Five food tours that are for locals too

By Stacey Lastoe

If there’s one thing New Yorkers like to do, it’s eat. After that, it might be arguing over where to eat — where to find the best slice, the best bagel, best B.E.C., best ramen, and the list goes on.

One way to experience some of Brooklyn’s tastiest bites is by embarking on a food tour. Of course, there’s nothing to stop you from walking out the front door on a Saturday afternoon and going on your own food tour of Sunset Park, Bay Ridge, or Greenpoint, but the option to focus on eating as a professional guides you around one of Brooklyn’s neighborhoods, dispensing doses of history as you nosh on a knish, is available in spades.

Some of Brooklyn’s food tours have been around for decades; others for just a couple of years. The food stops on each are different, but the idea is the same: Good eating in good company. Local businesses are supported, conversation is shared and history is learned.

A Man and His Sandwich
Williamsburg
Ben Gollan is like many New Yorkers: He’s a transplant. The Australian, a lawyer by trade back in his native country, moved to the city in 2016 and accidentally built what is now a national company. A Man and His Sandwich — the blog came first, then the sandwich tours — was born from Gollan’s search for the world’s best sandwich. “I use this as my excuse to travel around the world eating,” says Gollan whose Brooklyn sandwich tour encourages participants to debate: What even is a sandwich? Is a hot dog a sandwich? How about a hamburger?

“Are you aware that when the hamburger was first invented, it was called a hamburger sandwich?” Gollan asks. Gollan’s wide understanding of what constitutes a sandwich means tour participants are exposed to all sorts of sandwich-like foods, including the godly Dankwrap from Super Burrito. “We really push the boat on what a sandwich could or could not be,” says Gollan. History — about the neighborhood, the people making their food — is a part of the $69 tour that includes three stops from a changing library of spots. All are led by Gollan himself.

“I just like hanging out with cool people, eating sandwiches, having a beer with them at the end, having a laugh,” says Gollan, whose first expansion outside of New York is Nashville. As for Brooklyn: He’s committed to the Williamsburg area (lots of creative, independent food creators, history and more), but says he’d be open to expanding to other neighborhoods like Cobble Hill, which has an “amazing food scene,” or Prospect Heights, perhaps. “The Williamsburg one will never die though,” Gollan says.

Food Strolls
Brooklyn Heights and Coney Island
Like A Man and His Sandwich, Alex Tervooren’s Food Strolls started off as a blog. The entries, dating back to 2020 when the former finance worker was considering his next move, were just for fun. In the beginning, “It was just me and my kids wandering around New York City, primarily exploring different ethnic neighborhoods,” says Tervooren. But after a blog post on Harlem’s Little Senegal caught the attention of a book publisher researching a book on West African cultural and religious influences in America and sought him out for a walk around the neighborhood, a light bulb went off.

Tervooren says one thing led to another and instead of going back into finance, Food Strolls is his full-time job. The Brooklyn Heights tour ($75 per person) is the more popular of the two official Brooklyn tours, and a perk of being with Tervooren on a tour is skipping the lines. This is especially useful at Juliana’s Pizza, a popular pizza spot next door to the also popular Grimaldi’s. Lassen and Hennigs, a Jewish and Italian deli and bakery, is also a stop on the Brooklyn Heights food tour. Sometimes Tervooren will share some history and the story of the establishments himself; other times, he’ll have the owners share some of their origin story with tour participants.

Although there is plenty of eating on a Food Stroll, Tervooren insists the ethos is bigger than that. “If the food and the local businesses don’t have some sort of a connection that I can use to help kind of explain the history of the neighborhood, then I won’t include them on the tour.”

Funky Experiences
Dumbo
Sarah Funk and Luis Yanes launched Funky Experiences food tours in 2019 after Funk’s travel videos on YouTube led to viewers requesting on-the-ground tours. In 2020 when the pandemic hit, the tours went virtual, but now the way to experience Funk’s and Yanes’ passion for the city and its food is via a three-hour tour in Dumbo. The $109 price tag comes with stops at five locally-owned restaurants, including Grimaldi’s and Clinton Street Baking Company’s location in the Time Out Market for “some of the best pancakes the city has to offer,” says Yanes.

Sweet tooths will be duly rewarded with a stop at The Brooklyn Ice Cream factory where Yanes says, “we get to taste (in my opinion) some of the best ice cream in the city made with the best and purest ingredients.”

The company has grown to the point that Funk, founder and CEO, no longer leads tours, but on occasion Yanes, Funky Experiences CTO, heads tours, and promises all guides are carefully vetted and approved by Funk. A love of everything New York City is a must-have trait.

In addition to some of the more expected spots, at least for Brooklynites who’ve lived in the city for any amount of time, the Dumbo tour stops at a local Egyptian restaurant in the nearby Brooklyn Heights, where the friendly owner is often on site to greet the tour group. Although the tour typically follows a set route with mapped stops along the way, Yanes says the guides are at liberty to “switch it up to best fit the needs of the entire group so no one feels left out.”

Noshwalks
Brooklyn at large
This year, Myra Alperson, founder of Noshwalks, transitioned to a requests-only, private tours format (rates are dependent on the tour). The company, which launched in 2000, was inspired by Alperson’s love of showing people her favorite places. In Brooklyn, this could mean a tour covering a block of Atlantic Avenue known for its Middle Eastern markets and eateries. Or it could take you to Bensonhurst for a taste of Italian, Russian, and Chinese bites.

Brooklyn Food Tour
Brooklyn at large
For a food tour with a fifth-generation Brooklynite, join Rachel Kaplan as she takes participants around Williamsburg. Qahwah House, a Yemeni establishment serving up excellent chai and coffee, is one of the stops, and of course there’s pizza with a modern twist at Fini Pizza, co-owned by one of Lilia’s founders Sean Feeney. The $68 tour can also be customized.