Yogyakarta, ID

The most famous name in gudeg, the sweet jackfruit stew that is Jogja's signature dish, on the historic Wijilan lane lined with rival gudeg houses near the palace. The stew simmers for hours to a deep caramel sweetness, served with rice, egg and a fiery sambal krecek. This is the dish the city is built on, in its classic form.

A royal restaurant inside the palace grounds serving dishes once cooked for the Sultans, recipes drawn from the court kitchen. Open-sided pavilions and gamelan in the background make it a genuinely regal lunch, with dishes you will not find on any street stall. The place to eat Javanese food at its most refined and historic.

A pilgrimage spot south of the city for sate klathak, young goat grilled on iron bicycle spokes and seasoned with little more than salt so the meat speaks for itself. It comes with a clear goat-rib broth rather than the usual peanut sauce, a Jogja specialty you cannot get elsewhere. Smoky, simple and worth the trip out.

A warm, artsy warung in the Tirtodipuran arts district owned by a well-known Javanese theatre family, serving home-style Indonesian cooking with character. The menu wanders across the archipelago with dishes you would be served in a good Javanese home rather than a tourist kitchen. Beloved by the local creative crowd for good reason.

A restaurant set in a grand old Indo-Javanese mansion in the silver district of Kotagede, pairing heritage architecture with refined Indonesian and fusion plates. The carved interiors and courtyard make it the area's special-occasion table, a step up from the workshop lanes outside. Worth pairing with a wander through old Kotagede.

A long-running Spanish-Mediterranean kitchen in the Tirtodipuran arts district and a fixture of the city's fine-dining scene. Expect proper paella, tapas and grilled fish, a complete change of register from the Javanese norm. The garden setting makes it a relaxed escape for a longer dinner.

A leafy, almost entirely vegan garden cafe near Prawirotaman that has been the city's plant-based anchor for years, tied to a youth social project. The menu is wholesome and inventive, from tempeh dishes to homemade breads and juices, served in a tangle of greenery. A calm, ethical break from the meat-heavy norm.

An Italian-style gelato parlour in Prawirotaman with a long counter of bright, fruit-forward flavours and a pretty plant-filled interior. It has become the district's go-to cool-down and a hangout for the young local crowd. Exactly the sweet stop you want after a hot day among the temples.

A long-standing traveller cafe and bakery on Prawirotaman, a Belgian-Indonesian crossover serving everything from full breakfasts to Javanese plates and good bread. It doubles as a cultural hub running cooking classes, tours and exhibitions, so it is as much meeting point as restaurant. Reliable, all-day and easy.

A snug, vintage-styled coffee shop on Prawirotaman with exposed brick, dim warm light and a serious approach to its brews. It is the kind of small, unhurried room locals settle into for hours, a contrast to the flashier instagram cafes. Good single-origin coffee and a calm place to read.

A theatrical Javanese eatery near the Tugu area, all incense, gamelan, antiques and waitstaff in traditional dress, serving cheap, generous local food around the clock. It is part restaurant, part performance, beloved by locals for its over-the-top atmosphere as much as the food. A only-in-Jogja night out that does not break the bank.

The city's famous spine, a long pedestrian-friendly boulevard running from the Tugu monument down toward the palace, lined with batik stalls, street musicians and food carts. Walking its length is the classic way to take the city's pulse, busiest and most alive after dark. Flat, easy and endlessly distracting.

A reservoir on the northern edge of the city ringed by an easy walking and jogging path, popular with locals at dawn and dusk for the cool air and the Merapi volcano view. It is a flat, green loop away from the tourist trail, the closest proper outdoor circuit to the centre. Good for a gentle morning walk.

The river that threads through the heart of the city, its steep banks lined with a famously painted riverside kampung that was reshaped by a local architect-activist. A walk along the embankments shows a side of Jogja the temples never do, all murals, stilt houses and daily life. Short, urban and full of character.

A former limestone quarry east of the city that local carvers turned into an open-air sculpture cliff, with stairways climbing to a flat top that looks out over rice fields and distant volcanoes. The short, steep climb up the carved rock is the workout, and the panorama at the top is the reward. A quirky, made-by-locals viewpoint.

The city's leading museum of Javanese culture, packed with wayang puppets, masks, batik, gamelan and kris daggers near the palace square. Its real draw is the nightly shadow-puppet performance, a rare chance to see a condensed wayang kulit with live gamelan. The best single primer on the culture you are surrounded by.

The riverside home and studio of Affandi, Indonesia's foremost expressionist painter, who designed the curving banana-leaf-roofed buildings himself. His thickly worked canvases hang alongside his quirky personal effects and the tree-house studio in the garden. An intimate, idiosyncratic museum unlike any other in the country.

The city's leading contemporary-art space, set in a hulking former art-faculty building, showing rotating exhibitions by Indonesian artists. Beyond the galleries it hosts gigs, a record store and a young creative crowd, doubling as a music and culture hub. The place to take the pulse of Jogja's busy modern art scene.

An open-air dance-drama staging the Ramayana epic with dozens of dancers and a live gamelan orchestra, performed on a stage with the floodlit Prambanan temples as the backdrop. It is the grandest cultural night out in the region, a spectacle of costume, fire and music. Best seen on a clear evening with the temples lit behind.

The beating commercial heart of the city, a long street of batik shops, souvenir stalls, buskers and food carts that doubles as Jogja's main evening entertainment. Street musicians, horse carts and the constant churn of the lesehan food mats make it a show in itself. Come to shop, snack and people-watch.

The southern palace square, a vast open field with two sacred banyan trees that turns into a glowing carnival of light-strung pedal cars after dark. Locals come to try the masangin ritual of walking blindfold between the twin banyans, said to succeed only for the pure of heart. A joyful, only-in-Jogja evening with kids and crowds.

A large hands-on science park near the city centre built for curious kids, with interactive physics gadgets, a planetarium and play zones. It is the go-to rainy-afternoon and family outing, busy with school groups and parents. The most kid-friendly stop in a city otherwise built around temples and palaces.

The walled palace of the still-reigning Sultan, a sprawling complex of open pavilions, courtyards and shaded walkways at the symbolic centre of the city. It is a living court rather than a museum, staffed by elderly retainers in traditional dress and hosting gamelan and dance most mornings. The single best place to feel the Javanese royal culture that defines Jogja.

The 18th-century pleasure garden and bathing complex of the Sultans, a maze of pools, towers and tunnels behind the Kraton. The bathing courtyard with its fountains is the showpiece, but the real find is the circular underground mosque, Sumur Gumuling, with its photogenic crossing staircases. Half ruin, half restored, and threaded through a lived-in kampung.

The largest Hindu temple complex in Indonesia, a cluster of towering, intricately carved 9th-century shrines to Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma rising in sharp stone spires east of the city. The central Shiva temple alone climbs nearly fifty metres, its walls cut with reliefs of the Ramayana. The Hindu counterweight to Java's Buddhist monuments and unmissable.

A hilltop complex of stone gateways, terraces and bathing pools overlooking the Prambanan plain, more palace and retreat than temple. The grand split gate framed against the sky and the long view back to the volcanoes make it the area's sunset spot. Quieter and stranger than the famous temples below it.

The old capital of the Mataram kingdom, now a quiet district of narrow lanes, walled Javanese houses and silver workshops that have hammered the same craft for generations. At its heart sits an old royal mosque and the tombs of the founding sultans, shaded by ancient banyans. The most atmospheric corner of greater Jogja to simply wander.

The slim white obelisk that is the city's emblem, standing at a major crossroads on the symbolic axis that runs from the volcano through the palace to the southern sea. Locals treat it as the heart of Jogja, and no trip is complete without a photo at its base. More a landmark to circle than a site to enter.

A pair of near-identical Buddhist temples set among rice fields just beyond Prambanan, far quieter than their famous neighbour. Built as twins by a royal couple, they are ringed by rows of small stupas and serene seated Buddhas. Come for the calm and the photogenic symmetry against the green fields.