On a recent anniversary trip to Asheville, my husband and I enjoyed Eating Asheville's historical…read moredowntown food tour. We decided to splurge for The High Roller option as it was only around $10 more a person and included beverage parings with the food. Included is up to 6 stops at restaurants, bars, or desserteries with at-least 3 alcoholic beverages pairings and then other non-alcoholic options. The tour lasts about 2.5- 3 hours. This is a walking in food tour, so you have to be able and willing to travel on foot some. It wasn't a ton of walking, but did work up a little sweat as it was a warmer Friday afternoon (this tour is offered Thursday- Sunday). We had a small group of 6 people plus our tour guide. She was very sweet and personable. I think she may have been semi new at this as her story flow was a little jumbled, but it didn't bother me too much as honestly she was trying and I was interested in food way more than history. She did point out some important sites along the way and give us some fun Asheville facts. Great thing about these tours is they do vary. While the company has a number of places they work with which ones are selected for you, depends on the day, time, season etc. So you could honestly do these tours more than once and experience new things still. Our tour began at Asheville Charcuterie where we each enjoyed a personalized board of meat, cheese, cracker, fruit, and a local spicy honey. It was also served with a Bold Rock cider. This was a cute shop where you can get a drink or snack there or take items with you to go. Next was to the Grove Arcade where we hit Bebettes, a New Orleans coffeehouse with fresh out the oven beignets with a warm chocolate dipping sauce, served with a shot of coffee. So yummy. I felt bad about all the power sugar I got everywhere. Gotta love a dessert on stop 2! For the third s location was Strada Italiano. The food here was excellent. We sampled one of their arancini balls and a grilled Florentine ravioli. Both were delicious bites and executed flawlessly. Great Italian fare with some red wine. My husband and I agreed we want to come back here for a full Italian dinner experience on our next trip. Starting to feel a little full at this point, not gonna lie but things continued to get more hearty at The Rhu. We got to enjoy their house breakfast sausage and pimento cheese on a buttermilk biscuit. Thank goodness they only gave us half each as these bad boys were thick. All three components were so tasty, with the pimento cheese winning for me. It came with some iced tea, which was definitely southern and sweet. I knew we had one more food stop left before dessert. Imagine my surprise when it was an Indiana buffet at Mehfil. On the fifth stop? Lord, a bad day to wear jeans! They place was so generous giving us a like private mini buffet of items like tandoori chicken, saag paneer, naan, butter chicken, rice and more. I truly wish I had room to eat more as everything was so tasty, especially their tandoori chicken. Also they had the best beverage pairing with a pear mule cocktail - perfectly light and smooth for a warm day. Our tour guide joked that we would need to cancel our dinner reservations, turns out they weren't kidding. The last stop was Asheville Chocolate. So many amazing sweet treats you could enjoy at this place. We wrapped up our tour with a chocolate truffle and cookies and cream gelato. I had to ask my husband to help finish these as I was stuffed. Before departing, we tipped our guide. This is not required, but we were happy to do so as she worked hard and took great care of us. After the tour, not gonna lie went back to our hotel and had an amazing nap! Sign of a good food tour! I thought this food tour was a great deal for the $90 per person price. I know at first it sounds like a lot. But we more than got $15 worth at each place from the food and drink itself, plus to convenience of being able to just walk in to a reserved table at a popular restaurant with a planned bite ready in a few minutes. Not to mention, having a personal tour guide to take you around and teach you about where you are, what you are eating , and Asheville in general. If you like to eat, and can eat a lot (you will be very full but it's worth it), take this tour. It was a great way to get a taste of places you've never been and decide where you wanna go back to and try a full meal next time!

Did we have a good time overall? Yes. However, do I think…read moreit's worth the $92/person price tag all in with taxes and fees... to sample 5 places with varying portions of food and drink? Not quite. The classic before fees is $79/person. It offers "minimum of 5 stops and at least 2 drink pairings" from their website. Don't get me started on the 15.5% extra they tack on for "taxes and fees". If the unavoidable city tax for Asheville is 7%, the remainder is 8.5% for what? Their website/payment services? To be fair, the pricing is similar to one we took part in NOLA $78/person with Destination Kitchen but the food and portions were more balanced (albeit without drink pairings). For $10 more base price, you can book the high roller tour $89/person. After all is said and done I'm wondering if we should have spent the extra amount and upgraded to the high roller since the descriptor highlights "most elegant, trendy, and acclaimed" options. I understand the business also needs to make a profit along with giving a cut to the tour guides. At the beginning and throughout the tour, the guide continued to emphasize that if we were still hungry by the end that they have not done their jobs. However, there's more to consider. I'll go through the 5 places we tried and how one of the newest additions isn't even listed still on their website so if you were to look ahead of time for the offerings you would not expect it! We met our group inside the Grove Street Arcade on a Monday in September which is a great spot with some shops and public restrooms before we started. STOP 1 - The Rhu https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-rhu-asheville This is the cafe/breakfast bakery sister to Rhubarb, which is more upscale. They prepared a small cup of iced sweet tea with half of their breakfast sandwich. The refreshing tea with sugar cubes paired nicely with the buttery biscuit sandwich. Value: $8.50 for full sandwich and drink was not listed so going to estimate total is worth one sandwich. STOP 3 - Bold Rock https://www.yelp.com/biz/bold-rock-asheville-asheville The Cidery story actually started in VA but I'm glad they expanded to NC. We sampled a 6~7 oz cider paired with a Bruschetta and Bacon Apple Grilled Cheese. (American, cheddar, goat cheese, local apples, bacon, Dijon aioli, sourdough) It was super tasty and really enjoyed everything!! Value: ~$5 half pour, ~$10 for the food so one of the better values STOP 3 - Mëhfil https://www.yelp.com/biz/mehfil-asheville-2 Full buffet spread of ~6 Indian dishes with Mango Lassi and a tasty alcoholic beverage too! Now this place is the spot I mentioned isn't even listed with their logo on the restaurant page... I checked their Instagram which isn't updated frequently either and they announced just the day before our tour so this is brand NEW. Unfortunately this is one of the cuisines my SO does not eat. We would not have known that reserving in advance... which is a shame. Value: ~$25-30 honestly since they were offering generous full size portions of their dishes that you could serve yourself, this was hands down the best cost wise. If you were to fill up it would be at this stop. The staff were also super nice and hospitable! STOP 4 - Manicomio Pizza https://www.yelp.com/biz/manicomio-pizza-asheville Plain and simple pizzeria with some funky designs. We sampled a single slice which may have been their special of the day with cherry tomato and artichoke and a lemon wedge to spritz. It tasted good, but forgettable. They just gave us water. Value: $5.50 by the slice for daily special STOP 5 FINAL - Sunshine Sammies https://www.yelp.com/biz/sunshine-sammies-asheville Makes sense we'd end on dessert and we sampled 1/2 a sandwich of I believe their seasonal pumpkin! It was a sweet way to conclude the tour. Value: $4, a full size seasonal flavor is $8 I was full from the generous spread offered at Mëhfil which carried the food and drink side of the tour. Unfortunately my SO didn't get to fully enjoy the experience, and there was no way we could have expected they'd take us to the new restaurant that was just announced. Even being generous with some of my estimates, I landed at value of ~$60, which is still short of the cost you're paying especially when more than half of these locations are more fast casual spots. The most disappointing was the pizzeria, since aside from the artwork I didn't feel anything unique about the taste and seems like a wasted opportunity given the list of other more interesting restaurants. I enjoyed the historical information the guide sprinkled throughout along with background about each of the locations. Next time I'll keep in mind for Mondays where many restaurants aren't open.

We were in Asheville last weekend and took Stu's tour. We…read moretravel a fair amount and always like to take a food tour in a new place. We have taken dozens of food tours over the years.This was by far, and it's not even close, the best one we have ever taken. Stu is awesome. He's knowledgeable and passionate about the Asheville food scene. He's also funny, interesting, and incredibly engaging. (During the tour, a car drove by and a passenger yelled out, "Stu, you're the best! You are a rockstar!") The six stops on the tour were all top notch. And this wasn't your typical food tour where you walk into a restaurant, have a small bite to eat, say hi to the owner, and leave. Instead, we were seated at each restaurant and Stu explained the entire menu as well as the history of the restaurant while we ate. He did an incredible job promoting the restaurants as well as the Asheville food scene in general. Last thing, be warned, you do not want to eat at all before taking the tour. We were essentially served five full meals in three hours. Do yourself a favor, show up hungry. The food is so good you don't want to miss out on any of it by being full. I can't emphasize enough that you should take this tour if you are in Asheville. I give it a six out of five stats! Thanks Stu! You ARE a rockstar!

A food tour is always a must for us. On our latest visit we decided to go on the food fan tour. It…read moreis $85 per person and that includes all of the food and alcoholic beverages. On this tour our stops included: Mountain Madre, Strada, Miyako House, White Duck Taco Shop, Mehfil and Asheville Chocolate. Our guide, Stu, was very knowledgeable and easy to talk to. Downtown Asheville is small so there wasn't a long time to wait between stops. Every restaurant had a great portion to offer so come very hungry. If this is your first time to Asheville then I highly recommend a food tour with Asheville Food Tours.

Pleasantly surprised by the quality of the food and drinks selected at wonderful restaurants! We…read morehad Fay as our tour guide as she was so fun and extremely knowledgeable of Greenville as well as international history! She was a true joy! Highly recommend this tour! It was definitely a highlight of our trip!

Rose was a great tour guide. It was a fun and exciting night out doing cocktail tour. It is fast…read moremoving but worth it. Even being local we discovered few new places and speakeasy we never knew was downtown.

I can't believe there are no reviews for this fabulous experience on Yelp! We had such a great…read moreafternoon this afternoon with our tour guide Anne. We went to several different small local places, tasted a sampling of yummy food and/or beverages at each venue, laughed and enjoyed. Totally worth every penny!

Can you say hospitality?…read more The new owners are great. Attentive, kind, and just basically attentive. A great brunch and a phenomenal atmosphere. Come for the food and stay for the fun.

I want to support independent inns across the country. That's why I stay in them and avoid…read morecorporate hotels. This one was a terrible disappointment, unfortunately. Here are a few of my chief complaints: 1) There was no one to check me in when I arrived late after a long flight from California. After standing in the empty front room for a while, I saw a small sign saying to call a number to check in. I called twice before an insolent teen in sweatpants finally showed up to give me my key. 2) The inn adds a daily "tip" for room cleaning on top of an already high bill. (This is one of the more splurgey places to stay in the Black Mountain area.) If that wasn't rude enough, no one ever came by during my three-night stay to clean/tidy the room. The toilet bowl had dirt marks all over it when I showed up and there they stayed for the duration of my visit. No one made the bed. 3) Internet did not work. 4) Breakfast begins late -- at 8.30am -- because the chef has to take his five children to school. Seriously. So if you're staying there for work, as I was, you have to get breakfast elsewhere. That being said, after a lengthy argument with aforementioned insolent teen, the chef prepped me some breakfast items before he left for the night and left them in the fridge. That was very sweet of him.

Spent a fun weekend in Asheville with our food tour hosted by Lindy serving as one of the…read morehighlights. The tour featured 6 great local spots, with a fun, tasty bite and/or beverage at each stop along the way. Lindy did a great job sharing the rich history of Asheville and providing a personal take on each of our stops. I highly recommend the Taste Carolina Food Tours as a great way to get to know the heart of the town.

From the owner: What better way to get to know a place and its people than to eat its food? This is a great way to…read moreexperience a city, sample its best dishes, and feel like an insider! Enjoy a vibrant food and drink scene that celebrates independent restaurants and locally-sourced ingredients. Culinary tours and events are available in nine historic cities: Asheville, Raleigh, Durham, Charlotte, Chapel Hill/ Carrboro, Hillsborough, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and Wilmington. Tours take place all year 'round.

Great morning exploring some native plants and mushrooms in Asheville. Loved our group and Kat was…read morea knowledgeable guide. Just the right amount of time and got to taste some things afterwards. We got a haul to bring to Rhubarb tonight so TBD how that dinner goes. Highly recommend for visitors or locals.

Our group spent the morning with Christian (guide) and Steve (assistant). We found violet,…read moredandelion, various mushrooms, plantain, jewelweed, mugwort, smartweed which we used in our dinner that night. The tour was informative and fun. Steve cooked up the mushrooms that we gathered and we got to taste how yummy nature can be. Definitely recommend it! It was a lot of fun and we learned a bit. Oh, they even took pictures for us. How cool is that?

The takeaway for my husband and I, is that from now on, anytime we want barbecue, we will be…read morehappily driving 30 minutes for the best. It was the first stop. Book a tour if you want to be in the know!

John is very knowledgeable about the mills and mill villages in Greenville. We took the textile…read moremill tour and John pointed out things of interest we've driven by for years and never noticed. Tour was well done and learned a lot about Greenville's textile past. We've also done a culinary tour with John which was also great!

The food tour of Easley was so much fun! DeAndra had everything planned and ready to go. The food…read morewas great and it was neat to try new things plus get to talk to the chefs behind the food and learn more about their vegan options. Our tour also included a bike ride to a park which was a nice break from all the face stuffing. My whole family enjoyed the tour and we can't wait to join another one. Thanks DeAndra and VV Spot Team!

From the owner: VV Spot is your resource for plant-based options in Upstate South Carolina. We have a list of…read morefantastic restaurants that can meet your dietary needs and host amazing food tours where you get to taste the Upstate like never before and learn more about the area. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook too see all that we offer!