Though tours of a city's top restaurants proved popular with locals, the chefs quickly grew tired of tour buses careening through their kitchens. Enjoy an ambulatory alternative to epicurean adventure with today's Groupon: for $25, you get a walking tour from Denver Gourmet (a $49 value).
Denver Gourmet fetes locals and visitors with distinctive small-group meanderings bent on discovering the city's hidden culinary gems. Tours convene Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday at 1 p.m. downtown at Riverfront Park and takes in four to six savory hotspots during a three-hour amble.
Denver's best street food tour packs its expedition with easily accessible local eats that issue from the side-windows of gourmet food trucks. In the process, you'll learn secrets of the tastes, the town, the town's tastes, and how the town tastes if you lick the sidewalk. A gourmet taste of Denver tour imparts craft-brewing knowledge, as well as pairing food and wine, and it then caps its glimpse of edible artisanry with samples of freshly made gelato. Sweet-toothed strollers, meanwhile, can walk off the sugar while savoring the area's best cookies, cupcakes, and treats during the sweet taste of Denver tour.
Wherever your tour takes you, expect to find artisans who will happily share their passion for flavorful food with you and suggest pairings that will help your tongue stave off seasonal affective disorder until spring arrives. Denver Gourmet's small, hands-on tours make them excellent options for holiday family visits, book clubs, fight clubs, girls' days out, and suspicious absences from work.
Reviews
Five Yelpers give Denver Gourmet a five-star average:
- It was fabulous! We visited a gelato shop where we got to scoop our own treat, decorated our own cupcakes, & tasted some amazing fudge, candied apples, & spices along the way. – Michelle H., 10/4/10
- Loved this tour! The owner/guide was personable and it was great learning about all the "hidden gems" downtown. Highly recommended. – Kristi E., 6/18/10
Denver Gourmet Tours
On a trip to Britain, Chelly Vitry was determined to stop at an authentic apple press. She was eager to sample Scrumpy—a British version of hard cider—and see how it was made. Despite days of searching, however, she couldn’t find a press that would allow her visit. With Denver Gourmet Tours, Chelly guides small groups on the same kind of hands-on culinary experience she sought in Britain. During her excursions—which change seasonally—Chelly and her guests spend three hours strolling Denver’s streets, meeting food specialists, and trying the food at four to six culinary hot spots such as food trucks, sweet shops, and craft breweries.
Along with her main tours, Chelly customizes culinary trips, designs gastronomic team-building activities, and hosts events such as progressive dinners and tasting parties. She also fills her guests with newfound culinary skills during hands-on cooking classes, where they learn to craft cupcakes, bake bread, or grow pizzas in their garden.