Bucktown/Wicker Park Food Tasting & Cultural Tour

This was my third time on a food tour, my second time on the Bucktown/Wicker Park tour. I live locally, but every time family or friends come in from out of town we make sure to sign up for one of the food tours. It is a great way to see the city and learn about the history of different parts of town. The food is always delicious as well. I would recommend this for anyone, either living here locally or visiting from out of town, it's a fantastic tour! All of my tour guides have been personable, knowledgeable, and fun loving people. We will certainly be doing the food tour again!

This was off the beaten path with lots of details about the area - it's history and architecture. So nice to have authentic food popular with locals. Guide Kent was superb and lots of fun. My son and daughter took the other Chicago tour a couple of months ago while visiting the area and loved it, so we had to try for ourselves. We were in town for a meeting and all the other participants were interested in hearing about the tour. Think it would be fun group activity. These folks know what they're doing.

Kent, our guide, made the tour interesting and fun. The food was great. I especially enjoyed the chocolate drink from Hot chocolate.

Love, Love this tour. Very informative about cuture and history of area. Jess was the best and lots of great food that you would not even know was there without taking this tour.

I really liked the food tour. My only criticisms would be that I think there should be one more tasting- the Near North tasting has several more stops- and I did not like the Goddess and Grocer. All the rest of the tastings were great and the locations were great choices. The G&G was a little weak in comparison in that we were stuffed into the store, the sampling was small and not well chosen, and the location did not seem to add much to the tour. What about adding Birchwood Kitchen or Feast or Margie's or Cafe Irazu to the tour instead? But all in all, we had a very enjoyable time and our tour guide was really fun!

I love Chicago and try to tack on a visit with my business trips. I've done lots of plays, architectural tours, dining, etc. downtown. This was a great option to see another part of this great city. I thought the tour was very well laid out. A had a great mix of neighbourhood history, food facts and history, food tasting, and architectural facts. The food stops were varied - everything from a lowly hot dog that was probably one of the best hot dogs I've ever had to world class hot chocolate and ice cream. Pizza and beer was good but not world class. Grocery was nothing different. Falaffal was excellent. Of course everyone has different tastes, but judging from the feedback everyone gave at the end of the tour I would say these comments reflect not just my thoughts. As far as amount goes the portions are small to moderate - just the right amount in my opinion. The neat architecture in the area is mainly 3 level walk-ups. This part of the tour was better than I expected. It also prevents you from feeling too stuffed. Gina our guide was very good. High energy, good speaking voice, great personality, well informed. The only reason I rated this tour 4 and not 5 is because there are so many great things to see in Chicago I don't think I would put this as number 1. However if you want to see another part of Chicago or you are a real foodie I would highly recommend this tour.

Double-check your dates very carefully before signing up on-line! Neither Zerve nor Chicago Food Planet will offer any refund or credit if you accidentally book the wrong date. I learned the hard way and am out $80!

We thoroughly enjoyed the food tour - was every bit as good as previous reviews had indicated. My only complaint - I thought it was a little uncomfortable when the guide asked our group INSIDE our last tasting place, "what was your favorite eating place?". The proprietor was easily within ear shot. Seems like it would have been a little more diplomatic to ask that question once we were outside.

I was recently in Chicago with a group of 11 ladies. We took the Bucktown/Wick Park food tour and enjoyed it so much that we returned again for explore a little further...it was a great balance of food, local history and architecture. The biggest surprise?? It was our guide Gina's second tour - you'd never know! She'd lived in the area and lived through the development process as Bucktown changed from from an inner city wasteland to the hip neighbourhood it is today. Great boutiques and a fabulous selection of locally owned restaurants and food outlets. I'm in the retail travel biz, and I'll be recommending chicago Food Planet to all of our clients!

We would highly recommend this tour. We not only tasted great food but also received a lot of information about the city and the neighborhoods that we toured. Excellent variety of food choices. The guide was very knowledgeable and entertaining. Upon return to Chicago we would take this tour again.