Cultural travel / Food & wine

Food & Wine Travel Guides for Europe

By Isabelle Hoyne

Food is a large part of how I get to know a place.

My approach to culinary travel starts with what a place grows, cooks and pours. Find restaurant recommendations, local food markets and wine-tasting trips, with dining guides first and tours below.

Start with these guides

Wine-tasting cellar with a red awning and wine barrels outside in Châteauneuf-du-Pape. — A stop for wine in Châteauneuf-du-Pape, France.

A few places to begin

Start with these guides

Restaurants, neighbourhood bars and coffee shops, drawn from time spent eating and drinking in Florence, Venice and Seville.

A small restaurant table set with a bottle of red wine and glasses sits in front of a shelf displaying various wine bottles. The walls are decorated with framed photos.

Where to eat in Florence

Personal picks from months of eating in the city.

A wooden menu board displaying the word "Cicchetti" stands in a narrow Venetian alleyway, surrounded by rustic brick buildings. Small wooden tables and chairs sit to the side, hinting at a cosy dining spot.

Venice, one cicchetto at a time

Venice’s ‘bacari’, the small bars serving wine and ‘cicchetti’, bite-sized snacks.

Locals walking past Bar Alfalfa, a corner tapas bar in Seville's historic centre, with old-fashioned signage and warm lighting.

Tapas bars worth your time

Eleven personal picks, with the local icons worth knowing.

A barista preparing to brew coffee behind the bar and a wooden cabinet with coffee cups and other powdered drinks in one of the best coffee shops in Seville Spain

A good place for coffee

Speciality coffee from two months in Seville.

01 / Food & wine

Italy

Start with places to eat in Florence, Venice and Palermo, from neighbourhood restaurants to Venetian wine bars and Sicilian street food. For vineyard visits and wine tasting, the tour guides cover Tuscany’s Chianti, Montalcino and Montepulciano, plus Naples and Sorrento in Campania.

Dining & Food Guides

A wooden menu board displaying the word "Cicchetti" stands in a narrow Venetian alleyway, surrounded by rustic brick buildings. Small wooden tables and chairs sit to the side, hinting at a cosy dining spot.

Best Cicchetti in Venice: Local Spots Where Venetians Go

A small restaurant table set with a bottle of red wine and glasses sits in front of a shelf displaying various wine bottles. The walls are decorated with framed photos.

Best Restaurants in Florence: Personal Picks from Months of Eating There

Containers of assorted flavored gelato with wooden scoops and small chalkboard signs in palermo italy

Best Restaurants in Palermo: Chosen from a Month of Eating There

A quiet outdoor seating area of a small trattoria, featuring wooden tables and chairs against a weathered white wall with exposed pipes. A red-and-white striped awning shades part of the space, while a planter filled with greenery and red flowers adds charm.

Where to Eat in Venice: A Regular Visitor’s Guide to Eating Well

Food tours & wine experiences

Choose a city food tour, a day in Tuscany’s vineyards or a wine experience around Naples and Sorrento.

City food tours

A close-up of a fresh sandwich filled with Italian cured meats, crisp lettuce, and other vibrant ingredients. In the background, a rustic menu board advertises a Tuscan drink special, capturing the casual and inviting atmosphere of Italian street food.

Best Food Tours in Florence: 13 Picks for Serious Food Lovers

Close-up of a classic Margherita pizza with melted mozzarella, fresh basil leaves, and rich tomato sauce, displaying the slightly charred, thin crust that is a hallmark of authentic Neapolitan pizza.

Best Food Tours in Naples: 12 Picks for Serious Food Lovers

A display filled with Arancini rice balls, some of the best snacks to try during Palermo Food Tours

Best Palermo Food Tours: Chosen After a Month Eating in the City

Wine experiences in Tuscany

A vineyard at the foreground on one side while a field on the other while a town can be seen in the background under clear blue skies to pass by during one of the best Brunello wine tours

Best 15 Brunello Wine Tours: Curated Picks & Essential Tips

A path between two lines of grapevines in a vineyard under cloudy but bright blue skies filled with hanging violet grapes seen in the foreground until the back during the best Chianti wine tours from Florence

Best Chianti Wine Tours from Florence: Picked by a Tuscan Wine Lover

A vineyard blossoming in hues of red and orange with the view of the valleys. Embark on the beauty of nature while anticipating the best wine tours in Montepulciano.

Best Wine Tours in Montepulciano: Chosen by a Regular Visitor

A vineyard under cloudy skies with a view of a town in the background during one of the wine tours in Siena, Italy

Best Wine Tours in Siena, Italy: Picked by a Tuscan Wine Enthusiast

A vineyard in one of the best wine tours in tuscany with a view of a volcano at the back under cloudy skies

Best Wine Tours in Tuscany: Chosen by a Tuscan Wine Enthusiast

Wine around Naples & Sorrento

Rows of grapevines in a vineyard with Mount Vesuvius visible in the distance under a bright sky for Naples wine tours.

Best Naples Wine Tours: The Ones Actually Worth Booking

Rows of vineyards with red and green leaves surrounded by trees ine one of the destinations in the Sorrento wine tasting tours.

Best Sorrento Wine Tours: Exploring Campania’s Overlooked Wines

02 / Food & drink

Ireland

Find somewhere worth stopping for a meal, from restaurants in Dublin to seafood spots and food trucks in Connemara. These guides bring together places to eat in the city and along Ireland’s west coast.

Dining & Food Guides

Best Restaurants in Dublin: A Local’s Guide to 35 Top Picks

connemara restaurant cover photo, showing steaming pot of killary mussels with wedge of lemon

Best Restaurants in Connemara, From Fine Dining to Food Trucks

03 / Food & wine

France

Plan an independent visit to Châteauneuf-du-Pape in the southern Rhône Valley, with advice on wineries and tastings. For a guided day out, compare wine tours from Avignon and Nice.

Wine Region Guides

Blurred view of violet flowers in the foreground with views of a vineyard separated by a lined of trees to a town in the background with cloudy blue skies

Visiting Châteauneuf-du-Pape: Complete Guide + Tips

Wine tours from Avignon & Nice

Choose your starting point and compare the wine tours running from each.

Rows of grape vines with a view of a clear blue sky and a hill in the background as one of the things to see of

10 Fantastic Nice Wine Tours Worth Taking

view of the vineyard near chateauneuf du pape seen in the back as a view in one of the Avignon wine tours

Top 10 Avignon Wine Tours: Curated Picks

04 / Food & wine

Spain

Seville is the focus here: tapas bars, speciality coffee and food markets that offer a way into Andalusian food culture. Start with my dining guides, then browse food tours, cooking classes and wine tastings.

Dining & Food Guides

A fish market selling different kinds of seafood items with people buying and a person behind the counter in one of the best food markets in Seville Spain

6 Food Markets in Seville That Are Worth a Foodie’s Time

A barista preparing to brew coffee behind the bar and a wooden cabinet with coffee cups and other powdered drinks in one of the best coffee shops in Seville Spain

Best Coffee Shops in Seville: Specialty Picks from Two Months There

Locals walking past Bar Alfalfa, a corner tapas bar in Seville's historic centre, with old-fashioned signage and warm lighting.

Best Tapas in Seville: 11 Personal Picks (+ Local Icons)

Food & wine experiences in Seville

Start with the tour I took, or compare food walks, cooking classes and wine tastings.

A market selling several Seville produce and meat cuts in a transparent freezer in the foreground

11 Fabulous Food Tours in Seville You Need to Take

Two people carrying a large wok with Spanish Paella for a Seville cooking class

Top 10 Unmissable Cooking Classes in Seville

A wooden table filled with charcuterie food and wine glasses with different types of wines for a Seville wine tasting tour.

Top 9 Seville Wine Tasting Experiences & Tours

05 / Food & wine

Portugal

Plan a visit to northern Portugal’s Douro Valley, where terraced vineyards produce port and still wines. Start with my guide to exploring the region, or compare guided wine tours from Porto.

Wine Region Guides

clear water with the reflection of trees leading to the green valleys, terraces, and a couple of white buildings - douro valley first time

A First-time Visitor’s Guide to the Douro Valley

Douro Valley wine tours from Porto

For a guided visit, compare the options departing from Porto.

Close-up of dark purple grape clusters hanging from lush green vines in a sunlit vineyard, showcasing the ripening fruit ready for winemaking.

Best Douro Valley Wine Tours: 12 Curated Picks (+ Tips for Choosing)

Preview pages from The Art of Understanding Places by Cultured Voyages.

The Cultured Voyages Edit

The Art of Understanding Places

Knowing why a region cooks the way it does changes what you order and where you go looking.

My guide sets out seven shifts that take you from sightseeing to understanding a place. It arrives when you join The Edit, my fortnightly letter on travel judgement and the things I’ve changed my mind about.

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