Near North Food Tasting & Cultural Walking Tour

My husband and I took the Old Town tour in early August. Our tour guide was Jen. She certainly made our tour worth every penny. We always enjoy exploring bigger cities in a smaller view through the individual neighborhoods. This tour was exactly what we were looking for. It was fun to meet new people and to learn so much about the neighborhoods. All of the tastings were great. The Old Town Oil and Bacino's were my personal favorites. This tour is great for all ages and palates.

Our group thoroughly enjoyed ourselves on this tour. Nikki, our guide, was outstanding. She was energetic, knowledgeable of the area and its history and architecture, and was very attentive to everyone on the tour. She casually chatted with everyone and was attentive to the needs of the group. Nikki put in the extra effort to ensure everyone on the tour had a great time. There was a nice variety of stops on this tour. Several places that on my own I probably would have walked right by, but am so glad we visited on the tour. I learned so much and went back to three of the stops after the tour to make purchases. Our group had taken the Bucktown tour earlier this summer and loved it, but didn't anticipate we could enjoy this one just as much. We were wrong. While the other tour provides you with probably a little more food, we still felt like we had some delicious, generous tastings. I learned more on this tour about the businesses and their wares. Both tours are truly fabulous. The only complaint we might have with this one is that the last stop on the tour is quite a distance from the rest. I won't even call it a criticism because we enjoyed OZ park and learned several interesting things along the way AND the food at the last stop makes it well worth the trip.

Tour needs to focus on food or history, not both. I went on an excellent tour of Boston's North End with a chef who explained Italian food and cooking, and I would have liked having a similar experience in Chicago. Likewise, I would have welcomed a more focused tour of historic homes and neighborhoods, rather than mere admiration for the lifestyles of the rich and famous that was presented to us. However, I did like the pace of the tour and the varied neighborhoods that we explored.

My daughter and I had the best time on the food and cultural tour. Would recommend highly recommend it to anyone wanting to see a great area of Chicago and taste some of the local foods.

I reserved spots for my fiance and I as a birthday surprize for him. It was great! This was his first trip to Chicago and his only request was that we try some authentic local food. This tour was spot on! It was very organized and informative. It rained durnig the first half of our tour, but our guide (Jessie) had such a positive attitude, provided ponchos for those who wanted them and we moved on. Even the rain couldn't ruin our day. The perfect end to the trip was the pizza...such a fun time! I can't wait to try the other tour.

We really enjoyed the tour and found some great places to visit again.

My husband and I had heard of this tour a couple of years ago and decided to do this specific activity to celebrate our anniversary. What a pleasant surprise to have such an enthusiastic guide (Jen) who was also extremely knowledgeable about the area. This included the history and architecture of the neighborhood as well as the food we were sampling. The food, by the way was very good. She explained how it was made, the people behind it, as well as offered us plenty to try. It was a very personalized tour. Jen wrote down lots of other places for us to try in her home town of Chicago, and just wouldn't let us go until all of our questions were answered. We would definitely do another food tour in Chicago or other places that this company offers them. What a secret treasure!!!! We will spread the news!

This is a great new way to explore the city. It gives a traveler insight to history, architecture, and culture

This was the second time we have done this same exact tour in Chicago. We came out last year to visit some friends and did this tour for the first time with them. They are locals but enjoyed the tour just as much if not more than we did because they are able to frequent the places we visited on a regular basis since they live in Chicago! We planned a trip back this year and this tour was the first thing on our list of things to do. We called our friends and they absolutely wanted to join us again. We did this tour assuming it would be exactly the same as last time but were pleasantly surprised to see that a few things had changed (we had potato latkes last year at the deli and this year we tasted Reuben sandwiches). The guides we have had both times were phenomenal. We had Jen this time and she was an amazing spirit with a wealth of information and truly enjoys what she does. The tea, spice and olive oil tastings are always our favorite because they are so unique. They are a great part of the tour and I hope that never changes. The only thing we would change about the tour would be to allow people a little more browsing time while we visit certain stops. I realize there are multiple tours happening and that the tours can't be too long for various reasons but speaking at least for us, we would do this tour at twice the length because of how much we enjoy the experience and because of the reasons we would take a tour like this to begin with. We felt a little rushed this time and while the presentations are great at each stop there was really no time to even look around the shops for more than a few minutes before we were off to the next place. I think its probably a great way for someone who has never been to Chicago to get a taste of everything which is the point of the tour, but it would be awesome if there was even maybe a separate longer tour for people who did want to really take it all in and be able to browse around and actually buy some spices while at the Spice House for example. We always try to make it back to these places after the tour but it isn't always practical time-wise or location-wise. I think the stores would get much more business if the people on the tour could buy stuff while they were there. It doesn't have to be half an hour but even 15 minutes to give people a chance to take it all in, smell the different teas they offer, talk to the people that work at Old Town Oil about their recipe suggestions using their different types of olive oil etc. We will always recommend this tour and truly enjoy the experience each time. The architectural and historical facts that are included as part of the tour are an essential and wonderful part of the tour as well.

It was a different way to see Chicago. Any tour that involves food as part of the experience wins in my books. All the stops were great. Except for maybe the Catering Chocolates one. I didn't quite get why we were there. The chocolate, pizza, oil and tea were awesome and we went back a few days later to buy stuff from the stores to share with the family we were visiting with.