French Quarter Culinary History and Tasting Tour

wonderful tour, interesting and educatiional, food was great and the guide was fantastic.

A group of four of us took this tour on Sept. 13, 2008. It lasted about three hours and visited about half a dozen sites. The tour guide was informative, but an inordinate amount of the narrative consisted of general New Orleans history rather than focusing on food. In fact, food was only marginally related to this tour, IMO. We received sample cuisine at exactly three locations, and one of those was a praline shop! Not great value for money considering what they charge for this tour, and I thought it was drastically overpriced -- $20 would be more realistic than $45. We won't take it again or recommend it to friends.

Ellen was amazing!

We had a great tour with more tastings than we anticipated. There was so much great info and the places we got to see were really neat. Our tour guide Renae was a wealth of info and could answer whatever you wanted to know.

Our tour guide Renee did an excellent job of taking us through a whirlwind of food and history that really brought the French Quarter to life for us! Renee was Knowledgeable and made the tour fun and interesting. We will be recommending this tour to all of our friends and plan to do it again the next time we're in New Orleans.

I am a local traveling in my own city. This was a wonderful tour and worth every penny. Our tour guide was Randy and he is worth requesting. He was a historian and a colorful asset to the tour. Hope everyone tries this tour and enjoys our food and fabulous city. New Orleans Resident and Fan

I would recomend this to anyone who enjoys history, cooking or both. Our guide, Randy, was knowledgeble, interesting, and a personable guide. It was a great way to see "behind the scenes" at several great historic resturants, plus get a few tastes along the way.

Been on these types of tours before and this one was very disappointing. Two of the places we were supposed to visit were not open! There were not very many food samples and the ones we did get were not that great. Two other places we visited seemed to just be shilling for their products--one was a bar that sold a rum cake apparently not even made in New Orleans. For a native New Orleansian, the guide did not seem particurlarly knowledgeable about the food. Among other things, she kept using the terms anisette and absinthe interchangeably. They are not the same thing! She also did not understand the difference between a food demonstration and a hands-on cooking class. The other tours I've been on also provided a list of the places we visited and the guide's other recommendations for restaurants, food shops, and attractions-it's a nice little extra that was lacking on this tour. I've been to New Orleans a number of times so this may have affected how I viewed the tour. It seemed to me we were taken to some of the major tourist traps in town. Unfortunately for our guide, we had eaten the night before at the restaurant she highly recommended (The Gumbo Shop) and found it pretty mediocre. The final blow was ending up at the Cafe du Monde (admittedly another tourist trap albeit a good one) and not getting any beignets to sample! They are so cheap, the guide wouldn't have been hurting to buy us each one. My recommendation: Go to New Orleans for the Jazz and Heritage Fest and just eat at the fest. The food is fantastic: crawfish beignets, Cuban sandwiches, Mr. Omar's pies, fried plantains, and much, much more. Outside the fest, Loretta's pralines are the best and the freshest, get a muffaletta at the Central Grocery, and for a really great meal, try the Pelican Club or Mr. John's Steakhouse (out on the St. Charles streetcar line-the ride is a treat in itself). And don't forget the beignets at Cafe du Monde!

It seemed that the day we headed out (in the pouring rain) that someone forgot to tell two of the estabishements that we were coming. So, we were turned back from the first closed restaurant after walking there in the heavy rain. We then headed for the praline making shop, where we were handed wrapped samples through their front door into our umbrella protected hands, as they, too, were closed. Call ahead! We did have a nice time, but it did not measure up to our expectations.

Great history lesson about the area and it's food. Randy, our guide, was both knowlegable and interesting. We had a great time.