd of elephants just walked by, like, no big deal.”

As a first timer to Africa, we had to ask: what surprised Prepon most? “There are a lot of people from Los Angeles and New York that aren’t happy with their lives, and we have everything we could possibly want at our fingertips. Then you go somewhere like Africa, and that’s not the case. But everybody I met was so happy! When we were going up the mountain, one of our guides, Paulo, was literally singing, 'I love my job!' These guys wouldn’t change it for the world—they’re so happy. People take for granted what we have in America, and this trip was really so amazing because I always try to be grateful for what I have. Going to Africa really put that into perspective even more, which is incredible.”

For Prepon, climbing Mount Kiliminjaro brought about a whole new obsession. “It’s weird—now I’m all about climbing. It’s so relaxing. It’s like whenever I fly fish—I love fly-fishing—and the reason why it’s so relaxing is because your whole goal is to just catch a fish. It’s almost like a mantra. And that’s like what a mountain climb is; you’re above the clouds, and it’s so hard, but the fact that your one goal is to make the summit makes it oddly relaxing. And it’s amazing to be disconnected from the world. Whenever people are like, 'Where have you been?' It’s like, 'Dude, I was on a mountain.' It’s the best excuse to not have to be in communication with anybody, ever.”

As for where the travel junkie’s headed next? “I was going to France to climb Mont Blanc, but then I wrapped a movie, moved to New York, the show [Orange is the New Black] premiered, and then I start filming. So squeezing in a mountain climb is kind of tough. But also, I don’t know how to use crampons or an ice axe yet. So I’m going to have to wait to do that.”

For Prepon’s full travel diary through Tanzania, scroll on.

How Messy Should You Leave a Hotel Room? (Video)

Lizzie Post, the great-great granddaughter of Emily Post, author, and co-host of The Awesome Etiquette Podcast, has agreed to weigh in on a few travel etiquette questions from a politesse perspective. She’s covered airplane seat backs, to recline or not to recline, arm rests, and kids on flights. She’s weighed in on short-term rental etiquette, and here turns her attention to hotels. She told us how much to tip; now she tells us how much mess is acceptable!

Jim Corwin / Alamy Stock Photo

How messy or clean should hotel guests leave a room? Should they, say, strip the sheets?

“Nope, that’s totally up to them; that’s what they do.”

How much of an effort should a guest make?

“I do what they ask me to do; if they ask me to put towels on the floor, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll make sure they’re in a pile on the floor together, easy to pick up. If I had a lot of takeout or food in the garbage, I’ll try to pack it up and throw it away [elsewhere]. I don’t try to strip the bed or remake it because I know they’re going to strip it anyways. You could do that, but you don’t have to. I try to make sure the furniture is back where it’s supposed to be; I try to make it look somewhat like it looked like when I walked into it.”

If you leave a big mess, does that affect how much you should tip?

“Then I would tip more. If I can’t leave things in relatively good shape—sure, I might use every towel in the bathroom—but if I’m leaving spills or messes or the sorts of things you hear about celebrities doing, then I’d leave a tip, a really big tip. … [It also] really depends on you and who you are and what your wallet’s like.”

Alex Van Buren is a writer living in Brooklyn, New York. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @alexvanburen.