Where will your tastebuds take you - to places with hot food or cold?

A chilled gazpacho in Granada or a fiery curry in Thailand? If your tastebuds can't decide where to take you, our experts are here to help.

By Mal Chenu

When it comes to dishes - and overcooked metaphors - it's not just revenge that is best served cold. All over the world, especially during the warmer months, travellers sit down to cool delicacies. It's no coincidence that another word for "cold" is "biting".

You may not travel to Spain just for cold soup, but once you're there - particularly around Cordoba, Seville or Granada - a bowl of gazpacho is a must-sip. Another refreshing Iberian broth is porra antequerana, a Malaga tapa they used to serve hot before realising it was better cold and topped with anchovies.

Fancy a soupcon more cold soup? No trip to Lithuania would be complete without a bowl of beetroot-based saltibarsciai. And glugging down a yogurt-based tarator in Bulgaria or North Macedonia is simply de rigueur.

More de rigueur is the incomparable combo of leeks, onions, potatoes and cream that is vichyssoise. A French chef invented this in New York, so you can slurp it authentically on both sides of the Atlantic.

And while you're Franco-feasting, remember the best hors d'oeuvres, amuses-bouche and canapes are served cold, not to mention the escargot, huitres, foie gras, terrine, pâté, parfait and mousse.

Then there's ceviche in Peru, biltong in South Africa, dolma in Greece, moussaka in Arabia, various guacamoles in Mexico, gelato in Italy, kulfi in India and dondurma in Turkiye. And we haven't even chewed over the cornucopia of cool salads the world has to offer.

Where better to chill than Japan, where sashimi is as much a part of the culture as kimonos, karaoke and cruel game shows. Sashimi is sliced with knives so sharp they could do your taxes, and the fish is so fresh it is practically still swimming. One particularly delicate delicacy is fugu (blowfish) - a morsel so potentially poisonous it has to be prepared by a licensed chef and the royal family is forbidden from eating it. Other cold favourites in the land of the rising sun include somen noodles and a chilled ramen called hiyashi chuka.

Closer to home, and I'm not coming the raw prawn with fairy bread, Anzac bickies or raw prawns, but a lap around the Pacific is another cold culinary thrill. Poisson cru (raw fish) in Tahiti, kokoda (ceviche served in a coconut) in Fiji, and poke bowls (or a Spam musubi, if you're starving) in Hawaii, to name but a few frigid Pacific faves.

My erstwhile fellow columnist grew up under a damp, frozen dishcloth in northern England, where you can measure summer on your watch. In recent columns, she has made it clear she would travel anywhere if it meant connecting with something hot - sunshine and spices, Bollywood and Bondi, hammams and Hemsworths - so we can take her suggestions with a pinch of peppers.

By Amy Cooper

I'm a spice girl because hot food means adventure. Remember what sparked the Age of Discovery, enticing explorers across vast oceans to faraway lands, connecting cultures and blazing trails from Asia to Africa to South America and all the hotspots in between? Spice, baby. Without a burning desire for hot food, we'd all still be chilling at home, wondering how to make carbs interesting. So, while Mal's packing his cold case, I'll be in hot pursuit of dynamite destinations, with the Scoville Scale (scientific heat measurement for chilies) as my compass.

Let's blast off in Thailand, where spice is the blistering base of every regional cuisine. The Siamese heat heartland is Isan in the north-east, home to the incendiary green papaya salad somtum and larb, the minced meat dish with a heat intensity roughly approximate to the sun's core. Cool off at the blossom-bedecked Red Lotus Lake, the Phimai Historical Park and Wat Lan Kuad, the "million bottle temple", decorated with more than a million recycled glass bottles and caps.

Pursue peak piquancy in Andhra Pradesh, on the south-east coast, and its sizzling signatures royyala yeppadu, a scorching prawn curry, or mirapakaya bajji, green chilies stuffed with masala. Steam into Korea for smouldering Seoul food. The blazing batter on Korean fried chicken would combust the other KFC's Colonel, as would kimchi jjigae, a scalding stew of fermented kimchi, pork and tofu or gochugang, an incendiary funky sauce. Push on to Peru and its primary pepper, aji, the power behind the weapons-grade cuisine in the south-west's 16th-century Arequipa, where surrounding volcanos hint at the lava levels in the foodie city's signature, rocoto releno, aji-loaded stuffed peppers.

Cruise into the Caribbean, home of Jamaica's notorious Scotch Bonnet chili and Trinidad's Moruga Scorpion pepper. Red hot Jamaican jerk sauces are best enjoyed island style, by balmy blue seas. Calabria, on the hot tip of Italy's boot, has its famously fiery peperoncino, deployed explosively in 'nduja, spicy sausages and sauces and olio di pepperoncino, and celebrated annually in Diamante's Peperoncino Festival beside scenic Tyrrhenian coast.

I'll keep calm and curry on to my homeland, the UK, a spice paradise with an estimated 12,000 curry houses around the country. On a tour of Birmingham's Balti Triangle, a legendary cluster of curry houses, you can self-immolate with the celebrated stir-fry Balti curries developed in the city by Pakistani chefs.

Then it's off to the pub for a great British beer ... served warm, of course, Mal!