Brooklyn Food Tour

Customer Reviews

Summary

5 star(s)  74.4% (93 vote(s))

4 star(s)  24.8% (31 vote(s))

3 star(s)  1.6% (2 vote(s))

2 star(s)  0.8% (1 vote(s))

1 star(s)  0.8% (1 vote(s))

Brooklyn (Williamsburgh) Food Tour is Da Bomb

By John Hankinson on November 10, 2013

Brendan was a charming host with good knowledge of the area and the restaurants and shops. The tour features some good, some very good and a couple of brilliant stops. Fornino's Pizza begins the tour and really does feature excellent pizza margherita. You can decide for yourself if it's in your top three NY pizzas or not, but it will certainly be in your top ten. The standout stops for us were Mable's Smokehouse and Bedford Cheese. Mable's is a labor of love and the barbecue isn't just the best we've had in NYC, it's the best we've had north of the Mason-Dixon Line. Jeff and Meghan built the tables, the bar, did the tile work... It's a labor of love named after Jeff's grandmother who's recipees are integral. The other brilliant stop is Bedford Cheese. It exemplifies what an old fashioned/modern cheese shop can and should be (so much more than just cheese, and with the brilliant selection of top quality cheeses, that is saying a lot). Mast Bros chocolate is also currently on the tour. Real chocolate made with love (of chocolate) right in front of you. 50 lb bags of cacao beans are arranged by source with an interesting variety. Handsome Dan's is a candy maker who offered us delicious walnut brittle in what, technically, is a mall. I guess the Brooklyn version of a mall is more like a hallway with stores, kinda seems aprapos. Bagel smith was very good. Most of us brought home bagels. We ended at Brooklyn Oenology, a winery and wine tasting room. They make wine from a variety of New York State grapes, mostly from Long Island's north fork. Brendan saved the cheese tasting from Bedford Cheese to enjoy with our wine and it was the perfect way to end the tour. On a walking tour you develop a rapport with your neighbors and everyone was very pleased with the tour and Brendan. He got tipped pretty well so I'd say it was good for everyone.

“Brooklyn Food Tour”

By ecooper89 (a TripAdvisor member) on February 5, 2014

I bought a Groupon for the Williamsburg Food Tour (4 people) and it was awesome! We had such a great time. This was a really nice way to explore a neighborhood we don't usually frequent. I would definitely recommend this tour for anyone visiting New York or just looking for a food/NYC adventure.

Our guide, Alex, was what made the experience so great. He was very friendly, personable, funny, and SO knowledgable - a true history buff. He knew so much about the history of Brooklyn, Manhattan, and the US and had so many interesting facts to share along the tour.

The other great part was the portions. We assumed we'd get small "tasting" portions, but that wasn't the case at all! For example at Fornino, I thought we'd get a sliver of a slice of pizza, but we each had 1 1/2 full slices! The tastings were generous at each stop and we definitely felt satisfied after - actually, walking between stops was welcomed to keep our appetite going!

The only negative comment I have was that the last stop, Brooklyn Oenology, couldn't accommodate our group so we had to cut the tour short. I'm pretty sure it was a fluke and it was in no way Alex's fault (he felt really bad about it), but it was a let down nonetheless. Even if this doesn't happen frequently, I would recommend Great New York Tours reserve space for their tours to ensure it doesn't happen. We were given cards to bring in and get our free tasting another time, but they're just business cards so I'm not sure they prove anything.

Visited February 2014

From TripAdvisor

Great Brooklyn Food tour

By Karen Lippman on February 26, 2014

I bought the tour for my family from Living Social as a gift! The Williamsburg Food Tour was excellent. We live in Long Island and thought it would be a great thing to do. Thank you so much to our terrific tour guide, Walter, who really made the trip! He was really informative about the area.Delicious food and great history about Williamsburg. Our last stop was supposed to be a local winery, but just before we left to walk there, Walter was told that the wine stop could not take our group. It could have been a bad end to the tour but Walter immediately had a back up plan to take us all the a homemade ice cream place. As a special treat, we each received a single scoop of any flavor we wanted. It was delicious! The one food that we did not enjoy on the tour was the cream cheese that they put on the bagel. The bagel was yummy but all 5 of us were not happy with the tofu cream cheese. Hopefully they will change that. It tasted funky. Overall, the tour was excellent and I would be happy to recommend it! Thanks again, Walter

“Groupon value for good food”

By Matthew J (a TripAdvisor Member) on October 6, 2013

We did the hipster tour, in Brooklyn. We started a little late because some folks were not there, and our guide decided to wait more than 10 minutes for them.
All of the stops on the tour are tasty, including pizza (of course), and 6 other stops. We did not need dinner afterwards.
On some tours, the guide gives you a lot of background about the stores or the neighborhood, whereas here that element was very small. Also, in only about half of the stops do you meet the restaurant people, whereas in others, the guide brings out the food.
So, this tour has very good food, a super value with Groupon, but not much focus on selling the neighborhood or restaurants to you.

Visited August 2013

From TripAdvisor

“Brooklyn Food Tour”

By Noelia N (a TripAdvisor Member) on March 31, 2014

As native New Yorkers, we like to visit different areas of the city to get to know what is new and popular. We had an amazing time with our tour guide Alex who was knowledgeable, friendly and so very entertaining. He was a fountain of historical stories, trivia and good jokes . The establishments we visited gave us a good "tasting" of what Williamsburg has to offer with a good variety of foods. The tour was leisurely yet thoroughly took us through the neighborhood. It was a great introduction into a new area for us and we will certainly be back.

Visited March 2014

From TripAdvisor