Culinary Secrets of Backstreet Naples

Highlights

  • Culinary walking tour

  • Visit Old City of Naples

  • Visit the private workshop of the last sign painter

  • Backstage access in a family-run bakery

  • Visit to bakery making the famous baba au rum

Summary

Join our food tour in Naples to taste the city’s best bites, from local pastries to iconic street foods, in the old market streets and local “institution” restaurants. Dive into the city's bustling backstreets and enjoy food that goes beyond just pizza.


Tour info

Duration
5 hours
Group Size
7
Pricing (From)
Adult: (13 years +)
$135.00
Child: (6-12 years)
$67.50
Infant: (0-6 years)
$0.00
Commentary
Meeting Point
Dropoff location

Why take this tour?

On this food tour in Naples, we’ll contrast the narrow cobblestoned alleys of Centro Storico with what lies beyond the old city walls in the thriving old neighborhoods that crowd Naples’ historic gates. We’ll start in a third-generation pasticceria for a Neapolitan coffee and sfogliatella, followed by the famous baba au rum. We will then plunge into the traditional food shops, stopping for a quick limoncello in a most unusual place before a snack of classic, seasonal Napoli street food and, of course, there will be pizza in more than one form. We’ll then move beyond the walls into a very different area teeming with local life and market streets. We’ll stop into a baccaleria, before sampling the healing waters of Vesuvius at a kiosk in the market.  We’ll visit a family-run bakery, where we will make our own Neapolitan caponata.
Our day will be dedicated to experiencing the everyday food traditions served up with the superlative hospitality that is the hallmark of the Neapolitano.

Naples is at once a sophisticated ancient metropolis littered with monuments of art and architecture, a city dramatically perched between Mount Vesuvius and the sea, a place of palaces, the hometown of pizza. But unlike many other Italian cities with such a formidable legacy, Naples is not an open-air museum. This is a city with a pulse so strong and a culinary heritage so divine that after spending time in Naples we’ve found ourselves wondering: why don’t all roads lead here?
Along with the other stops mentioned, we’ll meet three sisters at their vegetable stand and sample some of the famous tomatoes grown around Vesuvius, the volcano that looms over Naples. Shopkeepers, bakers, olive sorters, home cooks, vendors and the last traditional sign painter of the market are all part of the warm community we’ll be welcomed into.

What’s included?

  • All food consumed on the walk – almost a dozen different edible specialties

  • Culinary Backstreets Guide

  • Alcohol sampled

  • Transportation to and from the meeting point

Things to know

Before you book

  • Food Tasting - Let us know if you have any allergies

Before you go

  • Wear comfortable shoes

Covid Policy

  • Hand sanitizer available to travelers and staff
  • Paid stay-at-home policy for staff with symptoms

Cancellation Policy

    100% refund if given 1 week notice prior to walk. 50% refund if given 72 hours notice or more. Less than 72 hours before the beginning of the activity or no-show: no refund

About operator:

We got our start in 2009, reporting from a borderless urban zone we like to think of as the “Culinary Backstreets” because we believed that there were countless stories of a city’s foodways that needed to be told. We wanted to focus on a more traditional side of urban culinary life – the workings of simple family-run restaurants, the masters passing their craft on to an apprentice, the banter of regulars gathered around an open table, the rhythm of a life committed to meatballs and nothing else. We were enthralled by all of the tiny epics we encountered while eating our way through the city and set out to share as many of them as we could. From the start, we vowed to go slow and collect these stories one-by-one, giving equal measure to the culinary side as the human element of the story. This way, we expected a deeper understanding of the city and its daily life to emerge with every bite. For us, it’s never just about the best meatball in town; it’s always about all of the meatballs.


We tell the stories of our subjects – unsung heroes who are sometimes forgotten or taken for granted at home – through weekly restaurant reviews published on CB, culinary walking tours, books, web design and smartphone applications. When we see the need, CB also acts as a fundraiser for causes connected to protecting and promoting traditional culinary culture.

By publishing the stories of our local heroes, visiting them on culinary tours, or directly fundraising for them when they are in need, we attempt to honor their work and their essential role in maintaining the fabric of the city. Our purpose is twofold. Yes, we want to get travelers to some good places to eat. But we also want to make sure that some of these spots and the artisans making food there find a new audience and get the recognition and support they deserve. They are holding back the tide of globalized sameness, which is not easy work – even if it’s done unknowingly. But we believe that every meal counts and, with the help of our audience, they will add up. We are committed to their perseverance and hope that our modest efforts encourage them to keep at it. Our work is also guided by a belief in: Honest Tourism: The places where we eat and craftsmen that we feature on our culinary tours are all selected with this purpose in mind. We’d never accept a free lunch or consider a discount for our tour groups, because that would contradict our central goal, to support them. Nor do our guides receive any commissions from shopkeepers. Honest Journalism: The same principal is applied to the publishing of stories. There are no sponsored posts or even advertising on CB. The writers and photographers are paid fairly for their work on stories that we all believe in.

The cities we are drawn to all have a culinary tradition of untold richness as well as a certain tension, be it political instability, the tug between East and West, the clash between modern and ancient identities, migration, rapid gentrification, bankruptcy, or a post-colonial hangover. Our decision to get started in a city is always the result of a trip filled with many meals where we are given in intimate view of that tension, right there on the table. By getting lost in this warren of independent food purveyors struggling to preserve or adapt tradition in fast-paced urban life, we start to discover the deep complexity and true flavor of the city. At present, you’ll find our regular dispatches from Athens, Barcelona, Istanbul, Lisbon, Los Angeles, Marseille, Mexico City, Naples, Porto, Queens (NY), Shanghai, Tbilisi and Tokyo.

CB’s work was started in 2009 by Ansel Mullins and Yigal Schleifer as a humble food blog called Istanbul Eats. The following year we published a book of our reviews, now in its fifth edition. That year we also launched our first culinary walk in Istanbul, a route we are still using today. In 2012, we realized that what we built in Istanbul was needed in other cities we knew and loved. We started CB that year with Athens, Barcelona, Mexico City and Shanghai as pioneering members of our network. In 2013, we added Rio and also launched our iPhone application in Istanbul. In 2015, Tokyo and Tbilisi came into the fold. That year we published mini-guides to Barcelona and Athens and also launched an iPhone application in those cities. Our Eatinerary service, which provides travelers with tailor-made culinary travel itineraries, was also launched in 2015. In 2016, Lisbon – the latest city to kindle our curiosity – joined the CB network. In 2017 we added Naples and Queens, NY – two places with very compelling stories to tell – to our roster and also published full-size eating guides to Athens and Barcelona. In 2018, Porto joined the list of cities we cover.