Hurwitz spaces parameterizing covers of the Riemann sphere can be equipped with a Frobenius structure. In this review, we recall the construction of such Hurwitz Frobenius manifolds as well as the correspondence between semisimple Frobenius manifolds and the topological recursion formalism. We then apply this correspondence to Hurwitz Frobenius manifolds by explaining that the corresponding primary invariants can be obtained as periods of multidifferentials globally defined on a compact Riemann surface by topological recursion. Finally, we use this construction to reply to the following question in a large class of cases: given a compact Riemann surface, what does the topological recursion compute?