So how did Lonely Planet come up with their list?

It’s not about the perfect meal at a three-Michelin star restaurant: It’s about how a dish tastes, its cultural significance and the importance of the location where it’s made and eaten.

“When you have a salad Nicoise [below] in New York, you might think, oh this is nice,” Lonely Planet destinations editor Matt Phillips told CNN Travel.

“When you have it where it came about (in Nice, France) you realize why these ingredients are together,” said Phillips. “I get it in this place. It’s the perfect dish on this hot day. The dish goes with the environment you’re in.” (It’s ranked 238th on the list.)

“You spend your day walking through the medina and smelling spice and cinnamon and walking by butchers and someone pulls out a lamb tagine with couscous and succulent lamb,” he said.

“By the end of the day, you’re sitting down at a restaurant (for dinner) after the call to prayer and it’s on the plate, and it’s kind of magic.”

That would have to be the deep fried tarantula he sampled in Cambodia (447th place) and still recalls as the strangest thing he — as a Canadian born, London resident — has ever eaten.

“I ate them in 1999, and I still talk about them,” he said.

But he also loves gelato in Italy (ranked #24), saying it’s “heaven, and it hits the spot perfectly.”