Whether traveling or exploring your hometown, food tours are a great way to try new restaurants and dishes, meet like-minded people and learn more about the culture and history of a place.
While a Chattanooga food tour may seem directed toward tourists, those who keep an open mind may learn to see the city’s food scene from a different perspective. A food tour is also an ideal setting to pick the brains of foodies from elsewhere on the best gastronomic delights to seek out in their cities, should you travel there.
If you’re someone who tends to order the same dish at each of your go-to restaurants in town, a brunch tour could be your chance for exposure to new food options that someone knowledgeable selected to represent the best an establishment has to offer.
“At every location, we have a representative from the company come and give history, and then we go off menu,” Chatt Taste Food Tour owner Briana Garza says of their food tours. “So the items that you would normally get if you were to patronize these restaurants are different than what our food tour options are, so there’s some exclusivity there.”
Chatt Taste’s ChattaBrunch tours are typically made up of around 60% tourists and 40% locals, which is a greater proportion of Chattanoogans than the company’s other tours. According to data collected by Chatt Taste over the last six months of 2023, 83% of local participants said the tour was their first time visiting at least one of the stops.
Local brunch tours include both walking and cycling options, switching up the viewpoint from which many locals see the city and offering the opportunity to counteract the effects of day drinking combined with the consumption of brunch dishes — most of which lean more toward comfort foods than healthy choices.
Contributed photo / Cyclists pose for a photo in front of the Walnut Street bridge during a Bike to Brunch tour with Chattanooga Guided Adventures.Bike to Brunch Tour with Chattanooga Guided Adventures
Spend the morning taking in views of the Tennessee River and iconic Chattanooga spots from two wheels on this guided bike tour through the downtown area, ending with brunch at Milk & Honey on the North Shore. Go all out with the Hot Mess, an open-faced buttermilk biscuit piled high with bacon, sunny-side up egg, pepper jack cheese, avocado, hot pepper jam, chipotle crema and red pickled onions. The standard breakfast sandwiches with egg, cheese and sausage or bacon are great too if you’re feeling something simple.
Length: 2.5 hours
Cost: $119.99 per person
Available: Wednesdays and Fridays, Sept.-Nov., at 8:30 a.m.
Book: chattanoogaguidedadventures.com or (423) 390-8688
Contributed photo by Briana Garza / ChattaBrunch tour guide Alex Coker poses with a group of new friends from across the country at Gate 11 Micro Distillery at the Chattanooga Choo Choo.ChattaBrunch Food Tour with Chatt Taste
This local brunch tour features three food and beverage stops and one cultural destination, and the ticket price includes six courses as well as two cocktails or mocktails. Stops typically include Bleu Fox artisan cheese and specialty foods shop, private social club Common House and Adelle’s Crêperie, a local favorite specializing in French-style pancakes. A visit to Hart Gallery, which features work by artists who are homeless and other underserved groups, adds a cultural element. Sometimes guides will switch up the usual stops with other Southside spots the tour company partners with, such as Taqueria Jalisco, Main Street Meats and Gate 11 Distillery.
“These locations really speak to the variety of the Southside,” Garza says of her reason for selecting the spots featured on the tour.
Renaud Courbiere is a tour guide for Chatt Taste. He says that he enjoys doing brunch tours and giving people insider knowledge about everything from the history of the Chattanooga Choo Choo to how agave spirits are distilled to what a French crêpe is — something he should know well. He’s French.
“It’s great to spend time with guests — local or from different states. It’s a pleasure to learn about their hometown or state and to show and explain different restaurants and locations,” Courbiere says. “I think that Chatt Taste is a real asset for Chattanooga tourism.”
Named the ninth best food tour company in the country in 2023 by USA Today readers, Chatt Taste is known for being accommodating of tour participants’ food allergies and restrictions, which are made known before the tour so custom options are available upon arrival to each restaurant.
Length: 3 hours
Cost: From $108.16 per person
Available: Thursday-Saturday at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. and Sunday at 11 a.m.
Book: chatttaste.com
Contributed photo by Briana Garza / Bleu Fox cheese aficionado Chris Babb, pictured behind the bar, and guests pose for a photo after the charcuterie and local beer portion of the ChattaBrunch Food Tour.