Looking back at 2014, chefs dominated The Insider, the feature I write for The Globe and Mail, in which locals in the know dish on top experiences in their own backyards. And this year, I was lucky enough to get a lot of top cooks to play travel guide. 

So here I pay tribute to these tour leaders that didn't make it on to the blog yet. (Ahem, I like my blog to slowly simmer.) Heading to Florida? Daniel Boulud shares where to get the best grilled sea bass in Palm Beach, one of the cities blessed by his culinary empire. "This is my town," says Mario Batali about New York, who pushes us to try a cocktail made with beet vinegar in the Big Apple. Craving seafood? PEI's favourite celeb chef Michael Smith takes us to an old-fashioned lobster dinner in Charlottetown. And Top Chef Canada victor René Rodriguez confesses his love for a maple candied bacon doughnut in Ottawa. Ready to escape winter? Tim Tibbitts, the chef behind the Bahamas' Flying Fish on Grand Bahama island sends you on an cone run for soursop ice cream.

Note: All recommendations were accurate at the time of publication. But that's a cool thing about culinary travel no? It just keeps changing.

Frank Laino, the executive concierge of the luxury hotel The Stafford London, has arranged everything from tai chi on horseback and a private viewing of a royal painting to reservations at the current restaurant hotspot Chiltern Firehouse. “Most of the time we can,” says Laino, who puts his skills down to networking in the age of Google research. “I’m not going to say all the time. Unless you’re an A-lister, you won’t get a guaranteed table.”

Here, in this Insider for The Globe and Mail, he shares five picks that mix London's rich cultural and culinary scene. Blog Bonus: Another theatre worth checking out: The Almeida Theatre, he says, is almost like a testing ground for shows before they break out in London.
 

Bells from St. Lawrence, the only medieval church that survived the blitz of the Second World War, chime and toll as shoppers hurry across the square, headed for the lunchtime rush at the new Markthal. So much of Rotterdam is new – the city core was essentially flattened in 15 minutes when more than 1,000 German bombs dropped in May, 1940 – that it feels unlike many European cities. Instead of centuries-old stone, shiny towers rise up on the banks of the Maas River and iconic buildings have taken root. The latest is the Markthal, the first covered market in the Netherlands.

But it’s much more than your average grocery shop or even farmer’s market stroll. In this story, for Doctor's Review magazine, I join the pilgrimage to the latest architectural star. And in my Insider for The Globe and Mail, I interview Anton Wubben, the architect project leader from MVRDV, the leading Rotterdam firm that designed the building. Anton, who lived and dreamed about the project for five years, shares five other not-to-be-forgotten places to visit in this modern port city.