Food Tours · Tour

A Mile and a Half of Old Railway, Then Lunch in the Village

Four hours and two tours in one booking, nine guests at most. You meet at the elevator entrance to the High Line on 30th Street between Tenth and Eleventh, at the northern end, and walk south. The High Line carried freight until 1980 and then sat derelict, scheduled for demolition, while the plants that had seeded themselves in the ballast turned it into an accidental meadow above the West Side. It runs a mile and a half now, and the design has been copied in cities on four continents. Your guide covers what was there before, how the campaign to save it worked, and what the planting is doing, along with the public art and the buildings that went up on either side once the park existed. Then you come down into Greenwich Village, which has held on to its own street pattern and its own character through Dutch farms, English town, Beat poets, avant-garde galleries and its current run as the most expensive downtown address in the city. The food starts around 12:45, which is worth planning around: eat a light breakfast and arrive hungry. Tastings run from the best pizza in the city to an old-school butcher, chosen to add up to lunch rather than to a series of samples. It finishes at Sixth Avenue and West 3rd. Water included. Minimum two people, up to nine, guided in English. Vegetarian works with notice at booking; vegan, kosher, nut allergies, dairy-free and gluten-free do not. It runs in any weather, and there is an indoor alternative to ask about if the forecast is bad.