NoLita: Food & History Tour with Tastings, Wine & Local Stories

5.00

(115 reviews)

What’s the experience like?

Someone hands me a rainbow cookie before I’ve even had my first coffee—turns out it’s from this woman-owned café in NoLita where the owner waves at us from behind the counter. Our guide (I think her name was Jamie?) laughs when I try to pronounce “NoLita” like a local. We’re just steps from St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral, and she points out the “little door” where that Godfather scene was filmed. It’s funny how you can walk past something a hundred times and never know what happened there.

I didn’t expect the food tour to feel so… neighborly? We sat inside a taqueria with bright tiles and ate these tiny tacos with watermelon fresca—cold, sweet, almost too pretty to drink. At the butcher shop, there’s this old photo of Martin Scorsese on the wall (he used to shop here apparently), and the owner tells us about filming for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. The smell of cured meats is everywhere, sharp and comforting at once.

Watching the pizzaiolo toss dough in front of us was hypnotic—wood-fired pizza comes out blistered and bubbling, paired with a glass of wine that someone pours without asking if you want red or white (I kind of liked that). There’s something about eating pizza in New York that feels like home, even if you’re not from here. Later we tried these Vietnamese rice crepe tacos—lemongrass chicken with pickled veggies—which I’m still thinking about days later.

We wandered through a neighborhood garden that might not be here much longer (development, as always), then stood outside an old mafia social club while Jamie told us stories I probably shouldn’t repeat. By dessert—a chocolate bonbon that took three days to make—I realized I’d stopped checking my phone hours ago. You know when you just feel present? That was it for me.