NYC Food Tours: The 12 Best Food Tours in New York Compared (2026)

Our pick: Nice Guy Tours' Greenwich Village Food Tour, $99 for six tastings and the Village's best-known streets in a group capped at 12, rated 5.0 from 1,687 reviews. Jump to the comparison table to see all twelve tours side by side.

Quick answer: which NYC food tour to book

• Best overall: Nice Guy Tours, Greenwich Village Food Tour. $99, max 12, 3 hours.
• Best Chinatown food tour in NYC: Foods of New York Tours' Chinatown tour, $99, with dim sum, Peking duck and Malaysian food at three sit-down stops. 195 of its 196 reviews are five stars.
• Most food: Ahoy New York Food Tours, eight tastings across Chinatown and Little Italy, $110.50 until November 22, 2026, then $130.
• Best value: Tasty Tours NYC's Greenwich Village tour, $85 for six tastings, 98% five-star reviews.
• Best pizza food tour in NYC: The Danish Tour Guide's pizza tour, five pizzerias for $68 to $74.10.
• Best off the tourist trail: Urban Passer's Flushing Chinatown tour in Queens, $69.
• Cheapest: Intrepid Urban Adventures' Lower East Side tour, $60.16, with four tastings.

Which neighborhood to choose

NYC food tours cost $60 to $130 per person, and every price on this page includes the food. What you are really choosing is the neighborhood. A Greenwich Village food tour is a walk down Bleecker and MacDougal Streets for a slice, falafel, fries, arancini and a cupcake, with the Friends building and Washington Square Park between stops. A Chinatown food tour in NYC means dumplings, roast pork buns and dim sum, usually paired with cannoli and pizza across Canal Street in Little Italy. Pizza tours stick to three to five pizzerias, and a handful of tours go further: Chelsea Market, the Lower East Side, or the much larger Chinatown in Flushing, Queens.

This guide compares twelve of the best-reviewed food tours in NYC, every one with guest reviews posted between June 20 and November 5, 2026, on price, tastings, group size, drinks, start times and how they handle dietary needs. It also covers the two Secret Food Tours NYC routes, which get very different reviews from each other. For more ideas around the city, see our New York City travel guides; downtown food tours pair well with a morning Statue of Liberty tour from Battery Park or a walk across the bridge on one of the Brooklyn Bridge tours. For the Village, our Greenwich Village food tour comparison covers ten tours in detail.

All twelve include the food in the price and have guest reviews posted between June 20 and November 5, 2026. Here is who we think each one suits. The biggest differences are the neighborhood, how much you eat, and how much the guide talks between stops.

Five of the tours on this page eat their way through a Chinatown, and they are more different than their titles suggest.

Manhattan Chinatown only

Foods of New York Tours is the one to book if Chinatown is the point. It is the only tour here that seats you indoors for all three main tastings (dim sum at Dim Sum Go Go on East Broadway, Malaysian food and Peking duck carved at the table) and spends the whole three hours in Chinatown, finishing at Golden Manna Bakery. It runs Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 11:00 and weekends at 10:30.

Chinatown and Little Italy together

Most Chinatown food tours in NYC are really Chinatown and Little Italy tours: dumplings and buns first, then pizza, arancini and cannoli north of Canal Street. Ahoy New York Food Tours serves the most (eight tastings, two or three of them seated) and handles gluten-free guests best, judging by recent reviews. Our Chinatown and Little Italy food tour comparison covers ten of these tours in detail. Secret Food Tours is cheaper at off-peak times but gets more complaints about thin portions and history. Intrepid's Lower East Side tour and the NYPD Mafia tour pass through both neighborhoods with fewer tastings.

Flushing, Queens

Flushing's Chinatown, in Queens, is now larger than Manhattan's, and the food is more regional: northern Chinese street snacks such as jianbing and roujiamo sit next to Cantonese rice rolls and Taiwanese fried chicken. Urban Passer's two-hour tour starts at a Starbucks at 38-05 Main Street in Queens and ends at the subway, so it suits a second food tour, or a visitor who has already done Manhattan's Chinatown. One 2025 guest found it short (about 75 minutes) when only two people booked.

Every Greenwich Village food tour on this page includes a slice, but a dedicated pizza food tour in NYC lets you compare styles side by side. Both pizza tours here start in the Village, home to some of the city's best-known pizzerias on Bleecker Street.

• The Danish Tour Guide ($68 to $74.10, 2 hours, 12:30 daily): five pizzerias, starting with a cheap slice and working up to brick-oven, Artichoke-style and Detroit-style square slices. Meets at the IFC Center on Sixth Avenue. Its 30 most recent reviews are all five stars, with several guests saying they left full.
• Scott's Pizza Tours ($75, 2.5 hours, 11:00 five days a week): three plain slices with more on the history and craft of each style, starting at John's of Bleecker Street. Drinks and toppings are extra. Older reviews (2016 to 2019) say there is more walking and talking than eating; its recent reviews are all four and five stars, but there are only five in the past year on this listing.

Our take: The Danish Tour Guide is the better buy if you came to eat, with five pizzerias for less money; Scott's suits people who want to understand why a coal-oven pie and a dollar slice taste different.

If you want pizza as part of a wider tasting, Nice Guy Tours, Tasty Tours NYC and Secret Food Tours' Village route all stop at a classic slice shop.

Secret Food Tours NYC runs two routes in Manhattan, Chinatown and Little Italy, and Greenwich Village, each with six tastings including a "secret dish" revealed on the day. Both are among the most-reviewed food tours in New York, and both use date-based pricing: from $77.60 or $79.20 at quiet times, usually $96.99 to $99, and up to $116.38 or $118.80 in busy slots. Children 3 to 12 and teenagers pay slightly less.

The two routes get very different recent reviews. The Greenwich Village tour's recent reviews are almost all five stars, with guests describing generous samples and an easy pace. The Chinatown and Little Italy tour's 15 most recent reviews of three stars or lower were all posted between July and October 2026. They describe thin portions (two dumplings and a shared bowl of noodles), eating on the sidewalk, little history, a guide who arrived 30 minutes late and, in July, a guide who left the group and never came back. Five-star reviews still far outnumber them, so most tours go well, but no other tour on this page drew this many complaints in the same months.

Our take: We would book Secret Food Tours in Greenwich Village without hesitation if you find a cheaper slot. For Chinatown and Little Italy, Ahoy costs a little more but serves eight tastings with more seated stops, and its recent reviews are steadier.

Dietary policies vary more than anything else between these tours. The table below shows only what each listing states; "Not stated" means the listing does not say either way, so ask the operator before booking. Even where substitutions are offered, they depend on what each shop or restaurant can make on the day.

Dietary requirements

For vegan or celiac guests, Intrepid's Lower East Side tour is the only one here whose listing says it can cater for both, and even it warns of cross-contamination. For gluten-free (not celiac), Ahoy has the clearest policy and the recent reviews to back it.

Accessibility

A wheelchair-accessible route is not the same as accessible food venues. The listings describe the tour as a whole; none says whether every shop has step-free entry, room to sit, or an accessible restroom, and several stops are small counters where tastings are eaten on the sidewalk. The NYPD Mafia tour is listed as wheelchair accessible but also as not recommended for walking problems. If you use a wheelchair or walk with difficulty, ask the operator which stops have steps and whether the guide can bring tastings out to you.

A food tour in NYC costs $60 to $130 per person, and every price on this page includes the food. Most good walking tours cost $85 to $99 for six tastings over about three hours. Drinks beyond water and tips for the guide are extra on every tour, and children often pay the adult price: one family of four paid almost $500 for Secret Food Tours' Chinatown route before tips.

• Book a late-morning start. Recent guests on the 11:00 tours say it replaced lunch and left the afternoon free; afternoon tours can spoil dinner.
• Tell the operator about diets in writing, ahead of time. Ahoy asks for 48 hours' notice for vegetarian and gluten-free swaps. Tasty Tours NYC and Foods of New York's Chinatown tour cannot cater for vegan or celiac guests, and the Mafia tour needs advance notice for a vegetarian meal.
• Plan for rain. Most tours run rain or shine. Guests who skipped the Secret Food Tours Chinatown tour and the Mafia tour in heavy rain got no refund or voucher, so check the forecast before the 24-hour cancellation deadline passes.
• Bring cash or a payment app for the tip. No tour includes gratuities, and guides remind you. One 2026 guest on the Foods of New York tour notes the guide offers a Venmo link at the end.
• Bring a drink. Most tours include one bottle of water or nothing; a guest in November 2026 noted Secret Food Tours was the only food tour they had taken that included only water.
• Arrive early. Several low-rated reviews blame the whole group waiting for latecomers. Meeting points like the IFC Center and Columbus Park are busy, so look for the guide's sign or umbrella.
• Booking alone? Watch your messages. Small turnouts usually still run (two-person Ahoy and pizza tours went ahead in 2026, and felt almost private), but a solo guest on Secret Food Tours' Village route in May 2026 was asked to switch start times and only saw the message after the tour should have begun. Urban Passer charges $100 instead of $69 if you book alone.
• Use the bathroom before you start. Restrooms come only at the sit-down stops, and Intrepid's Canal Street meeting point has none nearby. Ahoy's meeting point does have restrooms.
• In summer, pick a morning start. July and August guests on the Lower East Side and Village tours mention the heat; a few guides steer the group through shade, but most tastings are eaten outdoors.
• Do it early in your trip. Guides hand out tips on where else to eat (Ahoy gives every guest a recommendation list), and one guest on our top pick wished they had booked it earlier in the trip to use them.

We started with all 350 food and drink experiences listed in New York City and kept walking food tours rated 4.8 or higher with new guest reviews in the past six months, then picked the strongest tour for each neighborhood and theme. All twelve here had reviews posted between June 20 and November 5, 2026. We checked each listing on November 5, 2026 for price by date and option, tastings, group size, start times, drinks, dietary policy and cancellation terms, and read 798 reviews, 85 of them rated one to three stars:

• Our top pick, 307 reviews. Nice Guy Tours' 300 most recent reviews plus every review it has below four stars.
• Secret Food Tours Chinatown, 132 reviews. Its 120 most recent and 15 most recent low-rated reviews, because it is the most-reviewed tour here.
• The other ten tours, 359 reviews. Up to 30 recent and 10 low-rated reviews each.

Review samples vary by tour because we read more reviews for the most popular tours and pulled extra low-rated reviews wherever a tour had them. The sample sizes are not directly comparable statistical samples, so we use them to find recurring patterns, and rely on each tour's full rating breakdown for how common a problem is.

We left out bus and minibus tours that only stop for food, cruises, speakeasy and bar crawls, and tours with no recent reviews. Brooklyn food tours (DUMBO, Williamsburg and Smith Street) deserve their own comparison and are not covered here.