Near North Food Tasting & Cultural Walking Tour

Beautiful day and great to walk everywhere but it would have been better if we could have made a complete circle so that we could have ended back up closer to where we started. The variety of places were good and interesting. Enjoyed the teas, the chocolate, and even the deep dish pizza. tour guide did a good job of moving us along. Overall, my favorite was the spice shop where I actually learned about spices and cinnamon specifically. Wish we had more time there. The health benefits of specific food would have been interesting to hear including the mood enhancing benefits ie chocolate. Tour guide did know her stuff.

Great tour, interesting , fun and tasty. Our guide was Jen. she was smart, funny and hot!

My boyfriend and I both loved the tour. He was a bit skeptical, but with in the first two stops he was having as much fun as I was. We are from a local suburb about 45 min. north, and we had never visited these shops, and are dieing to go back. After the tour was over, we walked back to 2 of the shops, (Spice House, and Tea Gschwender). Another favorite of ours was the Old Town Oil, balsamic vinegar and olive oil tasting, AMAZING! The only stop of the tour that both of us did not like, was called Catering Chocolate. Not that this store did not have its charms, but it was more of a catering business selling left overs than a shop that specialized in one item, (like the tea, spice, oil shops). It was the only store that we could not see ourselves going back to, both because of the high cost, and lack of enthusiasm from the owner. (Although the hummus and cheese where good.) I believe our tour leader was named Julie, or Jen, and she was great and very knowledgeable! Worth the money for a good day out in beautiful weather.

I believe this would be a great tour but calling it a "Food Tour" is misleading. It would best be described as a historical neighborhood tour. We did see a lot of the city we probably wouldn't have seen but 3 of the places on the list we didn't eat. I was under the impression we would get a lot of different foods. Basically we got a piece of pizza and half a sandwich for $42.

I had taken this tour several years ago when I visited Chicago with a group of girlfriends. I loved it. Well, last year my daughter moved to Chicago. I made reservations and she and I went on the food tour. It was just as much fun as the first time. She was amazed because many of her friends were not aware of this tour. They all assumed we were going to the taste of Chicago. This is a wonderful way to entertain friends from out of town. The oil shop was new and tremendous. I have since ordered from them. Keep up the good work. Your guides are well informed and the tour was tremendously well organized. Thanks. Judy Shafer, Tampa, Florida

Really loved this experience, even with a teenage son in tow! There were a few places on the tour we weren't sure we were going to enjoy so much ... tea, oil, spices. Turns out, those are the places we absolutely had to go back to later and do a little shopping. Nicki was a fun tour guide and we covered a large area we never would have seen without it! My husband and son wished there was also a chicago-dog tasting experience along the route, but I was fine without it! :) thanks all for the fun afternoon.

I feel bad writing a negative review because our tour guide was perfectly nice and the samples were tasty, but it basically felt like a 2 1/2 hour commercial for the restaurants and shops we visited. Very little historical/cultural information about Chicago or the neighborhoods we walked through and no memorable stories. For most of the tour, the guide just made polite chit-chat with people about the weather. The samples were perfectly fine--we got a sample-size sandwich, a glass of iced tea, a piece of chocolate, a piece of stuffed pizza, a bit of hummus and cheese, and also tried some oil/vinegar and different kinds of cinnamon. The hummus and cheese were pretty clearly just whatever the catering place had leftover and wanted to get rid of, but everything else was good. It just didn't feel like it was worth $40+, especially given that the tour itself wasn't that informative or entertaining (and then the tour guide asked for tips on top of it!). You can't shop on the tour and clearly the primary incentive for the participating shops is to drum up business (you also get coupons for all of them) so the primary thrust of the tour seemed to be to try to convince everyone to come back and spend money. Definitely not useful if you're either a) not going to be in Chicago long enough to do that or b) already have preferred sources of tea, spices, and oil/vinegar. Maybe another neighborhood/another tour guide would have been more entertaining? I definitely wouldn't do this again.

...we only stayed in Chicago for one night and one full day. It was interesting to learn about the area, it was a LOT of walking, so you have to be in decent shape. The tour was approximately 3 hours long, we visited 6 or 7 shops, which you couldn't buy anything on the tour, so we had to go back after. Which took another 2 hours. If you're only going to be in Chicago a short time, I probably would not recommend it. If you're there for a few days...than it would be GREAT! Our guide was fun and it was cool to see the "more quaint" side of Chicago (which I did not know existed).

Loved it, a wonderful birthday for my wife who loved it. Great service, and most of all great memories.

I stumbled across this tour as I was searching the net for Chicago activities and things to do during the afternoon on a weekday. My husband and I were more than surprised to discover this experience to be extremely delightful! Our tour guide was very knowledgeable about the area, and she provided information that was both factual and fun. We loved the wide choices of restaurants and shops on our tour and the food tasting was delicious! I particularly enjoyed learning about the architecture and history of the buildings and neighborhoods as we walked. It was well worth the money and time, and I would highly recommend this tour to anyone who likes this type of experience!