Gourmet Tours Worldwide

07/01/2024

Due to some political (elections, radicalism, etc), some weather conditions (super rainy and hot summer), other large events happening in Europe and the elections in the US we will reduce our activities at Gourmet Tours World Wide for a while. We will not offer tours to Peru, Europe and some other destinations world wide, for a while.

We will only offer our city tour to Mexico City and our chef tour to Quintana Roo, which both are limited to a four day duration.

For that purpose we have created our new page Mexico City Foodie Escapes, where we will post pictures, itineraries, upcoming trips and more information on the tours.

Please like or follow our new page and tell your friends. From 4 people onwards we can offer these tours almost any days of the year with a preference to Thursday to Sunday long weekends and from February to June and end of August to early December travel dates. We need about 6 weeks leadtime to organize a personalized tour, so if you have 4 people to travel with contact us as soon as possible to block your preferred dates. Mexico City Foodie Escapes is a subsidiary operation of Gourmet Tours World Wide LLC not a new company.

06/04/2024

We were asked several times to do shorter tours, less time on the road wise. So here are our first tours that fit this bill. We also reduced the group size to only 6. The transport will be in Mercedes Benz Vito/V-Class/Viano van, and luggage space is limited to one piece per person. The advantage is that this van can go almost 50km/h faster than the minibuses we usually use for a group of 8-10, so we will save around 75% travel time on the road, giving you more time off in the cities we go to, to explore or shop on your own.

Southern France: Friday to following week Sunday. Marseille, Chateauneuf du Pape, Southern Rhone, Avignon, Languedoc, Bordeaux, cost point aprox 6500 per person.

Northern Italy: Turin, Genova, Alba (Barolo, Barbaresco, Barbera), Milan. cost point aprox. 6500 per person

Central Italy: Florence, Pisa, Cinque Terre, Parma, Modena, Bologna. Cost point aprox. 6500 per person

Germany: Mainz/Frankfurt area wine regions, Heidelberg, Nuernberg, Munich. Cost point aprox. 6300 per person

Austria wine tour: Graz (wine region Styria), Eisenstadt (wine region Burgenland), Melk (wine region Wachau), Vienna Cost point aprox. 6200 per person.

Only 6 people needed, 4 possible for an additional 250 per person.

Dates can be determined by the group, with exceptions during winter and height of summer times. At least four months lead time on these tours.

Check out our page in order to find pictures from previous tours to these destinations.

05/21/2024

The big foodie news this week were the induction of Mexico as a country into the Michelin Guide.
Yes, the guide is issued for countries that pay a hefty fee to be included and yes some areas with really good food get dissed because they do not pay for being included. My hometown of Houston included or my home country of Peru.
However the Michelin guide is still one of the most respected guides when it comes to evaluating great food. The way how Michelin critics evaluate the restaurants (more than one visit to give bad ones a chance to redeem themselves, or good ones a review to see if it was a lucky hit). And their evaluation methods have nothing to do with a country's tourism board paying the fee, the restaurants evaluated still are evaluated using the standards of the guide.
Michelin has several levels, Three stars is the highest honor (none in Mexico this time), two stars is exceptional quality (two in mexico that have been on other high end food lists for years, Quintonil and Pujol) and one stars which honor restaurant with exceptional cuisine more than a white table cloth and great service (this explains a stall in Bangkok getting one star and a taco stand in Mexico City achieving the same.)
But then there is also Bib Gourmand and recommended restaurants, which to my experience are still very good propositions whenever one travels to unknown places.
Gourmet Tours has been offering tours to Mexico City over the last years, and it makes us happy to see many restaurants that we go to with our visitors to be mentioned in the guide now. Even without stars.

For this we will start offering more tours to Mexico City from now on. A short but sweet tour to Mexico City over four days to experience what the critics of the guide found good, what great and what exceptional.

Please see the pictures below from one of our previous tours to the city and the new flyer for our future tours. The cool thing with Mexico City is that even a tour with 4-6 people is possible. Dates are very flexible (except for the Christmas period and the strong rain season from Mid-June to Mid August) any long weekend is possible.

05/03/2024

Is Southern France of interest to you? We have a tour spanning the area from Marseille to Bordeaux in September 2024. if you want to see what our last group experienced there in April, check out the pertaining album on our page

05/03/2024

And finally made it to Bordeaux. The Cite Du Vin Wine Museum in Bordeaux is a must for anyone visiting Bordeaux or anyone interested in wine.

05/03/2024

03/29/2024

Our newest Wines and Shrines tour, hosted by Dominican friar Father Juan Torres of The Holy Rosary Church to Spain is now on the market.

We will visit the Basque Country, Rioja, Ribera del Duero (and the village were the Domincan order’s founder Saint Dominic de Guzman was born) and the Ribera Sacra and finish our tour with visits to Santiago de Compostela, the end point of the St. James pilgrimage trail and Madrid.

Father Juan will be leading the group in prayer almost daily with Catholic services filling in on some other days during the tour.

Of course the food and wine won’t come short on this tour either, with visits to Michelin star restaurants, wineries in four wine regions (Rioja, Ribera, Toro, Ribera Sacra) and more.

Please see the flyer below for more information tour. Since the Dominican Order priory has published the tour yesterday four spots are already taken and we will cut off the participants at 10 max.

03/09/2024

As we all know there are no Michelin star restaurants in the Houston area, so to eat at Michelin restaurants one must travel to elsewherre in the US or to Europe or Asia.
During our wine and food trip to Northern italy in late May, with ONLY TWO SPOTS LEFT, we will have the chance to eat at one THREE MICHELIN STARS restaurant and three ONE MICHELIN STAR restaurants.
The tour is led by Dale Robertson who was for 25 years the wine writer of the Houston Chronicle and has built an admirable reputation in the wine world, including wineries in North Italy.
But Dale also has a vacation home on the other side of the border in the Haute Alps Province of France and visits northern Italy and its wineries regularly. This will ensure more than royal treatment during our tour.
JOIN US TODAY, TAKE THE TWO SPOTS LEFT.

12/04/2023

UPDATE: After our most recent meeting with Dale to plan the tour we have a restaurant update. We will be eating at 2 One Star Michelin Restaurants, have food catered from one and a lunch tasting at a 3 star Michelin Restaurant. We are still looking for some more to add, but that is a good start

TOUR WITH DALE ROBERTSON FORMER WINE WRITER OF THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE

The tour to Northern Italy with Dale Robertson in May of 2024 is almost full. We got two more people over the weekend and we are up to 8 participants now. 2 more and the tour is full.

Who wants to join to see Pio Cesare, Ceretto, Einaudi, the Wine Museum in Barolo, and the new DOCG of NIzza in between Piedmonte and Milan. And Dale Robertson's refuge for the hot summer months in Houston, in the lower Alps of France.

First come first serve

11/29/2023

And one more for Lima. Today, the Worlds 50 Best Restaurant released its 50 Best of Latin America List. Lima has 8 restaurants on that list.

11/29/2023

Why Lima should be on the bucket list for every gourmet or foodie traveler is wonderfully featured in this National Geographic article from February 2023, when Central had not achieved yet spot #1 on the list of the 50 Best Restaurants.
We offer plenty of opportunities in 2024 to visit Lima. Check out our website at www.gourmettours.biz to see the available tours.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/lima-culinary-guide-south-america

Over the past decade, the sprawling Peruvian capital has redefined itself as Latin America’s hottest food destination, making it one of the continent’s most vibrant, captivating urban hubs.

11/25/2023

🗺 Love traveling and trying some of the world's best cuisines? Join Houston Food Finder and Gourmet Tours Worldwide in 2024 on a breathtaking culinary adventure in Lima, Peru from Sunday, April 21 through Thursday, April 25. ⁣
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💁‍♀️ Want to know more? Our founder and editor Phaedra Cook is hosting a Zoom session with Pablo Valqui of Gourmet Tours Worldwide on Tuesday, November 28 at 7:30 p.m. This is a good opportunity to ask questions and discuss the itinerary and payment schedule. ⁣
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✈ In addition, Pablo is going to talk about timing when it comes to getting the best price on airfare. Send us a message or email [email protected] to request the Zoom info, as well as the itinerary and registration form.

📸

11/16/2023

Coming soon...more details on our first tour to this exciting destination

11/15/2023

We have just released a new date for a Peru tour in September of 2024. From August 30th to September 8th.
Four seats have been already taken on this tour.
Four seats are available.

11/09/2023

Our tour to Puebla and Mexico City with Chef Anamaris from Secreto Pop Up is coming closer. Discover one of the best food cities of the world, Mexico City, less than three hours away from Texas.

11/06/2023

The Northern Italy tour itinerary has some updates by Dale Robertson who is currently pre-tasting a lot of Piedmontese wines so our tour participants will drink the best of the best.
And we only have four spots left for this tour with currently four to six interested parties.
Contact us in case of any questions about this tour [email protected]

Our Gourmet Tours’ spring 2024 ramble through Italy’s glorious Piemonte — bookended by two-night layovers in Turin and Milan with a mid-week chow-down at the three-Michelin-starre…

11/03/2023

Our next tour with Houston Food Finder takes us to Lima. Join us in April of next year to this five day escape

🌄 Our reader tour of Mexico City with Gourmet Tours Worldwide was a whole lot of fun — and we’re ready to go to another acclaimed food city in 2024! Give yourself the gift of international travel, and sign up now for our tour of LIMA, PERU from Sunday, April 21 through Thursday, April 25! Email Houston Food Finder editor & publisher Phaedra Cook at [email protected] (or send a message/comment here) for the itinerary (includes some of the top restaurants in the world, including Central) and cost, which can be paid in convenient installments. ✈🌎

11/03/2023

Our tour to Hungary, Slovenia and Austria came to an end this past Sunday after visiting three countries, trying 104 different wines, and tasting delicious foods in all three countries.
Here are a few pictures of the group at different locations during the tour.

11/02/2023

10/20/2023

Our newest cooperation is a short and intense foodie trip to Lima in cooperation with Phaedra Cook, editor of Houston Food Finder.
We expect this tour to sell in a very short time. Contact us asap to get the paperwork and payment information in order to sign up and secure your spot.

Only 8-10 seats on this trip.

Dates: 21-25 April, 2024

See attached flyer

10/12/2023

Our Southern France Tour, in cooperation with This Is Texas Wine: The Podcast's own Shelly Wilfong is in full steam. TWO OR MAX FOUR SEATS ARE STILL AVAILABLE. (Four people have thrown their hat in the ring, but not confirmed yet.)

During this tour, with a strong Texas and more even Texas wine focus, we will explore the origins of the grapes that made it to greatness in Texas, we will talk with enologists at the wineries to learn how the similarity in weather between Texas and the southern France wine AOCs is conducive for grapes we see in Texas all the time (Marsanne, Roussane, Viognier, Syrah, Grenache, Mourvedre, etc). Think of it a bit like a study abroad trip around the topic of wine.

We will visit wineries owned by Texans, even honorary Texan, like Tony Parker, former NBA star, or Humble, TX native Wendy Gobbi, visit world famous wineries in Bordeaux and see some of the grapes that may do great in the future in Texas like Picpoul.

Below is a photo thread to outline in pictures the sequence of our trip.

10/04/2023

We have uploaded a bunch of pictures from our most recent trips to our Facebook Photo Albums. If you want to have a feel how our tours are and what you will see, feel free to browse in our albums.
More pictures to come for future trips to Hungary, Austria and Slovenia and other Mexico City trips