Chelsea Market/Meatpacking Dist Food Tasting Tour

Our tour guide Bert was terriffic! As he introduced himself to each group, he memorized our names, where we were from and things we told him. He remembered that my friend was from South Florida and was cold, so he brought that up a few times. We had several International group members with unusual names, but he soon remembered us all, which really personalized the tour. There were 15 of us. We never felt rushed as we moved from place to place. The food was wonderful. Bert knew all the shop owners and a lot about the area. He made jokes along the way and really made our trip special. I highly recommend this to all. This was our second Foods of NY tour. Our first was the Greenwich Tour two years ago. This one was just as good, if not better. I suppose we preferred this one, this time because it was so bitterly cold outside and most of the tour was indoors. The other one was completely outdoors and would have been very miserable on a cold or rainy day.

I took the Greenwich tour taste year, and on the basis of that, chose the Chelsea Market/Meat Packing tour, again with my teenage daughter. I enjoyed touring Chelsea Market, which I had never been to before, but there was too much dead time. We didn't exit the Chelsea Market to start the meat packing tour until the 3 hours was nearly up, so we sent a lot of time not moving very far. That's deadening on legs and not very interesting. Once we hit the outside area and visited a couple of restaurants, I needed to leave because of time constraints, so really didn't get to do the Meat Packing District tour part. I presume we didn't miss many tastings, as I got the sense they were all inside the Chelsea Market. I HOPE we didn't miss many, because the food we had was great. As before, parts I enjoyed were the food tastings (all delicious), and getting to see the architecture of the building and the history (but not too much history, horrrah!) The two restaurants we went into (Morimoto's and Mario Batali's places) were lovely restraurants, but what's the point of just walking into a place and then out? Maybe there were some food tastings arranged at some of the other places, but they weren't that amazing locations that a visit was particularly enlightening. How about a least a peak at a menu? I would also totally love to see one of the kitchens gearing up for the evening. I gave this a recommended rating, but waffled between that and neutral. Tighten up the timing, that would improve it a lot. I suspect the fault lies with our particular tour guy (Sam). And I still am interested in doing the Central Village/Soho tour.

What a great tour! Our entire family enjoyed it. Sam was a great guide. It was one of the highlights of our week in NYC.

I have taken all 3 foods of nyc tours and they are all AWESOME! I recommend that anyone visiting NYC take any of the tours. All the guides I had are very knowledgeable about the city, the restuarants, and are very friendly. These tours are a definate must when visiting NYC.

This was my third tour with Foods of NY. It was just as great as the two that I did in Greenwich Village. The food was fantastic, the history was great and it's a fun way to spend a few hours with your friends or if you're new to the city. I'd highly recommend this tour to anyone and everyone!

I am British living in new York and I thought i'd done most manhattan areas with visiting family and friends - but this was fab! Sam, our guide, was informed and humerous, the area was a hidden bustling hub of Manhattan that was well worth discovering and a great tour for the winter months as much of it is indoors. Will recommend to the expat community of Westchester county - and theres lots of us!

Sam is great!

Before we took the Chelsea Market tour we wondered how three hours could possibly be filled up!! Not only did the three hours fly by but we wished the tour could have gone on for more!! Curt, our guide, was fantastic!! He was funny and personable and had all of our names memorized before we even walked to the first store!! The samples from each of the venues were more than generous and delicious. We loved seeing the nearby restaurants, the B&B, and the view from the top of the hotel. All in all, it was one of the best tours we have ever been on--and we've done a few!! I would recommend it to anyone whether you are a foodie or not!! Please keep Curt in your employ!!

This wasn't our first FoodTours walk, and this one, like the one we did in Greenwich Village two years ago didn't disappoint, with plenty of interesting dialogue and some really nice stores. The problem I see is Zerve. When trying to book online it wanted me to remember sign-in data from my last transaction with them two years ago! When I couldn't do so it would not let me proceed since I was using the same email address as before. Even after two transatlantic telephone calls we ended up having to use my wife's email address to reserve. Clearly Zerve are quite happy to let their desire to build a database of hacked off users(in this case at least) interfere with the generation of business for their clients . If I were FoodTours I'd get out of Zerve as fast as my legs could carry me- they might be costing them a fortune. If I were Zerve I'd change my system so it first and foremost made it easy for willing customers to complete a transcation and forget about linking one transaction to another unless they can learn to do it elegantly. The user names , passwords, and security data I give a booking agency are not very important to me, and if Zerve think I should keep records of this stuff in case I want to use them again, they must be delusional. Its a one off transaction, not the start of a beautiful relationship. But the tour was great- and did I mention that Zerve are a pain.

Wow! worth the trip from Kansas! The market is cozy and full of wonderful products. The Best part was our Tour Guide!!! He was Amazing!!!! Fun, knowledgable, and made a group of strangers feel comfortable and welcome!! He made the market a magical place that you loved spending time in. He also shared knowledge in regards to the city, history, and people of New York that made us feel like we understood this complex city. We will recommend the market, the tour and New York to friends and family due to our experience there. Tawnya Larson McPherson KS