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Business Tue Feb 27 2007
Forget the Cubs, I Came for the Specialty Tea Shops
A recent AP article documenting the concept of tourism centered around food made me wonder where I can join out-of-towners who forego the museums and shopping for the eating. My search led me to Chicago Food Planet, which leads three-hour walking tours of several North-side restaurants and food shops. While the site won't reveal the specific stops on the tour, the vague descriptions (e.g. a "fudge specialty shop," a "Chicago-style pizzeria") were telling enough--a trip to Spring won't be on the menu, but if you have relatives or friends in town and want to avoid the common tourist destinations, this might be a good alternative.
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Vicky Wadsworth / March 5, 2007 1:13 AM
I highly recommend Chicago Food Planet food tours. I was fortunate enough to be on the Near North food tasting/cultural Walking tour last summer. On our tour, we went to 7 outstanding, local specialty food stores. One of them was The Spice House, which has been around since the 50's and is THE spice store in North America. Our guide was thoughtful, energetic, and very funny and really entertained me and my 4 friends. In fact, we still all agree that of our 5 days in Chicago, this tour was the highlight of our trip. We took the tour during our first day there, and spent the next 4 days retracing the steps of the tour, visiting various restaurants that were highlighted and of course shopping at the stores we visited during the tour. I was so happy to see they were mentioned in the news article you posted, they truly deserve the recognition. Get your ticket in advance, our tour was sold out!