North End Market Tour

This tour was well presented by our tour guide, Beth. She provided many details and made the tour quite interesting! We received a lot of information and a first hand look at the many restaurants and shops in the North End with a few unexpected surprises such as meeting the artist who painted an otherwise empty brick building and made it beautiful to look at. We also got to sample some delicious food!! Beth was awesome!

My friend and I loved the tour! It was great fun and inspired me to cook!

The tour was wonderful and Beth was a fabulous guide. So many times I have gone to the North End to eat but I have never explored the shops or strayed too far from the main drag. It was so nice to meet some of the shop owners, sample some of the food, and learn about a few hidden treasures. And a tasting of limoncello at the end was the perfect way to end the tour.

We enjoyed the food tour with Beth and loved the food tastings and the lemoncello! We also learned a few new things about certain produce and will definitely be going back to several shops on the tour!

Educational and fun. I enjoyed this tour so much, I am still talking about it. I learned about food in a way that is still influencing the way I look at food, eat my food, prepare it and appreciate it. I learned the history of the North area of Boston and it's changes, and Italy and it's regions. The influences on the foods from Italy and why certain foods are the way they are. Also why foods are eaten the way they are. I enjoyed the culture on the tour, all the little nuances only Michelle could know and share, being a local for the past 40 years and trained as a chef. The tour was a pleasant surprise for sure, much more than I expected. I would highly recommend this tour to everyone that enjoys history, food, sight-seeing and just plain fun!

The tour was great - just took this tour Jun 2012 for the second time. Enjoyed my first tour (10 years ago) that I recommended to group of friends. A great time was had by all! Would highly recommend.

My friends and I regularly go to Boston for day excursions and have been to the North End to eat a number of times. This tour gave us a fresh perspective on Boston's "Little Italy." The tour was led by a former chef (Jim) who is very knowledgeable about North End history and Italian food, geography, and culture. We did get small food samples at the 6 shops we visited, but it wasn't about eating. We learned about the food, where it comes from and what to look for in traditional Italian food ingredients. We all thought it was one of the best Boston excursions that we've ever done. I don't live in Boston, but boy if I did, I can see how easy it would be to buy and prepare extremely delicious Italian food. For instance at the produce stop, we were offered slices of oranges, fresh fennel and figs. Delicious! I highly recommend this tour to anyone, even Boston residents. I guarantee you will learn something you didn't know about the North End.

We had an unbelievable GREAT time with you this passed Saturday. I thought I went to Italy ( I didn't want to come back). You made this tour so wonderful for us. The people that told me about the tour said it was great, but I did not expect what we got. You are so knowledgeable and you have a wonderful personality. It was a pleasure meeting you. Thank you so much and can't wait to go shopping in all the shops. (Thank god I work right around the corner from the North End.)

My self and 8 cousins took this tour; we are of Italian heritage, our grandparents all came from Italy. This tour brought us back to wonderful food we were served as children and have long forgotten. After our tour we shopped and brought home food we hadn't had in years and plans to pull out recipes' and cook more. We enjoyed a wonderful lunch and shared stories. Our tour director Jim was fabulous with his knowledge of food, culture and history. This was my second time with a tour and will do it again when more family comes to town. Thanks so much.

Our guide, Jim, was very knowledgeable about the regions of Italy, the types of food the people ate in the regions, the history of the North End, and of course, about the actual food. We learned a lot and enjoyed it immensely. I would recommend this highly as a chance to see some local culture, and learn a lot about food in the process.