Diverse and delicious: The world’s five greatest new trips for foodies

If you live to eat – and therefore travel to eat – look no further.

Georgian flavours on your mind

• Start Tbilisi, Georgia
• Finish Tbilisi, Georgia
• Duration Eight days

Georgia is the place every foodie will want to visit in the coming years. (Pictured: Tbilisi)Credit: iStock

There are two excellent reasons to book yourself on a tour that specialises in food and drink: to enjoy the best of a cuisine you know and love, access experiences you wouldn’t be able to book on your own, and have expert guidance through a country you’re mostly unfamiliar with.

Intrepid Travel’s Georgia Real Food Adventure falls into the latter category for most of us. But also, what do you know of Georgian gastronomic culture? This tour is the ideal introduction to a place you are sure to be pleasantly surprised by.

Because Georgian food is amazing. It’s diverse, historic and above all delicious, benefitting from a rich mix of gastronomic influences from Europe, the Middle East and Asia. What’s perhaps even more impressive, however, is the country’s wine. Georgians have been fermenting and ageing grape juice for 8000 years, and that history and skill are easily accessible to visitors.

Traditional foods being made in Tbilisi on Intrepid’s Georgia food tour.

Over eight days, Intrepid Travel’s Real Food Adventure gives visitors a perfectly rounded education in the glory of Georgian cuisine. It begins in the nation’s capital, Tbilisi, before heading to the Kakheti region, the heartland for Georgian wine, and then Pankisi Valley, deep in the Caucasus, into the mountains at Gudauri, before the return to Tbilisi.

Along the way, guests get to spend the night in a guesthouse run by women in Pankisi Valley; take part in cooking classes and other demonstrations of local cuisine, tour fresh food markets in Telavi, have a barbecue lunch with a local family, visit multiple local restaurants in Tbilisi, and visit a winery to see how Georgian wine is made, in a technique that stretches back thousands of years.

Right now, you probably don’t know what mtsvadi is. You’ve never tried nigvziani badrijani, sampled zhizhig galnash, or made your own khinkali.

But this tour is all about discovery, opening yourself up to new experiences, new dishes, new flavours, and new sensations. Georgia is the place every foodie will want to visit in coming years, and the reason for this will become evident very quickly on this journey.

That the scenery of the Caucasus is also incredible, the architecture in the likes of Tbilisi and Telavi varied and unique, and the local people are friendly and warm everywhere you go just rounds off what is a truly memorable and delicious experience. See intrepidtravel.com

Get salty on a cruise of the Med

• Start Lisbon, Portugal
• Finish Athens, Greece
• Duration 16 days

Embrace the Mediterranean diet on a 16-day trip from Lisbon to Athens.

You will always eat well in Europe, particularly if you’re visiting Portugal, Morocco, Spain, Italy, and Greece. The freshness of the Mediterranean diet, the diversity of the cuisine, and the joy that comes with dining in these countries are famous for a reason.

On Silversea’s SALT journeys, however, you get to dig a little deeper. The acronym stands for Sea And Land Taste, and it’s a program designed to allow passengers to learn about local cuisine in a way that’s more experiential, more in-depth and even more enjoyable.

Learn about local cuisine on Silversea’s SALT journeys.

Aboard the Silver Dawn, for example, on a 16-day journey from Lisbon to Athens, you have access to Kitchen, a destination-focused onboard restaurant that changes its focus as the ship’s location shifts to reflect local food culture.

And then there are the onshore experiences: the likes of a rare barrel tasting and a gourmet lunch at a sherry producer in southern Spain; a tasting and lunch at a Mount Etna winery in Sicily; and a sample of high-end cuisine with a renowned chef in Andalusia.

And this, as they say, is just a taste. See silversea.com

Score that table in Tokyo

• Start Tokyo, Japan
• Finish Tokyo, Japan
• Duration Five days

Sushi Amamoto, a two-Michelin-starred restaurant that is almost impossible to book.

Here’s the thing with high-end restaurants in Japan: they don’t work the way restaurants usually do in the rest of the world. You can’t just call up and book at the top sushi joint in Tokyo or the finest kaiseki eatery. You can’t reserve a place online. To eat at the best of the best, you need to know people.

And at Plan Japan, they know people. Owner and tour guide Rachel Lang has patiently spent decades amassing an incredible contact list of the finest Tokyo chefs, allowing her and her clients access to restaurants that the rest of us could barely even dream about.

A dish at Sushi Amamoto.

Plan Japan takes clients to Sushi Amamoto, a two-Michelin-starred restaurant that is almost impossible to book. Her tours go to Sugita, a legendary sushi joint, and Wagyumafia, an ultra-high-end steak restaurant usually open only to members.

Couple this with luxury accommodation and personal service from Rachel, and you have the sort of journey through one of the world’s finest food destinations that will live with you forever. See planjapan.com.au

Barge into Burgundy

• Start Fleurey-sur-Ouche, France
• Finish Escommes, France
• Duration Seven days

L’Impressionniste hotel barge meanders slowly through Burgundy.

Where is the world’s best wine made? Most experts tend to agree that it’s one of the three “Bs”: Bordeaux, Barolo, or Burgundy. If you’re a lover of chardonnay and pinot noir, then you will undoubtedly say the latter, and you will also surely jump at the chance to board a riverboat and make your way slowly through the heart of Burgundian wine country.

That’s the offer on European Waterways’ Classic Cruise of Southern Burgundy aboard the 12-passenger L’Impressionniste hotel barge. The seven-day journey down the Canal de Bourgogne includes visits to numerous wineries in the Cote d’Or, the highlight of which is Domaine Chanson, producer of grand cru and premier cru wines in the Beaune area.

This journey also includes stops in Dijon, plus the medieval village of Chateauneuf-en-Auxois, and the beautiful 13th-century Chateau de Commarin, with plenty of time for market visits and high-end meals on board. See europeanwaterways.com

A deep dive into Peruvian cuisine

• Start Lima, Peru
• Finish Lima, Peru
• Duration Six days

Chirashi sushi at Nikkei in Lima.

Janice Kirkwood and Sue Dempsey are two Kiwi foodies who run intimate, lovingly curated tours of three countries – Japan, Georgia and Peru – for fellow lovers of fine cuisine. The pair have been doing this for seven years now, and have been showing visitors around Lima, perhaps one of the world’s most underappreciated destinations for high-quality gastronomy, since 2019.

Here’s what you get: Eating Lima is a six-day, small-group journey into the best Peru has to offer, from fine-dining restaurants that feature in the World’s 50 Best list to market visits, cooking classes, coffee tasting, cocktail making, and deep-dives into the many and varied cuisines that Peru has to offer, including unique fusions such as Nikkei and Chifa.

Chefs at Merito in Lima.

This is the perfect tour to combine with other essential Peruvian experiences, whether you plan to go on to Cusco and Machu Picchu, explore the wonders of the Nazca Lines, take in the depths of Colca Canyon, or all of the above. See eatingadventures.co.nz