The best food in the city is on the pavement outside it.
How many stops you actually get. Whether the ice is safe. What a bowl costs before a guide adds their fee. Which stalls close at nine and which only open then. Reviews of the street food tours you can book tonight, city by city.
Four street food nights that book out first.
The stops these guides make, what they cost, and what the people who ate them say.
01Saigon on the back of a bikeHo Chi Minh City Street Food Tour & Sightseeing By MotorbikeA rider each, six stops, and a route through alleys you would never find on foot. The most-taken street food tour on this whole site.
02Hanoi after darkHanoi: Street Food Tour with Train Street & Hidden AlleywaysOld Quarter alleys, bun cha over charcoal, and the track where the cafes clear their chairs before every train.
03Naples on footNaples: Street Food Walking Tour with Local GuideFried pizza from a hatch, a sfogliatella still too hot to hold, and a guide who argues with the vendors in dialect.
04Osaka, fifteen tastingsHungry Osaka Street Food Tour:15 Tastings & 3 Drinks with a LocalTakoyaki, kushikatsu and three drinks through Dotonbori. Come hungry, and do not eat lunch.
Vietnam is the one everybody comes back talking about.
Three ways to eat a Vietnamese evening, what each costs to board, and which city it suits. Bowls are a dollar or two on their own, so what you are paying for is the guide, the route and somebody ordering for you.
Six cities where the pavement outcooks the restaurants.
A pho alley in the Old Quarter, a tuna market that trades at dawn, a Chinatown that only wakes at nine, fried snacks by the kilo off Chandni Chowk, arancini in a Palermo market. Six cities, and the best walk in each.
Night markets do not open early, and they do not wait.
A whole class of eating only exists after sunset. Bangkok Chinatown fires its woks at nine, Saigon puts riders on the road at seven, Marrakech sets up the Jemaa el-Fnaa grills as the light goes. One departure a night, and the guides who do it properly fill up days out.
Italy eats standing up, and Palermo is the loudest room in it.
Every Italian food walk →
Sicilian fry shops, Neapolitan hatches selling pizza fritta by the piece, Roman supplì eaten walking. Italy has more street food than its restaurant reputation lets on, and three cities carry most of it.
Palermo, markets and fry shops
Ballarò and Vucciria, panelle from a cart, arancine the size of a fist, and if the guide likes you, a slice of spleen sandwich you did not agree to.
Naples, fried and handed over hot
Pizza fritta through a hatch, cuoppo of fried fish in a paper cone, and a sfogliatella from the bakery the guide has used since school.
Rome, Trastevere after seven
Supplì, pizza al taglio weighed by the slice, and enough small wine stops that the walk between them stops feeling long.
The street food tours more travellers eat than any others.
Every street food tour we have reviewed →The walks and rides with the biggest queues behind them, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Ho Chi Minh City Street Food Tour & Sightseeing By Motorbike
You ride behind a licensed Saigon Adventure driver for four hours, stopping for dishes such as bún bò Huế, bánh khọt, bánh mì, grilled banana, and chè. Expect local markets, old apartments, flower streets, historic sites, hotel pickup in Districts 1, 3, and 4, and female-driver options.
From · $28
Read our review →
2
Dubai: Old Town, Souks, Street Food, Guided Tour & Abra Ride
from $9
3
New Orleans Food Walking Tour of the French Quarter with Small-Group Option
from $75
4
Naples: Street Food Walking Tour with Local Guide
from $50
5
Greek Food Walking Tour in Athens
from $87
6
Small Group Hanoi Street Food Tour with a Real Foodie
from $28
7
Rome: Street Food Tour with Local Guide
from $53
8
Saigon By Night and Street Food By Motorbike | Opt: Ao Dai Riders
from $37
The food walk is the format, and how far you walk decides everything.
Two or three hours, six to ten tastings, one guide who knows which stall is having a bad week. Market walks trade smoke for shade and start early. Motorbike routes cover four times the ground and stop for half as long.
In Mexico the taco stand is the restaurant.
Al pastor carved off the trompo after dark, birria consommé in a paper cup, a salsa that arrives without warning. Mexican guides run late and eat standing, and the good tours are five stops minimum.
Every Mexican street food tour →
Japan hides its street food in markets and under railway arches.
There is almost no eating in the street here, so the food goes indoors: Tsukiji outer market at breakfast, Nishiki at lunch, Dotonbori and the yatai stalls at night. Learn the standing rules and the whole country opens up.
- 1Tokyo Tsukiji Fish Market Food and Culture Walking Tourfrom $99
- 2Hungry Osaka Street Food Tour:15 Tastings & 3 Drinks with a Localfrom $73
- 3Tokyo: Tsukiji Fish Market Food and Walking tourfrom $30
What an evening of street food actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by what you pay. Plenty of the best eating nights cost less than one restaurant main.
Two or three hours, six to eight tastings, a local guide and no transport. The standard shape of a good street food walk.
Longer routes, a rider or a tuk-tuk, ten or more tastings, and drinks counted in rather than added on.
Private guides, market chefs, and the multi-hour eating marathons that end somewhere you would not have found.
Three things you can only eat where they happen.
Grilled skewers and noodle soup turn up everywhere. A cafe that folds its chairs for a passing train, a tuna auction market that trades before breakfast, and a sandwich made of boiled spleen do not.
Train Street, and the bun cha behind it
A metre of clearance either side of a working railway line, with coffee stools and a pho pot set out in it. The barriers close a few minutes before each train, the chairs come in, everybody stands flat against the wall, and then it all goes back out. Access is controlled now and it comes and goes, so guides route around it on the days it is shut and take you to the charcoal bun cha grills instead, which is arguably the better half.
- 1Small Group Hanoi Street Food Tour with a Real Foodie★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 4,682 reviews
- 2Hanoi: Street Food Tour with Train Street & Hidden Alleyways★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,831 reviews
- 3Hanoi: Guided Street Food Tour with Train Street Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 2,479 reviews
Tsukiji outer market at breakfast
The wholesale auction moved to Toyosu years ago, but the outer market kept the knife shops, the tamagoyaki griddles and the standing sushi counters. Trade happens early: by two in the afternoon the shutters are down. Tours start between seven and nine, and the queue for the good uni bowl is already forty deep at eight.
- 1Tokyo Tsukiji Fish Market Food and Culture Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 3,184 reviews
- 2Tokyo: Tsukiji Fish Market Food and Walking tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,724 reviews
- 3Tokyo: Tsukiji Fish Market Guided Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 1,397 reviews
Pani ca meusa, the spleen sandwich
Boiled calf spleen and lung, lifted dripping out of lard, folded into a soft sesame roll with lemon or ricotta. Sicily has eaten it since the Jewish butchers of the medieval city were paid in offal. Two or three stalls in Palermo still do it properly, they open around the market hours, and every guide will make you try it before telling you what it is.
- 1Palermo Original Street Food Walking Tour by Streaty★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,105 reviews
- 2Palermo: Street Food and History Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 1,486 reviews
- 3Palermo Sicilian Street Food Tour: Small Group by Do Eat Better★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 920 reviews
Four street food nights that run on somebody else’s clock.
Most of this you can arrange the same afternoon. These four run on market hours, train timetables and one rider per guest, and they are the ones people miss.
- 01Tokyo Tsukiji Fish Market Food and Culture Walking TourThe outer market trades in the morning and thins out after lunch, so these start early and the small groups go first.
- 02Saigon By Night and Street Food By Motorbike | Opt: Ao Dai RidersIt only exists after sunset. One departure an evening, and the guides who do it well close their books days ahead.
- 03Ho Chi Minh City Street Food Tour & Sightseeing By MotorbikeOne rider per guest, so the group size is a hard cap rather than a preference. Weekend evenings fill first.
- 04Hanoi: Street Food Tour with Train Street & Hidden AlleywaysThe cafes beside the track set out and clear away around the timetable, and access has been closed at short notice more than once.
Street food keeps market hours, not restaurant hours.
Two windows, and almost nothing in between. Fish markets and produce halls trade from before dawn and are swept by early afternoon. Night markets, grills and hawker streets do not light up until seven or eight. Book the morning walk for the markets and the evening walk for the smoke, and keep the middle of the day for a nap.
Bangkok to Singapore, planned around what opens when.
Chiang Mai
Hanoi
Hoi An
SingaporeThe newest street food tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
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Antigua Local: Evening Street Food Tour with Dinner
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All Inclusive Kuromon Markets Tour: Flavors Of Osaka
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Amman Heritage Tour: Street Food, Local Culture & Art
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Amber Cove-Taino Bay 7 Damajaguas Water Falls + Local Food.
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Alicante: Food Walking Tour with Wine Tasting and Tapas
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Alhambra and Nasrid Palaces and Local Food Experience
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