Chicago’s Best Food and Drink Tours

In addition to the tours listed below, eATLAS has several Adventures based on Chicago’s food scene. The Brown Line Pizza Tour takes you to six pizzerias in six neighborhoods along the CTA’s Brown Line, our Chicago Taco Crawl visits five Mexican restaurants in Lincoln Park, and The Bear “Chaos Menu” Crawl recreates the episode of the hit TV series where Sydney traverses the city in search of inspiration for the new restaurant’s menu.

By Dave Lifton (@daveeatschicago)

Several of the food tours available in Chicago focus on three of the dishes for which the city is best known: the “dragged through the garden” hot dog, Italian beef, and deep-dish pizza. But there are variations. You can purchase Intrepid Urban Adventures’ two-hour food trek by itself or as part of four-and-a-half-hour experience that combines it with an architecture tour, which adds a tasting of Garrett Popcorn. 

(Disclosure: The author is also an Intrepid tour guide) 

Secret Food Tours takes those four classics and adds a brownie at the Palmer House Hilton, where it was invented, and a “secret” dish. Guests can purchase drink upgrades consisting of either Goose Island 312 Urban Wheat Ale or a brownie old fashioned at the Palmer House.

You’ll find the usual suspects at the Iconic Foods offering from Chicago Food & City Tours, but also five other options. You can explore the food scenes in three neighborhoods—Chinatown, West Loop, and Pilsen—take a bus tour that visits restaurants spotlighted on The Bear, and a three-hour combination architecture and food tour.

Similarly, Bobby’s Bike Hike has walking and cycling tours of downtown, Chinatown, and the West Side, with craft beer packages available for an additional fee. It also has the Bikes, Bites & Brews Tour, a 13-mile ride from Streeterville to Wrigley Field and back, with beer samples included in the price. 

Alcoholic beverages are also factored into the experiences at Chef Driven Food Tours, where the “Chicago’s Greatest Hits” tour eschews deep-dish and the hot dog in favor of a couple of other sandwiches and the Maxwell Street Polish (a kielbasa with yellow mustard and caramelized onions). Owned by a collective of professional chefs, the excursions deliberately avoid downtown in favor of neighborhoods—such as Pilsen and the South Side—that often get overlooked in discussions of Chicago’s food scene. Or you can go with the Omakase, where the guide will choose from more than 30 restaurants throughout the entire city. 

Deep-dish isn’t overlooked by the folks at Chicago Pizza Tours, but founder Jonathan Porter wants to show visitors that there are other styles of pizza to be enjoyed in town. There are walking tours of downtown and Bucktown, and a citywide bus tour. Each stop by at least four pizzerias where, depending on which you choose, you can sample Neapolitan, Detroit, Roman, New Haven and artisanal pizza.

The variety of another dough-based food is available thanks to the Underground Donut Tour, which can also be found in many American, Canadian, British and Irish cities. In Chicago, you’ll visit four donut shops, either downtown or in Fulton Market, and sample their products, with a cup of coffee offered at one.  

For those who want to pair their meal with a bit of intrigue, try the Chicago Murder Mystery Food Tour. You’ll sample hot dogs, deep-dish, and pastries as you walk through Streeterville and the Gold Coast while you play detective to solve a murder that draws upon the city’s history. 

The Windy City’s beverage scene can also be explored. The Barrel Run takes guests to three local breweries, with samples given at each and a tour of the production facility at one of them. The customized bus is shaped like a beer barrel, with accents based on beer-making equipment and a vertical door to evoke Prohibition-era speakeasies. 

The Roaring Twenties are also channeled by Chicago Prohibition Tours, where the Hidden in Plain Sight walking tour and Original Chicago Prohibition bus tour visit, respectively, three and four bars while learning about how illegal alcohol flowed through Chicago in that period. However, the guest must pay for all food and beverages along the way.

Lastly, several local craft breweries and a distillery offer tours of their headquarters, complete with several samples of their offerings. Check out Revolution, Dovetail, Koval, Hopewell, Lagunitas, Goose Island’s websites for full details. 

These tours are all open to the public, but many can be booked for private and group events. Before booking any food tour, be sure to read all descriptions to see if the operator can accommodate those with allergies or dietary restrictions. 

The author longs for the day when the jibarito, a sandwich created by Chicago’s Puerto Rican community that uses fried plantains instead of bread, is thought of in the same terms as deep-dish or Italian beef.