I don’t think I’m unwarranted in boasting that my knowledge and experience of the York food scene is comfortably amongst the best in the city, so didn’t approach the experience expecting any great surprises or to find anything new, but a fresh perspective and the chance to interact with visitors to our wonderful city are both invaluable things that would make the experience worthwhile in its own right anyway. The £55 experience begins at an easily found landmark near the Minster so the group that I joined were all gathered neatly at the appointed time ready to get some steps in on the way to the first stop. With a tour like this, it’s key that the guide knows the city intimately and is able to bring it to life in a meaningful and relatable way so I was relieved to find Marion instantly dishing out morsels of information about the sights on the walk to our first stop, a well known bakery near Shambles, who served up samples of their signature seven-seed sourdough as well as a savoury pastry. At this point, I started to seriously question my decision to eat a large pulled pork Benedict earlier in the day at Brew & Brownie while we made the short trip to our next stop in Shambles food court.

Next was a portion of filled savoury pancake from one of my favourite street food traders, which is comfortably one of the best traders in the city before we made our way across town, taking in a few landmarks on the way, to a notable producer within the city walls with a link to one of York’s former main industries. This, more in-depth, sampling and tour took a bit longer and really got stuck into the history and production techniques key to the industry. With a sugar-induced spring in our step we were quickly on the way to another favourite spot of mine, where we descended to be seated in a basement unfamiliar to me – nice to still be surprised!

At this location the group had to get to grips with using chopsticks; with satisfying sticky rice, pickles and Japanese dumplings all making an appearance for the appreciative audience who polished off the lot before making the short trip to our last stop. This full stop to the tour offered a choice of several refreshing, sweet flavours on which to finish before everyone went their separate ways with plenty of inspiration for further culinary exploration of this unique city. I should apologise as well for not naming any of the venues we stopped at, but the stops on this Hidden Gems tour wouldn’t remain terribly surprising for future participants if I named them all here! If you’re visiting York then this is a really good, unique way of finding your bearings in the city with plenty of food thrown in from some of the best that the city has to offer.

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Uniquely Local curate a large number of diverse experiences under one umbrella, including experiences to enjoy at home and experiences provided at many third parties across the north of England with a good number of foodie experiences on offer from popular businesses such as Yorkshire Heart, Courtyard Dairy and Cooper King. I was keen though to check out the Leeds Food Tour, so picked a convenient Saturday and joined a colourfully inhabited train, taking my seat in a carriage featuring about 30% fancy dress! The centre of Leeds was positively buzzing as I easily found the group who would be joining me on the tour which was led by business owner Ellen, who immediately made the group feel at home.

I won’t spoil every stop but it doesn’t take much of a stretch of imagination to guess that Kirkgate Market was involved, as well as one of my favourite central Leeds pubs that has a beautiful copper topped bar and is tucked off a main shopping street. At £55 it was priced in line with similar experiences that I’ve had in cities in the UK, Europe and America but you can be reassured you’ll get your mouth around a significant amount of food in that time too. The offering changes according to the venue’s menus of course but we enjoyed a fish finger sandwich, beer, oyster, Yorkshire puddings and tacos amongst other things. Drinks were available at most of the stops too if you fancy throwing a couple of extra beers/wine/cocktails into the mix.

The complete tour took around 4 hours and was illuminating on the history of Leeds centre as well as the specific venues we stopped at. A few of the stops were new to me so if that’s the case then it’s pretty likely that most fans of Leeds food scene will find something new here. As should be obvious, I thoroughly enjoyed my afternoon with the Leeds Food Tour, taking great pleasure in reacquainting myself with some of the local big hitters as well as adding a few new ones to the list to revisit.

This is just one of the experiences available from Uniquely Local. I’ve gone through my reasons for picking this one earlier but I could just have easily have ended up touring a vineyard, making cheese, making chocolate or putting my hands to work making cocktails. Laying aside my obvious preference for food related experiences there’s even more to go at such as quad biking, axe throwing, alpaca walking or blacksmithing…a Crime Scene Investigation experience day caught my eye too! Definitely a top spot to browse for a birthday treat or next time you fancy indulging yourself.

(Ad – PR experience)

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Food tours are right up my street, so to speak. I’ve done a few, both in cities I’m new to and ones I’m confident I know, and found them to be a perfect way to explore new environments, though getting fed is a bonus too of course. Our recent trip to Amsterdam presented a perfect opportunity to book a food tour, so I got in touch with Secret Food Tours and arranged for us to get acquainted with Amsterdam through their Amsterdam Secret Food Tour on our first morning in the city.

The tour used the statue of Ann Frank by her house as an easy to find landmark from which to start. On the day we attended, it was just a small group, so our guide had plenty of time to answer questions and build relationships to understand our particular interests.

Having been kept awake a certain amount by Baby Fork as she got used to new surroundings, we were grateful that the first stop included coffee. While we topped up our caffeine levels and snacked on sweet, caramel stroopwaffel, the chef at this venue was preparing Poffertjes for us. These sweet, fluffy pancakes are traditional and quickly devoured by the group who enjoyed the butter and icing sugar. After a quick demo of how these are cooked, we were on the move again.

On our way to the next stop, we were given plenty of information on the history of Amsterdam and its position in the world. We even got the chance to look inside one of the tiny, historical dwellings that surrounded a traditional, picturesque courtyard.

It’s an oft repeated suggestion that Amsterdam is built on herring bones, such is the popularity of the fish in the city and the economic contribution that it made. Nowadays it’s a ubiquitous snack, widely available throughout the area having been salted and then served with raw onion and pickles. I guess some might be a touch squeamish about this one but the whole party loved it and, given its importance to the region, it would have been borderline heresy to leave it out of the tour. Before making tracks for our next stop, we also sampled Kibbeling, morsels of battered cod served with tartare sauce. Making use of a lighter batter than is typical in the UK, they proved another hit.

Our next stop gave us a typical Dutch bar snack. Paired with a beer for authenticity, Bitterballen are breaded and deep fried balls of a thick roux that our guide told us were served in every single bar in Amsterdam. This is a claim repeated the following day by Dutch friends so I shan’t doubt its veracity. You can see how these would encourage one more beer…tipping you toward a hangover to be traditionally cured with more herring the following morning. Apparently, two portions will get you back up and running.

Our final stop on the tour gave us the opportunity to sample hearty meatballs and sausage along with Stamppot (a traditional mashed vegetable dish) before we parted with a further tasty gift from our guide.

If all that sounds like a lot of food, rest assured I’ve left some out lest you undertake the tour yourself and miss the element of surprise. Suffice to say cheese and Jenever (a juniper flavoured liquor that shouldn’t be confused with gin) made an appearance. The tour lasted about four hours and easily accommodated a pushchair, took in a good portion of the Jordaan district with lots of local knowledge, and gave broader information about the history of Amsterdam, illustrated with maps by our guide. It hit all the traditional Dutch cuisines and was a deliciously informative way to get to know more about Amsterdam.

Disclaimer: A portion of  the cost of our attendance was covered by Secret Tours. Opinions are impartial.

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We started off at the Fossgate branch of Ambiente where the staff quickly sorted us out with glasses of sherry and snacks. The food pairing was marinated anchovies served on crisp bread with a bit of rocket and a smear of garlic mayonnaise to hold the elements together. After a decent length of time chatting over our food, we made tracks for the Goodramgate branch of Ambiente.

After a short walk, we were ready for our second round. This time our Fino was accompanied by salt potatoes with octopus dusted with paprika. Ambiente has always hit the spot with its tapas and these samples were no exception. Both branches of Ambiente in York were really enjoyable, so we made tracks to finish proceedings in Pairings.

The last snack was a mini platter to share, the hard cheese pairing well with our third Fino and a chilli jam along with some pickles. Pairings was as friendly as ever as they stamped our cards ready to enter the competition. With all three stops totalling £30 for both of us, this was a cracking way to spend an afternoon, which I definitely recommend taking part in before it ends on the 19th. Fingers crossed for the competition, full details of which are here.

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Demonstrations – There’s a great line up of chef demonstrators this year. I’ll be trying to fit in as many as I can, but with the number on offer I suspect some will slip through the net. Top names include Andrew Pern, Neil Bentinck, Adam Jackson, James MacKenzie, Sara Danesin Medio, Steph Moon, Josh Overington and Tommy Banks.

Food Events – With the festival expanding across large portions of the city this year, there’s a huge amount to get booked into. Here’s a selection to look at:

• Afternoon tea tour of York from Tours in a Dish
• Star Inn the City‘s pop up
• French cheese & wine with Love Cheese
• Community table at El Piano
• Txoko Basque tapas at Ambiente
• Medieval banquet at Barley Hall
• Melton’s fish & wine matching dinner

The Beer & Cider Festival -The festival, as always, warrants attention separate from that focussed on the centre of town. As in previous years, it’s taking place on the Knavesmire over four days (Wednesday 20th to Saturday 23rd Sept incl) and will offer the chance to try around 500 different beers. To help soak up all that beer, there’ll be nine food vendors on site too. Head on over to their website for all the details.

Discovery Tour and Taste Trail – The Taste Trail returns this year, offering the chance to take in York’s sights while stopping off at some of its finest food establishments for samples which are covered by the cost of your leaflet. A new concept to run along with the Taste Trail is the Discovery Tour Passport. This will allow visitors to really get hands on, enjoying activities such as pasta making, bread making and chocolate tasting.

This really is just a sample of what’s on offer. Pretty much every food business of note in York is involved, so if I’ve left out one of your favourites, don’t hesitate to shout me on social media and direct my ranging through the Festival. Have a fantastic time and happy eating everyone!

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Tucked away on Walmgate is a York success story that deserves the many plaudits it’s earned since opening less than two years ago. After being caught up in the buffeting York received during the Christmas 2015 flood, Brew York made sure they didn’t succumb to the sort of setback that could have finished a less well planned business. They regrouped and made sure the quality of their beer would stand the business in good stead in the longer term. Since its opening, the tap room in Brew York has established itself as one of the best places to enjoy great beer in the centre of York, notably being somewhere that buzzes on a Friday and Saturday while not attracting the races and stag do crowd. With that hyper-local market locked in, a part of the focus has shifted to spreading the word wider, which has led to their beers being stocked by Tesco in 49 of their Yorkshire stores. The headliners in those shops are ‘Big Eagle IPA’, ‘Brew York, Brew York’ and ‘Little Eagle’, all of which are absolutely packed with flavour. Having had first hand experience of their beers already, I was happy to accept an invitation from Tesco to pop down and join a Brew York brewery tour.

I joined the Brew York brewery tour on a busy Saturday hosted by co-founder Lee Grabham, who spent an hour of his time walking through the brewing process for us in a refreshingly unvarnished manner. I’ve attended plenty of brewery tours that have involved lots of talk about how hard it is to brew great beer but little detail; Lee’s enthusiasm for the discussion of the chemistry in the process was a welcome change. We tried a variety of the beers on offer that undoubtedly were crowned by the award-winning Tonkoko milk stout. The challenges around brewing this one in volume make it sound like a tough ask to get into a retailer such as Tesco, but fingers crossed it will happen as this is a drink that deserves the widest possible audience.

Coincidentally, next weekend is the Brew York Summer Bash. What better excuse could there be to pop along and celebrate the success of a real asset to York?

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Bad Seed
After meeting in the Tap we took the familiar buzz up the A64 to Malton and made ourselves welcome at Bad Seed. Our host Chris leapt into super enthusiastic action, giving plentiful info on the brewing process, that would remain relevant through the subsequent stops, alongside the brewery’s history and ethos. The commitment to flavour above all else shone through along with a strong desire to work with the outlets they supply. We sampled several beers, including their marvellous pales and bold stouts, before some experimental (and rather divisive) sours, the only one not to my palate being a Seville orange IPA reflecting my dislike of fruit beers. I was already well aware of Bad Seed’s reputation and now will be on my shortlist whenever on offer.

Breworks in the Black Swan
Our next destination was the Black Swan in Pickering. Having recently come into new ownership, this historic building now also has its very own microbrewery in an outbuilding, with ‘micro’ being the operative word as we huddled in twos and threes to be taken round the brewing equipment. The family running this spot had a stint brewing in Turkey which they reference in the name of “Istanbul” Pale Ale. It’s early days for these guys as they focus on producing consistent, quality and marketable product for their own pub but the samples we went for all hit the spot, so I’m looking forward to seeing where they go with future brews.

Brass Castle
The last port of call before once again hitting the road for the return journey was the newly opened tap room at Brass Castle back in Malton. An unexpected bonus when we arrived was the presence of a mobile canning operation. Clanging away in the brewery, this tremendously effective and slightly Heath-Robinson looking contraption was a unique insight into the workings of a brewery this size. Being familiar with Brass Castle’s beers, it wasn’t a surprise to find the product up to their usual high standards as we heard passionate arguments for the vegan, un-fined and largely gluten free nature of their beers. Slightly more surprising was my enthusiasm for “Polish Champagne”, a smoked white beer made with Polish hops that proved more accessible than expected with a tremendously well-balanced flavour.

As we made our way back down the A64 toward York, the reflections in the comfortable vehicle were on the breadth and depth of quality we’d seen through the afternoon. All three breweries offered passionate, unique and quality-led views on how to brew beer that came across in both the tours and the tastings. I’ll be astonished if we don’t see this group of breweries continue to prosper and gain even greater reputation for superb beer.

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Brewtown Tours is a new company founded by Mark Stredwick who recently returned from Australia, where he had been conducting similar tours to those offered here. The concept is simple: meet up and Mark will drive you to a selection of breweries while talking about the area and the beers between stops. The tour we went on met up at the York Tap at 13;00 before moving through Rudgate and Yorkshire Heart then returning to BrewYork back in the centre of town. I was joined by the Puboholic for the afternoon’s jaunt and Mark wasn’t hard to spot in the Tap wearing his branded clothes. So with minimal fuss, we were on the road.

As we arrived at Rudgate it was fairly apparent that this wasn’t going to be a perfectly manicured theme park style tour. People were washing vans, moving stock on forklifts and generally going about their business with the light hearted approach that comes to all employees on a Friday afternoon. This slightly unrehearsed approach really made it clear that you were in a working space and really in the guts of the business, something that wouldn’t otherwise have been available to the public and was much more interesting to see than some slightly more scripted tours I’ve been on. After being shown around the workings of the brewing equipment and hearing about the history of the brewery, which is celebrating its 25th birthday next year, we set about our first sampling of the day which took in Rudgate’s Jorvik, Battleaxe and Chocolate stout. Both the Puboholic and I were familiar with the two former of these, so it was no surprise to enjoy them so close to their place of manufacture, but the chocolate stout was a nice surprise for both of us, dark and interesting without being overpowered by the chocolate.

Time to hit the road again and make our way across to Yorkshire Heart. I’m less familiar with this Nun Monkton based brewery and had no idea that it was part of a business that already accommodated a large vineyard. As with Rudgate, this was not a sanitised (well, in the figurative sense) look at a brewery. While we were chatting with brewery manager Tim, there was plenty of enthusiastic cleaning taking place in the background as we stuck our hands into boxes of hops and compared scents. Moving onto the tasting, we enjoyed the beers, but struck a note of caution when faced with rhubarb beer. Ever since being horrified by a monstrous concoction called ‘Hey Pesto’, the idea of beer adulterated with fruits, herbs or, well anything if I’m honest, has not sat well. We both, however, found ourselves converted, if perhaps better sampled in smaller quantities.

Our final stop with Brewtown Tours was a location much more familiar to us in Brew York, the city’s newest brewery tucked away on Walmgate, which has been receiving plaudits for its brews, particularly its prize-winning Tonkoko milk stout. After five hours of sampling, being driven, talked to and engaged in conversation without a hint of boredom, it shows that Mark combines knowledge and passion to keep events, like the beer, flowing at an appropriate rate. It’s admirable that there’s a genuine emphasis on responsibility threaded through the afternoon. This is not a tour to recommend for stag dos that chase quantity over quality, it’s an opportunity to sample tours of quality breweries that aren’t otherwise open to the public and sample some great beers. You’ll be smiling when you get off the bus, not staggering. A great afternoon’s entertainment.

Disclaimer: While the experience was complimentary, all views remain as impartial as ever.

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