Food can take you on a journey: through the past, into the present, and off to the future. As your taste buds are tempted, tantalized and satiated, you are there and that is somewhere else. It is why our society is obsessed with food, it is why the Food Network exists. Food can transport.
So why wouldn’t a food tour through one of the boroughs of New York City not deliver on the fantasy nature of taste?
A few months ago,I was walking with my brother, sister, and mom through the streets of Greenwich Village, heading to our booked time on the Foods of New York Tour.
My mom is a great cook. Ever since her children moved out (our penchant for mac & cheese mixed with a can of tuna was limiting), she embarked on a gourmet food life, whipping up scintillating and creative dishes from all over the world in her kitchen. My siblings and I wanted to get her something special for her birthday but we were focused on an experience – a gourmet experience.
 So I took to Trip Advisor in search of some ideas in our budget.
It wasn’t hard to stumble on the Foods of NY Tour. It is rated one of the top things to do in NYC (THE top thing in the food & drink category) and currently gets 5 stars with 2,622 reviews. If you know Trip Advisor, that is an accomplishment. When I clicked on the Foods of NY website, I discovered that they offer six different tours at around $50/person. For NYC, $50/person isn’t bad. Admittedly, nothing to sniff at, but you could easily drop twice that amount on one meal at the restaurants included on the tour. So we bought tickets without  much debate.
We elected to take the Original Greenwich Village tour –Â it is their “original” tour, gets the best ratings of them all, and it is Greenwich Village.
We showed up at our scheduled time at the designated street corner. Here, our guide was waiting for us with programs, funny jokes, a big smile, and bottles of water.
Then, right on time, we marched. Part of the group hadn’t yet arrived, but the nearly dozen of us that showed up on schedule were ushered onward right away. It turns out that the timing of these Food Tours is a fine dance. When the company runs multiple tours a day, all to the same places, guides are required to be on time. Otherwise, a restaurant could get slapped with two Foods of NY Tours at one time. So be there on time!
The first place our guide took us was to a pizza joint. Perfect start to an 11 am food tour in NY, right?
We found ourselves on the street on a crisp, sunny morning in front of Famous Joe’s Pizza. We couldn’t all fit in the restaurant and still allow for paying customers to enter so we gathered around a little patch of sidewalk. It was a beautiful day, with a lot to see, so no one was bothered.
Unfortunately, despite the intense timing requirements these food tours dictate, Joe didn’t have our pizza ready.Â
This was fine with us! It allowed us to salivate in anticipation as our guide led us through an incredibly detailed and educational seminar on all things New York Pizza – the best ones, the oldest ones, the traditions, which one which celebrity preferred, and whether it was all about the water.
Finally, our hot pizza was ready and our Food Tour kicked off in earnest.
I have done a food tour before here in North Carolina. The tastes at each place were small, nibbles enough to satisfy a craving, but not a full meal. Thus, I expected our pizza slices to be teasers. Imagine my surprise when were handed napkins and a huge, full greasy piece of NY pizza.
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Right then, we realized this was going to be something remarkable. (Maybe there is something to this Trip Advisor thing?)
After we wolfed down the sweet sauce on the thin, gooey bread, our guide moved us onward. We crammed into a tiny shop called O&CO. If you sniff at the idea of spending time tasting olive oils,we can’t be friends anymore.
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The O&CO team was prepared for us. After sampling some fresh oil that melted like sun on your tongue, we thought we were done.
Again, we were wrong. After that, it was popcorn with specialty truffle salt, nut butters on spoons, and more.
On this stop our guide demonstrated his pure passion for food and Greenwich Village. A regular customer of O&CO, he told stories of how their products have been used to make memories in his life.Â
If you underestimate the power of a good tour guide, I call shame on you. Having a guide that believes in what they are sharing, who lives it, makes all the difference.Â
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Also, having a guide OF the community meant that he was able to arrange a quick chocolate stop for us, in honor of my mom’s birthday. While I don’t want to get our fantastic guide in trouble, I have to mention this. It truly was an extra element of customer service, attention and level to detail that made the entire experience feel specialized to our encounter. Any doubt what that means? Check out this face-
Maybe our guide was putting on a show, but I didn’t feel that way. It felt like he knew these shops, the owners and the staff. And his attitude helped us immensely on our tour.
We took a few steps from the chocolate shop, and we were eating on the street again. Food tastes better when you stand in early winter sunlight on a street filled with shops, surrounded by noises of life, looking at your loved ones. Try it.
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Our guide popped into Faiccos Italian Specialties, a place that the neighborhood embraces as family after the support they lent to emergency workers after 9-11, to bring out risotto balls. I have a new goal in life: to make risotto balls like that.
Our guide broke us into two groups to go into the deli itself. It was, after all, the lunch rush hour and we couldn’t commandeer the entire facility.
At this point, we were feeling pretty stuffed already: pizza, risotto balls, deli meats, popcorn, bread, and chocolate. We needed to sit.
Our guide led us to an unassuming alley and into Palma Ristorante. We wound through the most beautiful restaurant I have entered in a long time. It was magical, taking me back to my summer in Italy within one step.Â
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The epitome of romance, the gentlemen owner of the restaurant supposedly brings in THIS MANY fresh flowers as a display of love for his wife. May we all be loved to the point of smothering under fresh flowers.
In the back, we found a huge table in what was the old kitchen of the house (and we were told the owners still live in the house/restaurant). Here we tried a farmer’s market soup with potatoes and leeks. While the soup wasn’t the gastronomic circus we had just been on, it was perfect for where we were in our journey and the cold, fall day. It was simultaneously light yet filling.
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No matter how much we felt like we’d just found home, though, there was no time to linger. We had a tight food-stuffed schedule to keep.
We walked a few blocks, but it was welcome as our pants were certainly tighter than before. Down to a busier, less quaint part of Greenwich Village we found ourselves in Rafele Ristorante. This time, we were able to pull up a seat at the bar. And this time, we could order a beverage.
Until now, there wasn’t time or opportunity to buy drinks at all. But here, we were offered a halftime drink break. My family and I ordered big glasses of rich Italian wine, took off our jackets, and settled in. Alcohol is not included in the ticket price (since minors can go on these tours and not everyone drinks) so we had to settle up on our own. But we already felt as though our $50 investment in the tour had been well-spent so didn’t mind the extra for deciding to have wine.
Rafele Ristorante was uniquely decorated and made us feel swank, festive, exquisite, genteel and comfortable all at once. As our wines were poured by a bartender who was probably one of my favorite servers, complete with wry NYC sarcasm, we were served an eggplant rollatini. Then, for my mom’s birthday, they brought one piece of cheesecake, on the house. Lucky for us, she offered to share it. Because, while I am not a cheesecake fan, that was what clouds taste like. It was light with a creaminess I wanted to dive in. It was sweet but tinged with enough savory where it didn’t give me a headache.
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We also gleaned the “top secret” news that the chef from Rafele would be appearing in an episode of Chopped this season. So we were *this close* to celebrity.
While we found ourselves feeling a little rushed, while we could have stayed longer, our guide ushered us out. This time, we took a leisurely stroll through some older parts of Greenwich, more residential, stopping in front of quite a few buildings to talk history and architecture. We even had the true New York experience of an elderly woman out walking her dog stopping to inform us that our guide was completely wrong. Lucky for us, our guide actually enjoyed that interaction.
When he thought we were ready, into Milk and Cookies Bakery we went.
Truthfully, we could have done without this stop. While the warm chocolate chip cookie we each received was quite delicious, we’ve eaten a lot of chocolate chip cookies in our lifetime. Also, a warm cookie tells the body it is bedtime, but we weren’t allowed to shut down yet. This was also the only place where the staff seemed to be mildly annoyed by our group taking over. They were busy, taking orders by phone. The cookies were big, but I felt obligated to finish mine, which ended up feeling like a mistake. Milk was provided on request; we didn’t request any.
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I say all of this, yet I am about to go buy the Milk & Cookies: 89 Heirloom Recipes from New York’s Milk & Cookies Bakery
(affiliate link) so take it with a grain of salt…or chocolate…
But folks, WE STILL HAD MORE FOOD TO EAT!! Are you with me? Did you catch how much we’ve already eaten so far? How many places we’ve been to? And that this was all only $50 per person?
Gorged, we still had to eat cheese.
Upstairs in Murray’s Cheese Shop we sat a large table facing each other while looking down on the activity and overwhelming cheese selections below. The place was alive, yet our energy level as a tour group was fading. We wanted so badly to want the cheese, but we were so full.
BUT we had a job to do. So. We ate the cheese.
Word of advice: always eat the cheese.
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Our food-induced coma was intense. My family and I had caught the early train from my brother’s hometown of Philadelphia and into the city. We had eaten more food than should be allowed, but our brains had learned so much, too. We saw the home of the original “86” phrase and the smallest house, as well as learned how much it sells for. We tried to envision what Greenwich was when it was a farm country for tired New Yorkers to retreat to. We had smiled and laughed so much.
Yet. One more stop.
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THIS is how you end a food tour. While staring at oodles of delightful confections we now had no interest in putting into our rotund stomachs, we were handed the most delicious mini-cannoli. We took a moment to pepper the staff with typical tourist questions (How do you know how much to make? What happens if it doesn’t sell? How much waste is there?) and then we took a bite. The ricotta and chocolate shavings spread to bring peace and closure to the tour.
My family and I promptly went back to our hotel room and slept off the food…until it was time for cocktails and dinner, but that’s a different post.
I can’t recommend this tour enough, and I know we will remember it for years to come.
This experience was more than just food. It was a history lesson in food and the buildings in the Village. It was a celebration of the neighborhood. There is a lot of community pride, which is somewhat surprising given how it nestles into a huge city.
If you get a chance, try it out the Foods of NY Tour. You won’t be sorry…or hungry.