Near North Food Tasting & Cultural Walking Tour

This is a wonderful tour. Our tour guide, Caroline, was fun, knowledgeable and very sweet. Lots of interesting things to see and eat. We definitely will recommend it to our friends.

Thoroughly enjoyed our tour. Our tour guide, Jen was exceptional. Pluses - Olive oil/vinegar store, jewish deli, tea store and pizza were interesting and delicious. Walking through and learning the history of the neighborhoods was great. Negatives - stop at caterer should be dropped. cheese was ok, but they had fabulous daily dishes on display that could have been added. Understand the time constraints, but wish there was a way to allow some purchases during the tour. Expectation to reverse trail and stop back by the business (especially for out of town guests) is unrealistic.

You will want to make sure you have your walking shoes on. This tour was slightly over three hours, and pace, while not hurried, was brisk in moving from location to location. The walk is a little over a mile, and you will be on your feet for most of the three hours. We are from a town just 80 miles away from Chicago and go a few times a year for shows, dining and sights. We never took a walking tour before, and selected this one based on description and reviews. We wandered from the Gold Coast, through Old Town to Lincoln Park. Our guide, Jen, was knowledgeable, personable, and made sure she gave personal attention everyone in our thirteen person group. The focus of the tour is to visit locally owned and run specialty shops that all have a common denominator in food. You will sample local deli fare, visit a spice shop, taste some of the most amazing olive oils and balsamic vinegars, savor some local chocolate, keep hydrated with iced specialty teas, taste your way through the cheese shop, and then sit down for a marvelous slice of Chicago stuffed pizza. While you don't eat or drink a ton the samples are generous, are are designed to give you a real taste, while leaving you plenty of room for the next stop. Along the route, you will see and learn about the neighborhoods and their distinctive character and history along with their architectural diversity. I think I would call this more a neighborhood tour than a food tour. The focus is food overall, but you end up with a very good sample of those things that really make a neighborhood distinctive, the food, the history and the architecture. You feel like you have been given a good enough look to know your way around and will want to come back another time and spend another day exploring on your own.

The food tour was a wonderful way to experience some of the culture, history, and treats of Chicago. Our guide, Nicky, was informative and entertaining and the stops we made along the tour provided a unique tasting experience. Make sure to wear comfortable walking shoes.

I would highly recommend this food/cultural walking tour! We had a fantastic time. We met a lot of really interesting people, had a great and informative guide (Caroline, ask for her!), and tasted some really yummy food. We can't wait to go back and visit all the venues and do some shopping! The spice house, the Oil shop and the Tea store were all so unique and interesting, while the fudge/candy shop, the Jewish deli and the Chicago style pizza gave super generous samples of staple Chicago dining. There's also a perfect balance of walking, standing and sitting; everything has been thought out and timed to an art to make it the most enjoyable combination possible. A great bang for your buck and a lasting memory to boot! It was a great way to celebrate our anniversary:)

We had a great guide, Caroline who was enthusiastic about her job. She not only guided us through the food tour, but had much knowledge about the areas we walked through. She was able to answer all questions and she made it fun for everyone. Would highly recommend this activity to others, in fact, already doing so. My group just expected to be walking, going from place to place without much narrating in between, but it was much more than that. And we were pleasently surprised to the involvement of the shops on the tour. We enjoyed almost every stop, however, we all felt that the Catering Chocolate could be pulled from the tour. It did not have much to offer and the people there were not as friendly as the other places, in fact, they never said a word to our group. Thanks for a great time.

This was a fun way to see Chicago and learn about some of the city's history. The food tasting was fun although I would have liked to have seen more Chicago specific foods (hotdogs, barbeque, etc).. Loved the oil and spice shops though. Lots of walking and if you want to purchase something you'll have to walk back to the store after the tour.. We did this only because we were leaving the next day and wanted to buy a few things but it was really a lot of walking for one day. Would like to have a little extra time to buy products while we were in the stores.

My friends and I did not know what to expect from a food tour because none of us had been ever been on one. We really enjoyed our tour! It was unlike anything we expected - but we liked so much more than we thought. I loved the variety of places we visited and the things we got to try! I would highly recommend this tour to anyone visiting Chicago!

Loved the tour guide Ariana. Young, energitic, delightful personality, who infused tour with same quality. Choices of food/drink/misc. was spot on. Enjoyed the variety--food, spice, olive oil/vinegar. Also, enjoyed the neighborhoods that tour took us through.

I recommended it to my boss. I loved learning different things about the city. I will certainly re-vist the tea shop, the oil shop & the spice shop.