Taste Carolina Gourmet Food Tours

My husband and I did a Tour of Durham recently. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and gave us ample information at every stop. The food was delicious. The people from the restaurants were all very welcoming and enjoyed sharing their story with us.
The process of registering on line was really easy and worked very well. A great experience! We’ll do it again for sure, exploring a different city.

To date I have taken 4 tours with Taste Carolina and I have been pleased every time! Our latest tour was the Durham food and cocktails pairing tour with Cat. She was knowledgeable and friendly with lots of interesting tips and facts about Durham. We had previously taken both the food and cocktail tours in downtown Raleigh that turned us into Raleigh foodies. Now that we can make our way around Raleigh on our own (Thanks to Taste Carolina, of course) it was time to venture into Durham. We had a wonderful time! Take any of their tours. They are HIGHLY recommended! You will leave with a full, happy belly and insider info about the city and its hot spots! Worth every penny and more! Thanks Taste Carolina for another great tour!

Three of us went on the evening Durham tour and it was fantastic! We got a nice history lesson from our knowledgeable guide along with amazing food and drinks. We were very impressed by how large the samples of food were. We had wine or a cocktail at each place, except for the dessert shop, which didn’t sell drinks. The featured restaurants were a great representation of Durham’s offerings.

Back for Round 3. Did the Raleigh Roots Tour (again!). It did not disappoint. Loved that it was different stops since the last time but all unique. (And I would have enjoyed those from the past tour!). Sam was a great tour guide and it shows that she is a foodie. It’s also interesting that each my friends had a different favorite from this tour. Oh and dessert… Yellow Dog Bakery never disappoints in anything I’ve gotten there!

We have done 2 corporate tours with Taste Carolina through Durham. They are easy to coordinate with and we have had great experiences on both tours. The stops /​food have been excellent and our guides have been interesting and informative.

This review refers to the Durham afternoon tour. We just got home from a delightful outing with Elizabeth as our guide. We couldn’t have asked for a more knowledgeable or enthusiastic leader for this culinary adventure. We convened at the Alizerin art space and ate at 6 establishments in downtown Durham. Elizabeth was a great resource on the history and culture of the area as well as tons of information and recommendations on the food scene in Durham, including many places not on the tour. I just moved to the triangle area from Arizona and was using this experience to get to know Durham better. This was such a fun and interesting way to do it! At many of the restaurants, the owner would take the time to greet us and explain a little about the philosophy of their business and food. The portions were more than generous at each place and seemed to represent the respective menus well. I don’t want to spoil the surprise of discovering the individual places, but I highly recommend the experience.

This was fantastic! Tour guide was engaging and knowledgeable and food was fantastic. A nice, eclectic mix of restaurants. Highly recommend!

My girlfriend and I took the dinner and drinks tour in Raleigh and it was such an amazing experience. Our tour guide I believe was Sam and she was very personable friendly and knowledgeable. I have never had an experience like this before and highly recommend it to anyone looking to find good places to eat around the city.

My sister and I went on the Dinner and Drinks tour in Raleigh. It was awesome! Definitely enough food for dinner and had four drinks total. I’ve lived in Raleigh for years and hadn’t been to 4 of the 5 places we visited. My sister is from Charlotte and got a good feel for Raleigh. Tour guide was very friendly and made the experience very fun!

The Raleigh Capitol tour was great! Our tour guide, Sam, was fun, entertaining and very thoughtful– she really helped make the experience excellent. We enjoyed the history and the opportunity to taste food at different places. Great way to get to know Raleigh and enjoy an afternoon. Highly recommend!

This is a great way to find and sample amazing restaurants without spending a ton of money! We’ve been on two tours to Raleigh and Chapel Hill/​Carrboro. Both tours were fantastic. The tour guides were super knowledgeable, friendly and passionate about what they were doing. Definitely worth the money AND a great time!
fyi — Ashley was our tour guide in Chapel Hill.

This is my second tour with Taste Carolina; I hope to complete tours in all of the cities they host. The guide was patient, fun, and engaging. The choice of restaurants was delicious and I am looking forward to introducing family & friends to the restaurants & hope to have a private tour with fam & friends!

This is a great way to see the City (Raleigh in our case) and entertain folks visiting from out of town. My sweetie and I had already been to 3 out of 6 of the restaurants, but they were all new to my folks. There is a lot of walking which did make me worry about my Dad sometimes (he’s in his upper 70s now) and there was an elderly lady on the tour who needed to switch to one of the bicycle carriage rides which are provided for free in Raleigh. It was a nice option for her and Taste was very accommodating. There were 13 of us on the tour and most folks were introverted which made for a sometimes awkwardly quiet wait for our foods to come out, and besides a few of us, very little interaction with the chefs. I think I will try this again sometime and hopefully get a more fun and interactive crew!

This was a really nice tour if you wanna eat and explore downtown Raleigh. The only reason I’m giving four stars instead of five is cause it was a little light on the eating part. While all the places we went to had great food (at least from what they gave us) it was usually very little. The best part of the tour I would say was the tour guide and the people who we met and talked to at each restaurant. Every one was an absolute delight especially our tour guide! Including the trainee who tagged along with us. When we left our tour guide gave us hugs and wished us well. Overall a very good experience.

We had done the Durham tour and it was a great step into the food world of the triangle. That was completed over 3 years ago at this point, and every person I know who is active and loves food I recommend it to. However, the point of this review is to go over the superb experience we recently had with the Wilmington downtown tour.
My wife and I had never been to the actual downtown area. Armed with a few hundred bucks for a weekend I planned a B&B and booked the food tour with Taste Carolina. We were given a tour guide who was previously a chef in a number of the swanky restaurants in the area and had a working relationship and knowledge of almost every place.
The food and drink was superb, but that is to be expected. There were heaping plates of family-​style pasta, some small bites that packed huge flavor, and some wine and drinks that were designed specifically for the tour. What you don’t realize while concentrating on the food is all the history and facts you pick up on throughout the tour and just walking around town. This is true for the two tours we have been on and plan to do the Chapel Hill and Raleigh tours as well.
Each tour is unique and offers a slew of benefits. The hardest part is picking which one you want to do and what types of cuisine you want to experience. The only drawback to this whole endeavor (which we have not experienced yet) would be if the weather were not to cooperate (aka — rain/​snow/​etc.).
Regardless of the possibility of inclement weather, I cannot recommend this experience enough if you are interested in learning about new places or enjoy going to restaurants in your area or surrounding state. The tours are great and the guides are just as much fun as your friends. Plus, you even burn off a few of the calories walking around town :)

I was BLOWN AWAY be how AMAZING my Valentine’s Day Tour was. I went with my honey on the Raleigh Roots tour and our seven stops in Seaboard Station and Person Street area could not have been better. Rebekah, our tour guide, was fantastic and each stop was better than the last. The value of this tour was through the roof (I was stuffed and pretty buzzed by the end of it) and I loved learning a bit of Raleigh history in addition to the «behind-​the-​scenes» restaurant details shared by the staff of each locale. Even though I had been to most of these restaurants already, I got to learn new things and try new dishes. Such a fun day date!
We visited:
+ 18 Seaboard
+ Kimbap
+ The Station
+ Piebird
+ Yellowdog Bakery
+ Wine Authorities
+ Tyler’s Bottle Shop
Highly recommend with out-​of-​town guests or as a fun daytime adventure!

UPDATE 1÷9÷2015: In response to my ¹⁄₅ update of this review, the owner of the business wrote me a letter, which I have pasted at the end of this review. She refunded my party half our money, which would have been enough – but what really impressed me is that she refunded the other tour participants half their money as well. So I have returned this review to four stars, and I would give this company another chance.
UPDATE 1÷5÷2015: I had originally given this review four stars, and assumed that the food in Chapel Hill was largely forgettable, since that’s what they chose to show us on a tour. When I told my cousin where we went, however, she was appalled. She rattled off a half dozen restaurants on Franklin St alone, and said that next time, I’d better skip the food tour and strike out on my own. So I’m downgrading my rating to three stars – I should be able to count on a food tour to show me the best of the town.
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
We went on the Saturday evening «dinner and drinks» tour for Carrboro and Chapel Hill. It started off a little weak, but got much better by the end. We would do another tour with this company, but it lacked a certain polish.
Our tour guide was Kat. She was very nice and certainly loved the food scene in the area. It felt less like we were on a professional tour, though, and more like an acquaintance was showing us around town. That is certainly a valuable service, but it’s not quite what we expected. There were also some time issues, which might have added to that vibe.
The first restaurant was Neal’s Deli, which gave us pimento cheese, crudités, a quarter pastrami sandwich (egg salad for vegetarians) and sangria. They also gave us some biscuits that were left over from breakfast. It was all good, though just nothing that seemed worthy of a tour.
The first impressions were worsened by our very weak second stop, which was a beer store that had only three items on tap. This was all we could sample, and they gave less than an ounce of each. Several local beer/​wine stores in my town will do more, for free, every day. I started to worry.
My concern gave way at the third stop, Acme, where we were served a really delectable «risotto» made with hickory smoked pearl onions, field peas, oyster mushrooms and chard; it was topped with a few pomegranate seeds and paired with a semi-​dry red. This was excellent: probably the best single food item of the tour.
Our fourth stop was Al’s Burger Shop, which let us customize our order from the menu. I got the «mookie» burger, which had a great combination of sweet and salty but which was a little tough for my taste – it would have been a great burger if the meat kept up with the toppings. Heather’s veggie burger was a bit bland, so I guess the same problems there. These were served with cheerwine.
The high point was the fifth stop, at Kipo’s, where they pulled out all the stops. We began with savory breads (olive thyme!) paired with an intensely peppery olive oil, and our choice of Greek red or white wines. Next came a quartet of mezze items, of which the tzatziki was my hands-​down favorite, though the garlic potato spread was very nice. These were served with a buttery pita that I really enjoyed. Next came a beautiful Greek salad with a creamy goat’s milk feta, and then spanakopita. It was finished off with a selection of cookies. By that point, I was feeling much better.
The last stop was the Open Eye Café, where they gave us the best macarons of my life (and I have been to France twice) as well as a nice overview of coffee tasting. The guy knew his stuff.
So, yes, worth it, but not without its hiccups. Four stars.
LETTER FROM OWNER:
Hi David,
Thank you for sharing your experiences regarding your food tour on Saturday, and thank you for joining us. I was very sorry to hear of the issues your raised. We are taking your review seriously and have already made changes to the tour going forward.
As all of the restaurants we visit have farm-​to-​table concepts where everything is made from scratch using local ingredients, I’m so sorry that the food didn’t stand out this week like it usually does. We love the restaurants on our tour, and so do our customers; they are places that our guests might not try on their own and are typically super delicious and special. With the holiday, some of our primary restaurant contacts weren’t there. Although we’re not always able to talk with someone at every stop, interactions with chefs, owners, and experts who are passionate about what they do typically add greatly to the day.
Our business model is to provide exceptional and consistent tours week in and week out all year ’round. Very occasionally we don’t get it right. As such, I’ve refunded half your fee and went ahead and refunded half of the other twosome’s fee as well.
Best regards,
Lesley Stracks-​Mullem
Owner

Perfect way to get acquainted with the city! Just moved to North Carolina, and this was first introduction to downtown Greensboro, it’s history and culinary offerings. Best outing to kick off my time living here!

Tl;dr first: restaurants were great (5 stars), guide was wack (2 stars). Worth the price but I definitely did not tip.
The long version: came to NC on a road trip and got to do a tour in Chapel Hill-​Carrboro.
First stop was Acme – got a bbq pork salad and red wine. Meh, nothing special.
2) Carrboro Brewery. Got to try all of the samples from their 4 beers on tap AND try a bottle of their interesting sodas.
3) Vimala’s. Yummy Indian food, like rice and chicken tikka masala.
4) Kipo’s: OMG. Got a tonnn of Greek food. Fresh veggie and feta cheese salad, pita with different spreads, and spanakopita. The manager was super friendly and explained the history of the restaurant and the food. Def the best stop on the tour.
5) Open Eyes Café. They’re serious about their coffee roasting! A guy gave us a whole spiel about how they do it and answered all our questions about coffee, which was nice. Got to try 2 samples and a macaroon.
So basically all the food was great and plentiful. BUT, our tour guide was pretty much useless. I forget her name but she’s super short. She hardly explained anything and didn’t give us any history about the town or area. She told us a couple fun facts about some restaurants we passed by, but nothing interesting. She just walked ahead of our group the whole time and talked with another tour guide that she was training. Booo.
Overall, I would def recommend getting a tour. The food was good and worth it, and the tour lasted like 3.5 hours – a nice way to spend an afternoon. But I hope you get a better tour guide.

My husband and I came signed up for a Taste Carolina food tour in Raleigh, when were visiting the area a few months back. This tour was a great way to get familiar with Downtown Raleigh, especially since we would be moving to the Triangle for his new job just a couple months later.
We absolutely loved our tour, and benefited greatly from it! We started out on Fayetteville Street in Downtown Raleigh and had a great tour guide. She was enthusiastic and engaging with our group. Our group was a good size, about 10 people in our age group, so we actually had a lot of fun going from one place to the next together. The whole tour takes an afternoon, and you get pretty full even when sampling goodies from one place to the next.
Below are the restaurants that we went to on our tour — I would highly recommend Centro, 18 Seaboard and Piebird. Those 3 were my favorites!
1. Centro
2. 18 Seaboard
3. Kimbap Café
4. Tyler’s Taproom
5. Piebird
6. Pop-​Up Ice Cream
I definitely recommend doing a Taste Carolina tour. Not only is it great to do if you are new to Raleigh, but it’s also a fun and unique activity to do with friends. Thanks to the tour, we were even more excited to be moving to the area for my husband’s new job. And of course the food at each place was yummy, perfectly sized and refreshing. I was so full when we were done.
I definitely plan on going back to Centro, 18 Seaboard and Piebird. They were the most unique and delicious, with great restaurant atmospheres.