Ljubljana, Slovenia

An 1870 gostilna in a burgher's house next to Ljubljana's old town hall, named after its founder Jakob Mehle and the falcon — sokol — that gave the building its sign. The Ljubljana firefighting society was founded around the long oak table here that same year; the room still has the 19th-century paintings on the walls and the carved wooden bench seats that came with it. The Carniolan sausage on the menu is served the way every Slovene grandmother served it: poached gently, dropped onto a plate with sauerkraut, a spoon of grated horseradish, yellow mustard, and a slice of dark rye. The mushroom soup in a hollowed-out round loaf is the other reason locals keep coming back.