As 2019 comes to a close, and a new year begins, it’s time for my annual round-up of my favourite five photos of the year that feature me jumping for joy in various locations. Regular readers will know that I use this post as a way of looking back on my travels throughout the year. And this year, I visited nine countries, including three that were new to me — Estonia (new), USA, Germany, Switzerland, Slovenia (new), Malaysia (new), Singapore, Spain and France. 

In this, the first and most delicious of my ninth annual end-of-year round-up posts, I highlight some of my favourite coffee shops, restaurants and dishes of the year, both in London and on my travels. This year, I visited nine countries (Estonia, the US, Germany, Switzerland, Estonia, Malaysia, Singapore, Spain and France). From £4 chicken rice in Singapore to tempting tasting menus in Tallinn, as well as sublime speciality coffee, it's been quite a year. As usual, I've only included places I visited for the first time in 2019.

It's taken me too long to visit Chicago — the Midwestern city, on the shores of Lake Michigan, has been in my sights for some time. I missed out on a work trip a few years ago, but as it would have been during a particularly cold and snowy February, that may have been for the best.

I've wanted to visit Chicago for many years but I held out, hoping that an opportunity to go on business might come up. It didn't but I recently took a long weekend trip to the Windy City. With only four days and plenty of sight-seeing and dining to do too, I only did a whistle-stop tour of Chicago's excellent specialty coffee scene. I didn't do too badly, though, and visited nine different coffee shops during my trip. As usual, my very favourites are indicated in purple in the map and with asterisks below.