Travel Tuesday: Flavors of Paris

You must know by now that I am a huge fan of walking tours, especially in my favourite city, Paris.  This past summer, I had the fortune to take part in the Context Paris Chocolate Walk, the La Cuisine Paris Sweet Walk of the Marais and the La Cuisine Paris “Bellies on Foot” tour of the Les Halles area. But as if that wasnt’ enough sweet stuff, I also took the opportunity to check out the Flavors of Paris “Original Tour” around the St Germain area on the Left Bank.

Founded by a couple of Canadian foodies, madly in love with Paris (Lisa Rankin in Paris and Michael Lutzmann in Stratford, Ontario), Flavors of Paris offers two tours – the original plus the sweet tour. Since I had had a LOT of sweets already, I opted for the Original.

The tour lasts around 3.5 hours and on the day I took it (the height of tourist season in July), there were only two of us which allowed Cécile, our guide, the opportunity to tailor the tour a little more to our interests; we were exceptionally lucky!  However, the tours stay small-ish (around 6-8 participants from what I understand) so they are never those large tour groups you don’t want to be a part of 😉

It seems the Flavors of Paris team has a bank of stores with whom they work closely and thus, tours can change daily based on opening hours (especially over the summer) and, of course,  what’s local and seasonal.

Apart from the food aspect (which is, of course, the most important), the St Germain neighbourhood is gorgeous to stroll around – steeped in literary history that Cécile did a good job of summing up into bite-sized pieces – just enough history mixed in with the food information!

In between admiring the beautiful ‘hood, we tastes exquisite baguette from Eric Kayser, chocolates and macarons from Un Dimanche à Paris…

Olive oil from Première Pression Provence…

… and ended up in the Marché St Germain where, after wandering around admiring the summer produce, we sipped Rosé from Bacchus et Ariane wine bar/ store…

And a spectacular cheese plate from the Fromagerie Sanders.

I mean, you’ve earned that after walking around for 3.5 hours, right? 😉

All in all, I would highly recommend this carefully curated tour – informative, fun and tasty – you can’t ask for more than that!

The Original Tour is 80€ which includes all tasting portions. The One Sweet Tour is 59 € including all tastings and lasts 2 hours.

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