Fabulous food trail

It’s often said that one of the best ways to experience a destination is through its food. On this leisurely stroll you'll get to experience Dublin like a local, meandering down backstreets to seek out the very best food and drink the city has to offer.

Your passionate guide will take you on a cultural and culinary epiphany, teaming visits to artisan food producers and stockists with snippets of history on key sights as you walk the city's streets. It's a wonderful introduction to Dublin and its people and offers an insider's perspective on the thriving Irish food scene.

The experience begins in central Dublin, where you meet your local guide. You can opt to join a small group of others for your walk or have a private tour. There are three possible guides: one a chef, one a food writer and another a food critic. All share an infectious passion for food and have a long-established relationship with Dublin's food suppliers and makers.

On a gentle three-hour stroll you'll visit seven or eight different locations, all independently owned, and have a tasting in each. The exact destinations of the day depend on your guide and their knowledge of the food purveyors or makers and how busy they are likely to be, but will probably include some of Dublin’s finest bakeries, food halls, cheesemongers and chocolatiers.

The places you visit champion Irish ingredients and produce, but also reflect the contemporary nature of Dublin's food scene, which combines new and international tastes with traditional ingredients and recipes.

Throughout the tour you get an insider's take on Irish culture. You learn about the evolution of Irish food through increased international travel and the enormous impact of a once booming economy that drew people here from around the world. Although Dublin was badly hit by the recession, its residents' taste for fine foods remains unabated with an increased interest in organic, hand-crafted ingredients and food provenance.

You also get an authentic glimpse of backstreet Dublin as you walk — many of the locations you visit are tucked away in the independent and creative areas of the city, far away from the main tourist trail. Your guide provides a potted history of the city as you wander between locations, revealing interesting facts about Dublin's architecture, history or key sights as you pass places of interest.

Finally, the walk provides plenty of scope for further exploration in your own time as you finish back in central Dublin armed with plenty of tips on other good places to eat.