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Biting into the Big Apple
Photo credit: Urbanite
Big Onion's Multi-Ethnic Eating Tour explores the city's culinary history. Credit: Ryan Thatcher
Special to amNewYork
New York is one of the best food cities in the world.
This summer join a culinary walking tour — because history goes down a lot easier with a cannoli.
Scott’s Pizza Tours
A week and a half is the longest Scott Wiener has ever gone without eating pizza.
“It was terrible,” he said.
A year ago, the 27-year-old pizza enthusiast started Scott’s Pizza Tours.
During his three-hour, $30 tour Wiener attempts to find the perfect slice for all guests by stopping at three pizzerias he feels highlight the diversity of New York pizza — Lombardi’s, Joe’s Pizza and John’s Pizza.
Additional stops include Alleva, the country’s oldest cheese shop; Bari’s, a restaurant and equipment store on the Bowery; and an unmarked maroon door on the corner of Prince and Bowery where a white-haired man named Patsy has been inconspicuously hand-making many of the city’s pizza ovens for more than 40 years.“It’s not about pizza snobbery. It’s about pizza education,” Wiener said.
Big Onion: The Original Multi-Ethnic Eating Tour
Big Onion’s Original Multi-Ethnic Eating Tour is a history buff’s dream. The $20 tour covers various cuisines of the Lower East Side, Chinatown and Little Italy.
But don’t expect to eat too much; here it’s more about little snacks than big meals.
The two-hour tour makes stops for plantains, pickles, halva, dried rose petals, mini-cannolis, pepperoni, Parmesan, and mozzarella, but it’s more likely to leave one’s brain a lot fuller than the belly.
Foods of New York
Foods of New York, which runs tours in Greenwich Village ($44), Chelsea Market ($44), Central Village/SoHo ($44), and Chinatown ($65) most days, stops at about seven to eight restaurants, eateries, and food shops on its three-hour tour.
Marketa Greenberg, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said she was satisfied by the Greenwich Village tour she took.
She said it was filling and provided lots of information about where the food came from, making it easy to return to buy what she liked.
NoshWalks
Myra Alperson’s NoshWalks attempt to tackle the diversity of food found in all five boroughs.
“It’s the real New York,” Alperson said. “Food is a gateway to getting to know the city better.”
Each week brings a different neighborhood and flavor.
Upcoming tours include June 28’s Latin American Jackson Heights, and July 11’s tour of Bensonhurst’s eclectic cultural cuisine — from Turkish to Chinese.
Tour prices are generally $40, which includes noshes, but not beverages.
“You get a full meal, and then some,” said Alperson.
Drink your way through NYC
Uncle Sam’s New York Tours offers four different neighborhood pub crawls — including the West Village, East Village, Hell’s Kitchen and Empire State crawls — with a Fourth of July Spirits of ‘76 pub crawl, and even more to come this summer.
The West Village pub crawl, in particular, caters to those interested in literary history, with stops at The White Horse Tavern, Kettle of Fish and Kenny’s Castaways, drinking establishments that have been frequented by legendary writers, politicians and musicians.
But this tour company prides itself on being just as social as it is educational.
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