HAVE FORK, WILL TRAVEL
The Exploding Popularity Of Culinary Vacations
Food has always been a big deal to Lauren Birmingham Piscitelli’s Italian- American family. She says she grew up in the kitchen helping her grandmothers and her mother make family favorites such as pasta with sea clams and fried dough with zucchini flower petals. Later, on multiple visits to Italy, she developed a deep love for the many regional cuisines of the country, and the many local dishes that are rarely if ever seen in America. Now, she is sharing that love. Her company, Cooking Vacations runs culinary tours to every part of Italy, offering a range of culinary experiences.
“Each tour is a little bit different, she says. “Some have more cooking classes. Some have higher-level cooking classes. Some are, you know, vegetarian, gluten-free, some are even kosher, and some have wine tours in them. We’re about the old-world way, hands-on cooking, making bread, making cheese, cooking in the rhythm of the seasons and sharing our stories about music, art, and the people that sculpted Italy to where it is today.”
She says her customers are seeking authenticity. “They’re foodies, food lovers. They want something that’s off the beaten tourist track. My husband and I, we scour Italy and travel up and down, east and west, to Sicily and Sardinia, looking for artisans who keep the art of food, wine, culture, and family together and alive.”
Lauren says her business is booming. As is culinary travel overall. The amount of money spent on vacations centered around food is growing at an astounding rate. Estimated at 11.5 billion dollars globally in 2023, it’s expected to exceed 40.5 billion by 2030.
And while the trend is centered on food, in reality it’s about travelers looking for much, much more. Keith Jarman, a Senior Travel Designer for Jacada Travel says, “Food offers a deeper connection to a destination, with regional specialties often presenting a delicious window into history and culture. The true spirit of a city is often found in bustling street markets and little restaurants only the locals know. And exploring a country’s cuisine helps travelers create a bond they can re-live and keep alive through their cooking at home, long after the journey ends.”
To that end, many travelers are replacing multi-location itineraries built around trendy hot spots, with deeper dives into a single place. Vice President of Marketing Mitchell Fawcett of the Goway travel agency says, “We are seeing people stay longer and spend more time in destination as opposed to trying to jam in a bunch of places within a country or multi-country trips. When you can spend more time and stay longer in destination, you can definitely take more time to appreciate the nuances of local cuisine as opposed to just hitting up hot spots or doing a simple food tour. We’re seeing a big increase in street food tours. And we’re hearing from our clients that it’s a fantastic way to spend their first day or two in a destination to get to know it, to orient themselves, to walk around a little bit, and have an expert tell them about food, which always connects to history and geography and all of that.”
Fawcett says his agency is even offering actual family meals. “In India, specifically in Kolkata, we have a tour where you do a family dinner,” he told me. “You literally go into a family’s home, cook with them, get served by them. It’s as authentic as it gets. So that’s a pretty cool way to experience that firsthand.”
The big travel brands – hotels and airlines – are tapping into the culinary travel trend big time. David Loy, president of the Edible Destinations travel agency says his company has partnered with major companies like Marriott and Delta, making it possible for their loyalty program members to purchase tours with points and miles. And he says his company continues to expand its offerings.
“We’re working on a lot of product in Croatia,” he says. “The cuisine in Croatia, the truffles in Croatia are absolutely amazing. There’s probably more Michelin-starred restaurants in Croatia per capita than any other place that I know of. We have a yachting trip that we do in Croatia where we take off from Dubrovnik and go to Split, and you’re on a 164-foot yacht, and you’re trying out different Michelin-starred restaurants along the Adriatic.”
And Loy says there are plenty of new discoveries to be made in what have been seen as the old travel standbys: “We’re actually working on new product for the UK, Scotland, and Ireland, even London. People can’t really get their minds wrapped around what is the indigenous cuisines of those regions. You don’t really think of the United Kingdom as having its own true cuisine, but you get into areas in Scotland, for example, and you learn more about Scotch whiskey, and you learn more about things like haggis. There are very unique things to that region.”
So, where to go? If you’re thinking about a culinary vacation, the travel pros say, have an open mind. A trip to France doesn’t have to mean Paris or Provence. Former New Yorker Jenine Lurie hopes to coax culinary travelers to Gascony. Her newly minted agency, taste of Gascony, offers tours in that region in the southwest of France, known for as the home of Armagnac. She says, “People are complaining because every place is overrun with tourists. I mean, who wants to do another wine cruise in Bordeaux with a bunch of Brits and Americans This is a 100 percent local culture. You’re going to find authenticity and real regional stuff. It’s certainly not food snobbish. In Paris, Bordeaux, there’s this kind of air of, our wines are the best. I guess I would say it’s not for everyone, but it’s for the right people. It’s for people who are just really searching for something very real.”
If all of this has you longing for some real recipes from someplace else, check out Lauren Birmingham Piscitelli’s cookbook of the Amalfi Coast, “It’s a Dream Place at https://www.cooking-vacations.com/
The next episode of the Culinary Characters Unlocked podcast, dropping Tuesday, will take you off the beaten path to a Colorado fine-dining restaurant you have to ski or hike a mile to reach, and a legendary family restaurant in Alaska that just won a James Beard America’s Classics award.
Available wherever you get your podcasts:
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