How to Find Local Food Experiences on Vacation

March 27, 2014 24 Comments »

glorious food
Finding glorious local dining experiences is easier than you think!

My continuing series of how to make your next vacation more local focuses on food and how to find local food experiences when you travel. We all have to eat – but the question is where should we eat when we travel? Connecting through food has been bringing families and cultures together for years, and now there an increased desire to interact more locally and find more meaningful connections and relationships when we travel.  Doing this through food is a great way to infuse some ‘local’ on your vacation. Or maybe you don’t want to be social, but you do want to eat at restaurants where the locals go to eat for a more authentic experience. I will help you cover all the bases!

How to Connect to the Local Restaurant Scene

You want to find the popular local restaurants, but it’s hard to decipher through all of the tourism hype. Let’s face it – no New Yorkers ever go to eat near Times Square unless they have Broadway tickets. The understanding is that Times Square is for tourists. As a tourist, how do you find out where the locals go?

Go on a Food Tour

If you don’t know anyone in that city that you can get recommendations from, then book a food tour the 1st day you are in a destination. Food tours generally teach you about the food culture of an area and give you great ideas on where to go! They are usually put on by a person who lives there and is somehow connected to the foodie scene.

The easiest way to find a food tour in the city you are visiting is simply going to Viator.com and searching for food tours!

When researching food tours, just send them a quick question and ask about the background of the guide before booking.

food tour
Small bites to taste at a Berlin food tour.

I always recommend this to people visiting NYC. As someone who lived there I regularly went on food tours as it was a great way to learn about new neighborhoods AND get new restaurant recommendations. Most food tours are walking tours where you walk around a neighborhood and learn the history of an area, but also try out various cuisines throughout the tour. The portions are normally smaller so that you can get a variety of food samples.

Discover the culture of Wisconsin Supper Clubs

But every tour I have done has been plentiful so come hungry. The tours normally provide a map or list of the restaurants you visit during the tour so you can refer back to them and potentially make reservations during your stay for a longer, proper meal. The restaurants also often offer discounts to people who take the tour. The guides are normally enthusiastic about recommending other restaurants in the city too.

If you are in a country that is known for street food but it is all foreign to you, then definitely book a tour to learn about the different specialties of the area and to decrease your trepidation at trying new things at the outdoor markets. I did this in Vietnam with my niece by taking a street food tour run by locals. It made the Vietnamese food less intimidating and I was able to try much more during my visit.

Saigon food tour
Learn how to order off the streets in Saigon

I’ve had similar success in these cities too with food tours to get me on the road to better understanding the destination’s food culture as well as garner more great local recommendations:

Eating Local in NYC
The Heart of Food in Rome
Finding the Hip Local Restaurants in Berlin
Meat Lovers Parrilla Tour – Buenos Aires
A Walk in the Turkish Food Markets – Istanbul

food tour
A local guide points out food details on a walking food tour.

“Beautiful things happen when you bring people and food together.” Hila said when explaining why she wanted to be involved in hosting strangers in her home for dinner via Eatwith.com

How to Eat with Locals in their Homes

Much like Airbnb.com brought the average traveler inside people’s homes as an alternative to hotels, there is another craze beginning similar to this with food. Locals invite strangers into their homes for a dinner party.  People attend these dinner parties in lieu of going to a restaurant.

The people who are hosting these experiences normally fall into two categories: people who use it to serve as a platform to gain valuable cooking experience or launch a professional cooking career, and those who are passionate about food and enjoy having people in their home and entertaining. It’s very similar to an Airbnb model where a website facilitates the search for home restaurants or dinner parties around the globe and then provides reviews from both the host and the attendee which provides a safety element to something that might seem strange.

Read the reviews, check out the menus and pictures from the host’s past parties, and then decide if the price is right to book! It’s comparable to going to dinner in a restaurant, and you still get ‘waited on’ as if you are in a restaurant. However one big difference is that these dinners are meant to be social, so you are normally seated at a communal table and encouraged to meet your fellow diners. Sometimes alcohol is provided with the prices, and sometimes you bring your own. You can interact with the host beforehand, too, if it makes you feel more comfortable about eating in a stranger’s home.

eat with locals
Enjoy a dish served up in people’s homes when you travel.

I tried this out in Brussels for the first time.  The guests were a combination of expats, locals, and travelers. I had a great time at the dinner meeting new people and swapping stories over more than a few beers! I walked away with new recipes, knowledge on what beer to order in restaurants, restaurant recommendations, sites to see, ideas for neighborhoods to check out, email addresses of new friends – and a very full stomach.

eating with locals
Socializing after dinner via a Bookalokal event in Brussels

EatWith.com – is probably the most well known of this type of local eating experience.  It’s available worldwide; just go to the site and type in a city to see if they have a host. They have a vetting process which is quite thorough. The events have a mixture of locals and travelers typically attending.

I went to one recently in New York City in Brooklyn and had a great time meeting a bunch of locals who were food enthusiasts.  As a bonus, it was cheaper than eating a similar meal in a restaurant! It was very social and typically in these situations the hosts sits and eats with their guests. Once again I walked away with local restaurant advice and more insight into what it was like to be a New Yorker.

eat with locals
Our EatWith hosts explains the menu she’s serving in her home in Brooklyn

Popup Restaurants

“Closed door” restaurants are also popping up all over these days in large cities. And they are extremely popular in Buenos Aires. These are basically eating experiences in people’s private homes. Not exactly a restaurant, and not exactly a dinner party among friends. However, it is a great way to have some amazing food, experience local living, and meet a bunch of other people – locals and travelers alike.

Some of these have communal tables, and some are set up more like a restaurant with multiple tables and reservations – but held in a person’s home. I went to one in Buenos Aires called Casa Salt Shaker. It was communal, but it also felt a bit more like a restaurant as the host/chef didn’t sit and eat with us.

Home dining buenos aires
Eating at Casa Salt Shaker – a home restaurant in Buenos Aires
dessert
Dessert at Casa Salt Shaker

Try one of these food experiences on your next vacation and you’ll be getting more local in no time!


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