Best of NYC Food Tour with Chinatown, Little Italy and LES

Meet your guide on the second floor of Essex Market at 88 Essex Street. This historic food hall has been at the center of Lower East Side life for centuries, from its days as a series of pushcarts to its present uber modern aesthetic. Take some time to browse around the many diverse stalls as you arrive.(5 min)

Only one store in New York still makes pickles the old fashioned way — we'll be going there to try a whole historic sampler of their pickled goods. Learn about how pickles are essential to Lower East Side history as you munch down on these briny bites.(10 min)

Next, stop by a near-century old bakery for an only-in-New York experience: a bialy, made with New York City's own tap water. And if you don't know what a bialy is, your guide will tell you all about the backstory of this historic baked good.(15 min)

Maybe no neighborhood has changed more in the past century than the Lower East Side, going from the heart of Jewish New York to a cross-cultural and cross-age blend of residents. Thankfully, you'll have a guide ready to take you through the neighborhood's full history.(15 min)

Taste New York's best food hidden gem: delectable pork buns hidden in the basement of an abandoned mall.(15 min)

Delve into the authentic history of Chinatown: rather than taking you to tourist traps, we'll go to local institutions, talk about the area's social movements, and show off what the neighborhood is truly like.(15 min)

You've probably seen Lower Manhattan in a gangster movie before — now, you'll get to see the actual locations the films were based on. Explore the Five Points, the one-time heart of mobster New York, as your guide unfurls tales of the bloody battles, political corruption, and ultimate social uprisings that defined New York's gangster era.(15 min)

No food tour would be complete with a visit to Di Palo's, an over 100 year old Italian grocery store. The shop is home to food from 20 different regions of Italy, and the owners make delectably soft and salty mozzarella in-house every single day — mozzarella that we'll be biting in when we visit.(15 min)

Walk up Mulberry Street, a green, red and white-clad extravaganza, to see Little Italy in action.(15 min)

If there's one thing New Yorkers adore, it's their pizza. See why as you visit Williamsburg Pizza, a shop renowned for their "grandma slice," and enjoy a crispy, doughy, saucy delight(15 min)

New York is a city of lines, and that's certainly the case at this Chinatown staple. But fear not: we'll skip the line as we wrap up our tour with one of the tastiest dishes in the whole city, world-renowned peanut butter noodles.(15 min)