Culinary tourism is already popular in bigger cities like San Francisco, New York, and Washington D.C. Late last year, Eli Warren and Leslie Burke brought this phenomenon to Louisville when they founded City Taste Tours.
The idea behind the business is to showcase Louisville's unique dining scene by shuttling groups around the city and stopping for samples at selected restaurants and bakeries. Right now, City Taste Tours offers regularly scheduled tours with a pre-set intenterary, or the option to gather a group and customize your own tour.
If you have guests from out of town, the City Sights and Kentucky Sweets tour is a great option. The tour, which runs in the afternoon, goes through places like museum row downtown and St. James Court in Old Louisville, so tourists can see places that make Louisville unique. Lifelong Louisvillians might enjoy this chance to see their hometown from a tourist's perspective as well. As for the Kentucky Sweets part of the tour, I won't give away the secrets. I'll just say that you're guaranteed to leave with a nice sugar buzz.
If you're looking for a fun night out, the Louisville Foodie Tour will give you a new appreciation of native Louisville cuisine. At the stops on this tour, you can sample the city's signature dishes like the Hot Brown, and drinks, like the mint julep and local microbrews.
A new lineup of tours is scheduled to start in September. When cooler weather returns, walking (and sampling) tours of "restaurant rows" like Bardstown Road, Frankfort Avenue, and Fourth Street will be offered. A "Funky, Fun, and Fabulous" tour is also in the works and promises surprising tastes of the dishes that keep Louisville dining weird.
More information about tour schedules, or how to customize your own tour can be found at the website: http://www.citytastetours.com.
(Photos used with permission from City Taste Tours)
