Take a mouth-watering journey through The Intercontinental Kitchen.

If the real estate mantra of location, location, location applies to gastronomy, the Middle East might well be the most valuable spot in culinary history. While cuisine is necessarily local, some flavours are inevitably imported. For millennia, these flavours have travelled trade routes through the Middle East.

Evidence of the spice trade through the region goes back at least four thousand years. As the bridge between India and Asia and the Mediterranean and Europe, the Middle East remained the primary focus of the spice trade until the emergence of European trading companies in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. With routes, often secret, crisscrossing the region, the trade created the kind of wealth that builds outposts into settlements and settlements into cities.

Such trade transformed the cuisine of the traders just as much as those of the customers. The region's characteristic spice mix, baharat, includes pepper, cloves, and nutmeg - the spice trade's three most important components - as well as cardamom and other spices. Other culinary characteristic are more local. Chickpeas and lentils feature heavily, whether on their own, in mixtures like the now ubiquitous falafel, or in baked goods. In part due to religious prohibitions on pork, lamb is often the most common meat, as the region's stews and kebabs show. Such dishes are often accompanied by flatbreads, which also feature as an ingredient in many local dishes, or rice, especially in Iraq and Iran.

Such differences point to the rich variety of food across the Middle East. Distinctive cuisines have developed in many areas. Iranian cookery is legendary and influential, with complex flavourings and delicate rice dishes. Lebanese mezze is deservedly famous, with its characteristic hummus, tabbouleh, baba ghanoush, and other specialities. Seafood features prominently in coastal regions, and Bedouin diets reflect the region's emphasis on dates, yogurt, and coffee.

From the rugged coast of Lebanon to the shifting sands of Saudi Arabia to the stunning highrises of Dubai, cuisine across the Middle East has a long tradition that stretches back to the time when black pepper was the region's coin. At every meal, visitors to the region remain on the verge of discovery.

Aqaba, Jordan

Though set on a private beach on the Red Sea, the InterContinental Aqaba is just a ten minute walk from the city's downtown. In an area continuously inhabited for six thousand years, Aqaba guards the intersection of several ancient trade routes.

Not far away is Wadi Rum, the otherworldly landscape made famous by director David Lean's long shots in the film 'awrence of Arabia', whose namesake helped lead a crucial Arab raid on Aqaba during the First World War.

An easy day trip leads to Petra, with its astonishing buildings carved into a rock canyon. After touring this fascinating area or scuba diving the coral reefs of the Red Sea, guests at the InterContinental Aqaba can relax in the Martini Lounge, offering live music every night, before dinner at one of the hotel's restaurants.

Corniche offers an international buffet, Cote D'or accompanies fine steakhouse specialities with an extensive selection of fine wines, and Bourj Al Hamam serves delicious Lebanese mezze and seafood dishes.

The InterContinental Kitchen is available online at amazon.com and at InterContinental Hotels & Resorts worldwide including InterContinental Sydney, InterContinental Perth Burswood and InterContinental Wellington.

For more information on The Intercontinental Kitchen visit www.theintercontinentalkitchen.com.