Starting tomorrow, the city will be flooded with a dazzling array of “personalities” (this includes chefs, prominent members of the food media, business owners, a few farmers and Whoopi Goldberg) for the NYC Wine and Food Festival. The events are based almost exclusively in Manhattan, so we put together a list of fun Brooklyn-based food tours for those who feel the need to walk across the bridge to burn off a bit of Whoopi’s fried chicken.
If beer history is your thing, check out the Brewed in Brooklyn Tour. Don’t worry, it’s not just a romp through room after room of indistinguishable metal vats (am I the only one who spaces out after the first two or three?), although it does kick off with a walk through Brooklyn Brewery in Williamsburg. The tour route also includes nineteenth century brewery buildings, a pizza pit-stop and a history lesson from your guide about how Brooklyn went from playing host to 48 breweries to almost none and the rebirth of the world of craft beer.
Head south for a less boozy but just as interesting food tour of Brownstone Brooklyn. This area is home to specialty food outlets both old and new- the tour visits a coffee shop opened in 1948, a boutique cookie shop opened in 2005, and experience the vibrant mixture of Middle Eastern storefronts and Italian eateries that make the neighborhood what it is.
If you need a less vanilla (and much, much snarkier) take on Brooklyn’s food scene, check out the self-proclaimed “hipster tour” by Great New York Tours. This tour is unapologetically focused on trendy Williamsburg establishments and includes a visit to bean to bar chocolate shop Mast Brothers and a stop at Bedford Cheese.
