Roads & Kingdoms began as a digital publication built on the premise that food offers a way into understanding people, places, and power. Backed early on by Anthony Bourdain, it developed a reputation for long-form reporting grounded in local voices, patient observation, and a belief that hospitality and politics are never far apart.
Issue 1: 2026 marks the launch of the project in annual print volumes. Edited with an international outlook and a largely American core team, the magazine ranges widely while maintaining a consistent narrative approach, one that favors context over provocation and depth over speed.
The issue opens with a letter from co-founder Matt Goulding addressed directly to Bourdain, setting a reflective tone that carries through the magazine. Across its pages, reporting, essays, fiction, photography, and illustration take us between Gaza, Lagos, Rome, Tokyo, California, and Caracas, among other places. Food is the entry point, but the subjects are just as often migration, labor, tradition, survival, and pleasure.
Longer pieces anchor the issue, offering sustained engagement rather than quick takes:
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José Andrés on walking the Camino de Santiago and the meanings that accrue along the way
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An excerpt adapted from Long Live Pulque by Juan Escalona Meléndez
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Wanda Udobang on stockfish and its place in Nigerian cooking
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Nathan Thornburgh on hunting and cooking iguana
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“The R&K 50,” an unranked global list of restaurants considered second homes by chefs, writers, and eaters, with contributions from Eric Ripert, René Redzepi, Palisa Anderson, Virgilio Martínez, Matty Matheson, and others
Roads & Kingdoms rewards attention with reporting that is generous in scope and serious about the connections between food and the wider world.
