Food Tours - Our New Touring Discovery

We are new to the food tour scene, but we now plan to add at least one on each trip. In Portugal in spring of 2022, the Rick Steves tour we were on included one in Porto. Both of us thought “Why have we not been doing these?”

Food tours - at least the few we have been on - are designed to give you a taste of local specialties and history. The food included is usually enough for a meal, meaning you won’t need lunch or dinner depending on the timing. Guidebooks and sites like TripAdvisor can direct you to various touring companies (in Porto, it was Taste Porto; in Athens, we used Athens Walks). The groups are usually very small - maybe 12 people at most - and the tours are usually a couple hours. Tour guides have established routes and relationships with a variety of food - and some non-food - vendors.

In Sorrento, we scheduled a tour with Sorrento Food Tours, run by an American now living in Sorrento. Tamara was great and I think we made 8 stops for a variety of snacks and a sit-down dinner of wine, salad and small portion of gnocchi. She even accommodated a food allergy with one of the group members. In addition to the pastry (above), we stopped at a pizzeria, limoncello factory, chocolate shop, charcuterie shop, pasta restaurant, had some local beer, and of course gelato.

Below top row: Saltimbocca (which in Sorrento is a sandwich), limoncello factory, charcuterie tray. Bottom row: charcuterie shop, gnocchi, gelato