Chattanooga: Downtown Food Tour with Rooftop Dining & Chef Tastings

4.89

(286 reviews)

What’s the experience like?

I’ll be honest, I didn’t expect to get so attached to a city’s food scene in just a few hours. But the way our Chatt Taste guide wove stories about Chattanooga’s “culinary renaissance” between bites — it kind of got under my skin. We started at this French-inspired spot, where the butter on the bread was almost too good (I kept sneaking extra). The place had these old-school details, like faded tile and brass rails. Our guide, Jasmine, pointed out some weird historical trivia about the building — I forget the year, but it made me look up from my plate for once.

Walking between stops felt easy enough — downtown Chattanooga isn’t big, but there’s always something happening. At Paloma on the Westin’s rooftop, you could smell grilled meat before you even saw the kitchen. Argentinean flavors, apparently. The view from up there made everything taste brighter somehow; maybe it was just being outside after all that air conditioning. I tried to pronounce one of the dishes and Li (our other guide) cracked up — apparently I butchered it pretty badly. Still ate every bite.

The last stop was Common House, which is actually a private club in an old YMCA building. I wouldn’t have gotten in without this tour. The farm-to-table stuff was good — fresh tomatoes that actually tasted like summer — but honestly I kept staring at the old wood beams and thinking about how many people must’ve passed through here since 1929. There were families at other tables, people laughing over drinks; it felt like we’d stumbled into someone else’s regular Thursday night instead of a tour group thing.