Taste & Wellbeing Travel Guide: food & cooking tours

Food and travel make perfect companions and there is a variety of options for eating and drinking your way around the globe, as Gemma Nisbet discovers.

Food and cooking tours offer considerable choice in terms of the breadth and depth of options available. Indeed, such is the popularity of culinary themes to bring local flavour to a holiday experience that many larger touring companies offer food-related experiences as part of more general tours.

One option is to join a tour escorted by your favourite celebrity chef.

SBS’ Luke Nguyen is an ambassador for APT (aptouring.com.au) and regularly joins sections of the company’s Mekong River cruise. Nguyen has also designed culinary experiences for guests on the company’s other Vietnam trips, such as special dining experiences and access to his new GRAIN cooking studio in Ho Chi Minh City.

Television chef Luke Nguygen is an ambassador for APT.

Incidentally, culinary cruises are quite common and range from three-night food-and-wine voyages with P&O (pocruises.com) such as a September 4 departure aboard Pacific Pearl from Sydney, from $349 per person quad share, to an 11-day package incorporating a wine-themed Danube cruise with AmaWaterways (amawaterways.com) in November, from $3699 per person twin share.

Among its various international and Australian journeys themed around food and wine, luxury tour operator Abercrombie & Kent (abercrombiekent.com.au) has a nine-night Morocco: The Culinary Road itinerary hosted by TV chef Geoff Jansz, which costs $6895 per person twin share.

Adventure specialist World Expeditions (worldexpeditions.com/au) offers food-themed journeys including trips to Mexico and Sri Lanka accompanied by Peter Kuruvita — the latter, a 13-day tour, has been running annually for four years and includes everything from street food to fine-dining establishments. The upcoming October 9 departure costs $5990 per person.

Melbourne-based Epicurious Travel (epicurioustravel.com.au) also has a number of culinary tours, including some escorted by high-profile Australian chefs — acclaimed chef and author Christine Manfield, for example, has accompanied a number of its trips to India, with another coming up early next year.

Established touring company Cox & Kings has spun this idea into a whole brand, MasterChef Travel (mastercheftravel.com.au), which offers culinary tours accompanied by former contestants from the TV cooking show. For example, in September, 2012 series contestant Alice Zaslavsky will accompany an eight-day journey to England, from $3999 per person, focused on local producers and regional dishes in London, Lincoln, Derby, Cricklade and Salisbury.

Away from the celebrity chefs, the options are numerous. You might narrow them down by deciding how in-depth you want to go: do you want a broader taste of a country, or to delve deeper into a specific region?

Intrepid’s eight to 15-day Real Food Adventures (intrepidtravel.com/au) offer examples of the former, such as the popular 12-day Vietnam Real Food Adventure, from $1900 per person, which travels the length of the country and includes a cooking class and visits to food markets (the company also has shorter Bite-sized Breaks focused on specific cities).

Gypsian Boutique Tours (gypsianboutiquetours.com.au) and Adventure World (adventureworld.com.au) also offer some culinary tours with a country wide geographical sweep, such as the former’s 16-day Ultimate Turkish Feast itinerary, from $9305, and the latter’s 10-day Hike, Bike & Eat through Croatia journey, from $7152.

Meanwhile, Indus Travel’s (indus.travel) range of culinary tours includes a nine-day Passion & Wine itinerary visiting some of the best wine- producing areas in Chile and Argentina, from $US2385 ($3085).

If you’d prefer to narrow your focus, Utracks (utracks.com) offers a number of culinary-themed trips which, given the company’s specialty in walking and cycling holidays, tend to have an emphasis on in-depth exploration of a specific region — for example, its eight-day Food Lover’s Alsace by Bike tour, from $2290, covers a relatively small area along the French-German border and includes wine tasting and cooking classes.

Explore Worldwide (exploreworldwide.com.au) also has trips combining walking, food and wine, such as the 10-day Wines, Walks and Tapas itinerary, which focuses on the Basque Country, Rioja and Catalunya (from $2275).

Back-Roads Touring (backroadstouring.com) has a number of European food-related tours with a regional focus, such as the six-day Slow Food Tour of Puglia, from $3295 per person, while Peter Sommer Tours (petersommer.com) runs gastronomy-themed tours as an extension of its specialty in cultural holidays. Its eight-day tour of eastern Sicily, for example, puts the area’s food into the context of its rich history and culture and costs £2895 ($5904) per person.

Locally, Margaret River winemaker Robert Gherardi runs small-group food and wine tours in northern Italy’s Piedmont and Aosta Valley regions through his Taste of Life Tours (tasteoflifetours.com), while Perth-based Pauline Lynch, of Wandering Wok Tours (wanderingwok.com.au), escorts Savouring Singapore seven-night food safaris, showcasing the city’s varied cuisines.