If there’s anything we humans have in common, it’s that we like to eat. Many of us think food is the best way to learn about a city and a culture, while others just find consuming delicious things to be pleasurable. We can all follow guidebooks—whether they be Michelin or Lonely Planet—but in so many cities, the best things to eat are at the ends of tiny alleys, hidden somewhere on the third floor, nearly lost amid the clamor of hawker markets, or on the counters of food trucks (and sometimes also at the high-end darlings). And then there’s the Anthony Bourdain thing. We want to feel like swashbuckling adventurers like we’re picking up the DNA of a place by snacking our way through it. And if something might give us bragging rights, then, yes, please: Down the hatch.
No wonder there are so many innovative, sophisticated food crawls cropping up—often led by chefs, journalists, and cookbook authors. From Vancouver to Venice to Vietnam, by foot, private car, or motorbike, and from hawker stalls to jacket-required temples, these moveable feasts are worth a long journey.
Best Culinary Tours
Vancouver: Vancouver Foodie Tours
This outfit runs several tours of a city that’s rich in seafood, creativity, and immigrant cuisines. The most fun is the crawl through downtown with stops at food trucks selling everything from Japanese hot dogs to hoisin chicken wraps to authentic tandoori naan. The best part: Guests get to skip all the lines.
Venice: Walks of Italy
Slow, immersive travel is the style for this company. Along with tours that don’t involve eating (including some in Turkey and France), they offer insight into one of the most fascinating cuisines in Italy, thanks to the enormous spice trade in past centuries. The walk runs from the Rialto Fish Market to a few bars for Cicchetti and heartier dishes, all paired with Veneto wines and prosecco on tap.
Mexico City: Club Tengo Hambre
A “roving supper club,” CTH also organizes daytime food walks. The sidewalk dining is famously delicious—20 million people a day eat something on the street (impressive for a metro area of about 21 million). The company, which also operates in Tijuana, emphasizes out-there foods you can’t get at home: huitlacoche quesadillas, green chorizo flavored with spinach and almonds, and the city’s best tacos al pastor.
Lisbon: Culinary Backstreets
Taking a scholarly approach to pedestrian gourmandizing, Culinary Backstreets was founded by long-term American ex-pats. They’ve grown to offer dozens of walks in 13 cities, from Tbilisi to Tokyo. One standout example is the Song of the Sea tour in two founders’ current home of Lisbon, which takes guests away from the touristy city center and into the working-class port zones and feeds them the city’s best seafood.
Saigon: XO Tours
Quite possibly the most fun food tours around (even if there’s minimal walking), XO’s trips introduce guests to street food from throughout Vietnam—served from stalls that cater to locals—and take them zipping around many of the city’s districts, not just the touristy ones, on the back of a female-driven motorbike.
Tel Aviv: Eager Tourist
Along with an exploration of the city’s booming craft beer scene and a cooking workshop with an esteemed local chef, this outfit organizes insider tours of Tel Aviv’s three most vibrant outdoor food markets—crossroads of all the countries in the region, including many that Americans can’t easily visit these days—led by chefs, food stylists, recipe developers, and other experts.
Toronto: The Culinary Adventure Company
Most citizens of Toronto are non-Canadians, and this company’s tour of Chinatown and Kensington Market shows off the city’s ethnic mix. In Chinatown, the walk stops for bites of Asian comfort food and Toronto’s best dim sum. And in the market, designated a National Historical Site, the offerings are farther ranging, such as Jamaican meat patties and Mexican torts.
Los Angeles: Urban Adventures by Intrepid Travel
A division of an adventure tour operator that does multi-day trips, this one focuses on packing maximum experience in minimal time. There are full- and half-day culinary (and other) tours all over the world, but one highlight is the Ethnic Neighborhoods Food & Culture excursion in L.A., which aims to give travelers a chance to meet and eat with locals while taking in the city’s diverse food culture.
Puglia, Italy: Southern Visions
Run by a Bari boy who traveled the world as a professional athlete, Southern Visions organizes all kinds of experiences in Puglia, home to some of Italy’s best food. Among the culinary tours is one of the labyrinth alleys of the old center of Bari with stops for the city’s famously light focaccia, raw seafood, and the region’s beloved orecchiette (“little ear” pasta, handmade by ladies outside their homes) with broccoli rabe.
New Orleans: Clandestine
Clandestine caters to our urge to indulge, with gourmet tours that include a progressive breakfast in the French Quarter, followed by black-car transfers to two top restaurants (the famous Galatoire’s and Brennan’s, or newer spots like Emeril Lagasse’s Meril) for a dine-around lunch, and finally a three-hour cooking class with one of the city’s admired chefs (from restaurants like Coquette, Patois, and Boucherie).
