Great Food Tours: Chocolate Tour of Beverly Hills

Please check the dates on the good reviews apparently this company has gone downhill! Best
is a horrible company do not book this tour! They do not value customer service as it is impossible to reach anyone if there is a problem. They also have been know to not show up or to cancel last minute as they did in my case. Very disappointed. I will book with the other legit company in the future.

terrible.
stupid.
Overbooked (website said «20 people max») we counted 40!
We had to wait outside sprinkles in the direct heat on a hot hot day, no shade.
already sweaty and gross at beginning of the lame tour.
Edelviess wasn’t even working their machines were old and only worked during the week?
here I am for a tour and they can’t run the machines?
tour guide was a joke.
all we got was like a piece of candy at each stop.
we bailed out before the end of the tour, couldn’t take the lameness when they had to break up our group in half to tour edelweiss.
don’t waste your money.
downtown orange however for $ 25 groupon, excellent tour excellent history and food was awesome, went in restaurants i would never have gone in… great people and excellent tour guide…

My boyfriend and I showed up yesterday for a chocolate tour that was supposed to start at noon. No one was there. We called the number on the Best Tours website (a Pennsylvania number), and were continually hung up on. There was no voice mail, and no one answered. We could never get through. The call just ended. We went to Sprinkles to ask about the tour, and they said that they had not received any orders.
If the tour had been canceled, all Best Tours had to do was email us so we could rebook for another date, and not waste our time.

A fun tour, but not worth full price. I went to the tour as part of a four person group this past Sunday that one of my friends had purchased on GroupOn. We met for our tour outside Sprinkles Cupcakes, and on a hot day just standing in the sun, the 15 minutes waiting for the tour to start were brutal. However even worse was the tourguides choice to wait an additional 15 minutes because someone hadn’t shown up for our tour. While I understand the horror of running late and hoping someone will wait for you, holding up a group of 20 all trying to cower in some shade of the building was not a good way to start the tour.
Our first stop was at Sprinkles Cupcakes where we all had a mini-​chocolate cupcake. The mini was a perfect taste of the cupcakes and small enough I didn’t feel weighed down at the start of the tour. We then passed to Sprinkles Ice Cream where we all had a miniscoop of chocolate with a cone on top. The icecream was rich and creamy and refreshingly cool on a hot day. It was also good because the store was large enough to accommodate our group standing inside, which helped the heat while people sampled other flavors. Our guide also let the group know we could buy waters at Sprinkles which was great in the heat but also a great way to wet the palate after all the treats. We moved on the Sugarfina next, a nice candy boutique that looked like the Tiffany’s of candy. We tried a chocolate almond and a fruit gummy that I am not describing with near enough finess, as each was likely flown in from a small Tibetan village. Sugarfina had the best story of all the stops and the decore made it a delight to shop around. They were also the most generous, sending each of us home with a small sample pack of our choosing. After that we moved on to the Beverly Hills Visitor Center which was a nice stop for the coupon book for tourists, but a waste of a trip for any LA native just exploring the city. We then visited a small french shop, Le Mervetty, which had a delicious chocolate meringue before moving on to Beverly Hills Brownie Company.
While the shops were nice and the treats were good, the tour could be executed much better. There is lots of time spent waiting around at each location that makes sense at Sugarfina where someone may purchase the wares but is more non-​sensicle at other locations like Le Mervetty which mainly does larger desserts one couldn’t carry on the tour or eat on site while waiting.
We were also wholey disappointed that Edelweiss was excluded from our tour as that isn’t a stop on Sundays, which we never saw posted on their website or in any tour information.
For $ 18 per person on GroupOn, it was a fun way to spend few hours with friends and learn about some new shops downtown. Worth it for the resident interested in discovering new shops all at once but for the tourist, I wouldn’t recommend it.

I wish I could give 0 or negative stars! This review is for «Best Tours» which is the same as «Great Food Tours». It’s also my first review, I felt so compelled by my horrible non-​experience I had to write about it. These people are completely inconsiderate and irresponsible. A friend booked a tour for my wife and I one month in advance for 7÷5÷15. She got the confirmation email and forwarded it to us. We were looking forward to this tour as we’ve done similar tours in Seattle and really enjoyed them. After driving an hour into LA and finding parking, we got to Sprinkles cupcakes only to find a bunch of people waiting out front for the tour guide. We went inside and talked to the cashier and she said that no tour was booked for that day. After about 15 minutes some of the tour-​mates got through the online chat Best Tours suggests, and found out that all tours this weekend had been canceled due to the 4^th of July holiday. Why would they let us book the date if it was a holiday weekend? Also, they had 1 month to let everyone know that the tour was canceled, so the «it was so late we didn’t have time to update the website» excuse given to another reviewer isn’t going to fly here. There was no cancellation email, no notification, just us out of time and gas money. On a funny note, our friend received an email asking how the tour went after the tour was supposed to be over — the nerve of these people! I highly recommend NOT going with this company. As someone else suggested, just park at Beverly (2 hrs free) and go to the places on the list yourself. You’ll save yourself time and money.

If I could give negative stars, I would. Best Tours or Great Tours (same company) is the company for this chocolate tour and they are terrible. We showed up for the tour today that I booked a month ago. No tour guide was there and a bunch of people were waiting for the same tour at 12pm. We went into Sprinkles to ask if any chocolate tour was booked with them since they were suppose to be the first one on our list. The lady working at Sprinkles said they didn’t have any orders for a chocolate tour. That was a bad sign, but we gave the tour company the benefit of the doubt, thinking that they might be late since we didn’t get the 48 hour notice of cancellation of tour, which was stated on their website.
By12:20 pm, still no tour guide. Many of us waiting contacted Best Tours company and found out then that it was cancelled, because it was a holiday weekend. I booked this a month ago, so they must have known that there were no tours happening this weekend, yet they allowed me to book it. This tour was a big disappointment and a huge waste of time. I suggest not doing business with Best Tours, or the ones they sell through Groupon or Living Social. What kind of company doesn’t contact customers if there was a cancellation? I will never do business with Best tours again.
If u want chocolate, just drive down to Beverly Hills and visit the stores on their list on your own. Money would have been better spent.
Fyi: Best Tours had the audacity to email me this afternoon asking me if I enjoyed my tour earlier in the day which THEY cancelled without informing me or anyone else! How are these people in business!!!

This is for «Best Tours» which is the same as «Great Food Tours». The website above doesn’t work. Try

I’m really surprised this has 4 stars, it’s a complete waste of time and money.
I bought two tickets on groupon (2 for $ 45). I HOPE no one pays regular price of $ 50 because that’s a total rip off. It’s a really cool concept but not executed well.
Their website says «Capacity of 20 people per tour guide». We had 35 people in our group. This made it really difficult to go in and out of the stores and took a really long time.
The walk is not far at all, it’s a total of 2 or 3 blocks. You spend way too much time in front of each store just waiting around and there is a very unnecessary stop at the Beverly Hills visitor center for a bathroom break.
You don’t really get «chocolate», you get chocolate flavored sweets, which is not bad but the name of the tour is misleading.
Here’s where we went and what we got:
1– Sprinkles — mini chocolate cupcake — $ 2 value
2– Sprinkles — small scoop chocolate w/​cone — $ 2 value
3– Sugarfina — a sample of 1 chocolate bacon pretzel ball + a pack to choose and take away — $ 4 value
4– Beverly Hills Brownie Company — Quarter of chocolate brownie and Quarter of red velvet — $ 2 value
5– teuscher — champagne truffle — $ 4 value
We didn’t go to Edlewiess (closed on Sundays) or Vosges. I thought the tour included 6 stops but we only went to 5.
So you get $ 14 worth of stuff. My suggestion is skip the tour, grab a couple of friends, walk to all the stores, buy our own samples, be done in about 30 to 45 minutes then go to a local café and have light savory lunch and/​or some cocktails. The history they give you is not exciting at all so you’re not missing much.

My girlfriend, who came down from Northern California to visit, and I arrived for the Beverly Hills Chocolate Tour on May 23^rd, 2015. There were about 17 of us waiting in front of Sprinkles Cupcakes for the tour guide to show up. After 15 minutes of waiting past the expected start time of the tour, we attempted to contact the company. After another 10 minutes, we were told that the guide is «stuck out of town» and that the tour would be cancelled. In summary, I drove about an hour to come here, paid the $ 6 for parking behind Sprinkles, and then was told that there was no tour. It was a complete waste of time and money.

I went with friends on the Cupcake Tour of Hollywood and had a great time! Our guide, Lyndia, was wonderful and shared many stories about the area and the bakeries we visited. It was a very special 2 hours that I recommend to all!

Got this as a gift from my husband, and of course I took my sister with me! I was excited to see how it would turn out; I was very pleased!
Sprinkles was a fun place to start the tour. I liked that they gave us a mini cupcake rather than a regular sized one. Moved right next door to Sprinkles ice cream, and the sample they gave us was chocolate with dark chocolate chunks and rice crispies, yum! Next was Sugarfina, a designer confectioner. It was a nice break to get some gummy candy after the chocolate (yes, I know, it’s a chocolate tour). They were very generous at Sugarfina, giving us a gummy sample, a chocolate sample, and allowing us to choose anything from their tasting bar. After a brief stop at the Beverly Hills Visitor Center (and a coupon book), we went to Edelweiss and saw how they make their chocolate, all by hand, before sampling their famous chocolate covered marshmallow. So good. We walked down to Vosges for fancy, haut chocolate. Their signature truffle was Indian coconut curry, which was not bad (more coconut, less curry). We also got to try their dark chocolate and bacon bar, which was pretty awesome, and they have a number of their super dark bars you can sample. Last stop was the Beverly Hills Brownie Company, where we got a taste of their traditional brownie, which wasn’t bad but a bit too rich for me.
Kelvin was our tour guide, and he was a great host. I liked that he spoke a bit on the history of the area, not just the chocolate places. He also made sure everyone stayed together, and got their samples in an orderly fashion. I would recommend him to anyone!
And as a note for the future, bring a bottle of water with you! It’s not a lot of walking, but I kind of needed to wash my mouth out after a couple samples.
I would recommend the whole experience again, the ease of setting up the tour and the whole thing. We had a great time!

I went on a chocolate tour this afternoon and had a lot of fun. Derek was a very personable guide who was engaging and talkative, but also gave us plenty of room to do our own exploring in the various stores we stopped in. He seemed like the kind of person I would be friends with.
One woman in the group had a dog, so she wasn’t always able to go into all the stores. On a few occassions, Derek offered to stay outside with the dog so she wouldn’t miss out on what the rest of us were experiencing, which I thought was very considerate of him.
It was fascinating learning about the history of each place we visited, and I especially liked going to Edelweiss because I Love Lucy is a big favorite in my family. My other favorite was Vosges. The flavors were unique and interesting.
I would definitely recommend this tour to any diehard chocolate fans! You won’t be disappointed.

My friends and I were really looking forward to this adventure. After booking a tour on October 18^th we were informed by email that «the tour has become full by the time we received your booking request. It happened so quickly we didn’t have time to update the website.»
No problem, we rescheduled on one of the dates offered by the company. This time, a day before our tour we got a text indicating that the tour was cancelled due to «low numbers»
So either they have too many customers or not enough. I asked for my money back, and was very disappointed!

It was enjoyable but totally not worth $ 50. I bought 2 tix for $ 50 on Living Social or Groupon and 1 ticket full price for $ 50. We walked and stopped at 6 delicious places and had a small sampling at each. But $ 50 for that? I could see paying that if the tour leader were dynamic in even the most small way. Our leader was nice and friendly and personable but really lacked the charisma and knowledge necessary to warrant a $ 50 tour. I would only buy if you have a coupon.

If I had to describe this tour in one word it would be: sparse.
Besides a little 5 minute talk about the history of Bev Hills which was interesting, there was very little information given by the Tour guide about chocolate in general, about the places we visited, etc. I was just expecting much more info. The guide Jason was friendly and personable, but again I would have really liked learning more about what we were sampling and where we were going.
The stores we visited gave us a brief history of the store which all eerily sounded similar. «This rich person went to college at a prestigious university, got a great job, then left their job to travel the world sampling foods, and came back to open a candy store.»
A couple of the older places are very charming. Most of the stores though are just incredibly over priced treats aimed at the super rich.
Now the other sparse-​ness. The samples! They were tiny across the board and really felt like poor value for money spent. Others have given better descriptions of the names of the stores on the tour so I’ll just give a brief review of what was given:
One very small mini cupcake– I thought we should’ve had two of these to taste a couple flavors at least. We were not given any choice and only one flavor was offered.
One very small bag of candies that had the equivalent of six gummy bears in it.
One small chocolate covered marshmallow piece.
One single small truffle
¼ of a brownie barely a single bite
One single small truffle with champagne center
One Macaron, again not our choice of flavor and should’ve been a couple at least.
Am I just a glutton? Did I have unrealistic expectations? I don’t think so. Overall, I’d recommend skipping this tour and just going to these places on your own and buying a couple full size things and sharing them with your significant other you’d get much more for your money.

I am very disappointed with The Great Food Tours Company. Previously, I took this chocolate tour on 7÷5÷14 and had a good experience. Our tour guide (Jason) was very informative and know his stuffs. Because of that experience, I booked the tours with my guests for 8÷23÷14. BIG MISTAKE !!
No tour guide show up after 45minutes wait. Finally someone who also have a confirmation for today’s date went inside Sprinkles and was told there was no tour schedule for 8÷23÷14. The embarrassment of telling my guests on how great this experience was going to be only to be let down. I am very disappointed with this company. I was going to do the cupcake tour with them but now I have second thought.
I understand emergency situation but at least send someone to inform your customers instead of letting them wait like an idiot outside the store.
Beware with this tour company. If you are going to take a tour with them, you are taking your chances (it might be good or disastrous).

The tour taught us so much more about Beverly Hills. Chanel was awesome and did a great job !!! I hope we get her on our next tour.

Enjoyed my very first chocolate tour with Jason. He made it so easy, fun and relaxed, especially on a hot day, but breezy day in Beverly Hills.
I appreciated that he was there early, waiting and making sure that everyone who came was there and accounted for. I’ve heard horror stories if tour guides being late, and so thank goodness on this hot day, he wasn’t.
We made six tour stops… beginning with:
Sprinkles Cupcakes: we had this mini dark chocolate Belgium cupcake with chocolate sprinkles to die for… so rich and indulgent and melts in your mouth… i also dig the cute cupcake atm they had outside for those who just want a quick cupcake without wanting to go inside and wait in line… let the sugar rush begin…
No. 2: Sprinkles Ice Cream since Edelweiss Chocolates was closed today: the dark chocolate with a kiddie cone was a nice touch and they let us sample a small spoonful of any ice cream they made during the day. I chose the red velvet cake ice cream since the pb cup wasn’t available… the red velvet wasn’t that great, but the dark chocolate was awesome.
No. 3 was Sugarfina: I got to sample the champagne gummy bears and white chocolate pearls. Both were great and we got to sample a free lil take home package and I chose the Blue Robin Eggs that we’re molded into caramel and chocolate. The place was super cute and chic.
No.4 was Beverly Hills Brownie Company: bite size chocolate brownie: really decadent, rich and creamy. Honestly, they should have served it with a shot of milk.
No.5 was Vogas Haut Chocolate — they have a more exotic chocolate tastings. We got to sample a coconut thati curry chocolate ganache truffle. It wasn’t that great, but we got to sample all the other chocolates in the store. Though I was kind of bummed that they didn’t let us sample the other truffles — now those were the ones I wanted to sample in the glass cases. Yet, I did like the banana/​coconut ashe and cinnamon maple bacon dark chocolate flavors.
No. 6 was the best stop: Teuscher Chocolates: this cute lil German chocolate shop that let us sample their chocolate truffle that had Dom Perignon liquor infused. That was the BEST chocolate sample besides Sprinkles of the Day. Totally melts in your mouth and the hit of DP was awesome! Thought I was too thrilled at the price: 16 pieces cost $ 50 and 32 pieces for $ 110.00. Dang, I get it’s BH, but the prices were too much.
Overall, I’ve enjoyed my chocolate fixes and since I OD’ed on today’s chocolates, I definitely know which stores to hit up next time.

I went on the tour last week and I really enjoyed it! I love the combination of tour guide info and getting to hear from the people at the stores! I never knew so much went into chocolate making and the different chocolates were so good! I mean, who would think to put curry in chocolate?
Our tour guide Derek was so knowledgable and very attractive to boot. He made the walk back to the beginning easy and fun. Such a nice guy and so willing to give recommendations about other things to eat while I’m in town.
I would absolutely recommend the tour to anyone looking for a fun afternoon in LA.

This tour was fantastic. The shops were exquisite, the chocolate was fabulous, and our tour guide, Chanel was funny, friendly and really knew her stuff. This is a very cool way to spend an afternoon.

Was looking for something different in the area and came across this tour. Been on a few food tours before but none with quite the selection provided with this one. Really enjoyed Vosges! You have to try the Bacon Truffle.