Food tours in New Orleans

New Orleans cooks Creole and Cajun food, with French, Spanish, African and Caribbean roots, and its food tours walk you through that history one tasting at a time. Three operators are compared here. All three run three-hour walking tours, two of them in the French Quarter, for 83 to 99 dollars per ticket.

The three tours

• Destination Kitchen lists its ticket at 83 dollars. When the page was read, it showed 76 dollars under the crossed-out 83, without saying why or until when, so count on the list price. A small-group option is listed at 90 dollars, shown at 86. Its tours are open to all ages. Minors come with a parent or guardian.
• Doctor Gumbo Tours calls the Food History Tour its most popular: up to 5 locations, available every day, from 85 dollars. The page does not say which age the price applies to.
• Sidewalk Food Tours charges adults 99 dollars on its French Quarter tour and on its Lower Garden District tour. Ages 4 to 17 pay 79 dollars and infants up to 3 go free. The “From 79 dollars” on its list pages is that child rate.

How to choose

• Price. Destination Kitchen has the lowest list price of the three, 83 dollars. Sidewalk the highest, 99 dollars.
• Leaving the French Quarter. Sidewalk’s Lower Garden District tour, at the same 99 dollars, takes you upriver of downtown, along the St. Charles streetcar line.
• History first. Doctor Gumbo calls it a Food History Tour and promises a sample of the city’s culinary heritage at up to 5 locations.
• With children. Sidewalk is the operator with a published child rate. Destination Kitchen welcomes all ages with a parent or guardian.

What to taste in New Orleans

• Gumbo, a thick stew of seafood or of chicken and sausage, over rice.
• Po’boys, sandwiches on crusty French bread with fried shrimp, oysters or roast beef.
• Beignets, square fried doughnuts under a heap of powdered sugar.
• Jambalaya, rice cooked with meat or seafood and spices, and red beans and rice, the traditional Monday dish.
• Pralines, sugar and pecan sweets, a New Orleans classic.

Combine with a festival

The French Quarter Festival, a free music festival with food booths across the French Quarter, is announced for 8 to 11 April 2027. A tour on the day before helps you choose what to eat at the booths. Spring is also crawfish season in Louisiana.

Practical tips for food tours in New Orleans

• Getting there. Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport is west of the city. The Canal Street and Riverfront streetcar lines run along the edge of the French Quarter.
• Heat. New Orleans summers are hot and humid: carry water on a three-hour walk.
• Come hungry. Several tastings in three hours: plan the tour in place of a meal.
• Prices change. The figures here were read on the operators’ own sites on 29 September 2026. Resellers may charge differently.