Raissa Doumbia + Mathieu Niamke of The Seasoning House have brought their African cuisine from the Côte d’Ivoire to Troy.

From Siberian Chef Vlad Larvin, Taiga is a taste of the wild boreal mountain forests from his hometown Altai region. From Russian botanical teas to blinis with smoked salmon and roe, it’s a seasonal feast often with dramatic presentations. In the back, a surprising addition of a small store with his botanical skincare line and imported hand-sewn silk pajamas and clothes.

From the award-winning chefs behind Contra + WildAir in NYC, an upscale, upstate dining retreat complete with chef’s gardens, boulder wrapped fire-pit, their signature creative small plates + impeccable cocktails. (Don’t miss their eclectic flavored ice cream.)

Suwun Thai Home Cooking is the new home of Brooklyn Thai restaurant Ghang Thai Kitchen in the former Cuckoo’s Nest in Albany’s Pine Hills. Upscale but warmly welcome, the menu reads as a best hits of Thai classics with Thai-inspired cocktails in flavors from tamarind to coconut-ginger.

Casita at Mass MoCA is a love letter to the tiny villages of Mexico with regional dishes, house-made tortillas and moles, and excellent cocktails and mezcals sourced during visits to producers.

Tuscan Bakery is not Italian but Turkish. Go for fresh made bread, Turkish böreği, kol börek, sweet pastries and imported Turkish delight. Stay for Turkish coffee, breakfast, menemen, or tea.

Via Cassia is a fun, bustling Italian restaurant on lower Warren Street with a focus on simple, Mediterranean flavors, Hudson Valley farm ingredients, and a Californian twist.

Saba Cafe & Hookah Lounge is on the 2nd floor up a steep flight of stairs above the Saba al Yemen (formerly Sheba al Yemen) on Central Ave. With a cafe menu of coffees, pastries and smoothies it is family friendly by day, and a hookah lounge with monthly events during the evening.

Daisuki is a Tokyo-style record bar Tucked inside a former walk-in ATM vestibule on 2nd Street in Troy with just 14 seats, Japanese highballs, sake overpours + eclectic snacks.

This unassuming strip mall taqueria behind a gun range in Green Island is a riot of color and flavor from the menu boards on the wall to the broad menu spanning chilaquiles, tacos arabe, carne asada, ceviches and tacos de cachete (beef cheek).

The vibrant Umana Yana embraces global cuisines with Afro-Caribbean dishes and the area’s only Ethiopian stews and injera bread. Serves global wines and wine-based or non-alcoholic cocktails with optional CBD shots.

Mystic Momo’s colorful, pleated Nepalese dumplings are dished up in a former bank + OTB overlooking historic Townsend Park in Albany.

Cafe Euphoria in Troy, NY is an inclusive, worker-owned + operated cafe/restaurant with a thrift store and co-working space. It serves breakfast and lunch with a dinner menu on weekends.

The arrival of the fast casual Keobi on Lark Street in Albany put a full range of Nigerian and African dishes in reach from egusi and ogbono soup with fufu, to peppered goat meat, jute leaf ewedu and plantain porridge.

Local restaurateurs Kaytrin and chef Devin Ziemann (Ziemann Hospitality Group), the power couple behind The Nest on State Street, transformed the mood of Schenectady dining with the summer 2024 opening of Milas, a modern Mediterranean restaurant in the 120-year old former Schenectady Savings Bank.

When the owners of Cinnamon Indian Cuisine in Rhinebeck, were asked to open a sibling in Woodstock after the town’s only Indian restaurant closed, they saw it as an opportunity to try something different.