Food Tours · Tour

Eight Tastings, Six Guests, Running Since 2009

The cap is six people. That single number changes what the three hours feel like: you can hear the guide in a crowded room, you fit at one table for the seated stops, and nobody is standing at the back of a semicircle on Mott Street. This was the first food tour of Chinatown and Little Italy, running since 2009, and it is owned and operated by women. You meet at a tea house on Mott Street, a short walk south from the Canal Street subway. Eight tastings, split into two or three you sit down for and five or six you eat as you walk. The range runs from dumplings through to a proper Italian meal at a table, plus what the neighbourhood's century-old specialty shops sell: imported cheeses, olives, sopressata, cannoli, pork buns, Hong Kong style sponge cake, and tea tasted in a Chinatown tea house rather than described from outside one. The walking is about half a mile total, mostly outdoors, and the tour runs in any weather. Restrooms are at the meeting point, which is worth knowing before three hours of eating. Vegetarian and gluten-free versions are genuinely available, along with most allergies, provided you tell them at least forty-eight hours ahead. Water and tea are included. You finish with a written list of recommendations for the two neighbourhoods, which is the part that keeps working after the tour ends. English only. Arrive fifteen minutes early. Children three and under go free but are not served at the restaurants.