Taking a Food Tour of Baton Rouge

What better way to understand a place than to enjoy its cuisine?

That’s the concept behind the “food tour,” a brand of tourism that seeks to create a more memorable impression of a place you visit. Testing local cuisine and learning about local ingredients is a unique way to appreciate a city.

In Louisiana, which arguably boasts America’s most unique cuisines, there are some amazing food tours to choose from. Here are some of the best tours in the southern part of the state:

Destination Kitchen: New Orleans is as rich in culture as any place in the country could possibly be, and this food tour shows you why. Explore the gastronomical delights of Cajun, Creole, French and modern cuisines in the French Quarter, Uptown and other iconic spots in the Crescent City.

All About Baton Rouge Food Tours: Explore Baton Rouge and the flavors the city has to offer on the All About Baton Rouge Food Tour. This tour will provide an excellent overview of the city. Enjoy several food samples from four to six locations in Baton Rouge and learn about the city’s history and visit local shops along the way. This food tour is great for the family and will keep you smiling as you meet local chefs and merchants that keep the city of Baton Rouge going.

Enjoy Baton Rouge Food Tours: Ready to explore all the dishes and restaurants in Downtown Baton Rouge? Book your food tour with Enjoy Baton Rouge Food Tours. This tour will take a minimum of six guests to five restaurants Downtown and try the various meals and flavors the city is known for. Your entertaining tour guide will walk with you through Downtown and answer any of your food, city and history questions about Baton Rouge. You’ll see stunning food presentations and speak with local restaurant owners on this food tour in Baton Rouge.

C’est Si Bon: This is one of the best culinary tours in Baton Rouge, and the capital city doesn’t disappoint. With a delicious mixture of traditional bayou flavors and multicultural urban delights, this tour will reveal the best spots in the city.

Culinary travel tours of Baton Rouge are mostly what they sound like — a tour of the city as experienced through its food. Typically done on foot and in reasonably small groups, a food tour is guided by a knowledgeable expert who knows the ins and outs of the city’s food scene. You can expect to sample specially selected dishes from a wide variety of different restaurants.

Food tours are designed to let you sample the city’s best food and its most unique. Is there a recipe you’re only likely to taste in Baton Rouge, or a spot only the locals seem to know about? If so, a food tour will likely help you find it.

In this way, taking a food tour of a city allows you to understand its culture and spirit while simultaneously giving you a guided walk around its most vibrant and important streets. In a city with a cuisine as unique and historically rich as Baton Rouge, a food tour is the best way to get acquainted with all things Cajun, Creole and beyond.

What Are the Benefits of a Food Tour?

Getting to know a city takes time, which is why we hope to pack as much in as possible when we travel. Understanding a place’s history, culture and energy tends to help us feel we have captured its essence. However, it is difficult to grasp all of these in your typical guided tour.

On a food tour vacation, you’ll cover ground traditional Baton Rouge tours cannot compete with. From visiting various restaurants to having eccentric tour guides to answer all of your food and city questions, you’ll see how food tours can be entertaining. Here are some reasons why taking the best food tours in Baton Rouge can make your trip:

Immersion

Immersion is that feeling that lets you say, “Yeah, I know that city really well.”

Dining is the ultimate immersive experience. A meal is the only form of culture you can physically ingest, and no trip is truly complete without having been a foodie for a day. Whereas a sightseeing tour typically involves food only as an afterthought, a food tour embraces it as the ultimate window into a city’s soul.

Eating employs all five of our senses. We see and hear the sizzle of hot gumbo, we smell the rich mixture of jambalaya spices, we taste and touch the food as we chew it.

In fact, research suggests eating creates poignant, vivid memories in our brains. It’s the same principle that might cause the smell of markers to suddenly bring us back to our kindergarten classroom, or a whiff of cologne to bring about a mood we haven’t felt since high school. Scent can trigger an evocative feeling attached to a memory, which can strike us even before we identify the memory itself.

Since smells and tastes are inextricably linked with our emotional memories, it stands that eating local cuisine is a great way to make your trip unforgettable. And with a cuisine as unique as Baton Rouge’s, there is no question you’ll find a cornucopia of memories ready to be made — with a flavor that can’t be replicated anywhere else.

History

Every ingredient included in your meal had a long, arduous journey to arrive there.

The stories are endless, and they reveal a lot about the cultural melting pot that is the Louisiana delta. How did the onion, celery and green peppers in your jambalaya come to be called the “holy trinity” of Cajun food? Where does the term “gumbo” stem from? Why are some gumbos cooked with okra and others with filé powder?

To begin answering these questions, and to appreciate the food of Baton Rouge, one must understand a key facet of the place’s history: The city was colonized three different times in just 113 years. Between 1699 and 1812, Baton Rouge belonged successively to the French, British and Spanish crowns before becoming part of the United States.

That means a lot of different cultures and cuisines overlapping.

Add to this the thousands of years of Native American settlement that preceded the French, plus the incredible influence of African and migrant populations in the state, and you’ll start to see why Louisiana has a cuisine all its own.

Baton Rouge also sits proudly on the bank of the mighty Mississippi River, which connects it with all the other cities along this great American waterway. This has allowed centuries of culinary influences to pass through the southern bayou city.

Did you know jambalaya originated in New Orleans’ French Quarter, and that it was born from a failed attempt to recreate Spanish paella in the New World? Or that the beloved crawfish étouffée was considered a poor man’s food until a pair of sisters began serving it in their inn during the 1930s? Eating local cuisine provides a launching point for learning about history — and allows you to taste that history as well as hear it.

Being a Part of the City

Food tours also get you out on the town, breathing the air locals breathe and walking the streets they walk. A city’s heart lies in its people, and those people always tend to gather where the best food is. Whether you’re stopping in Milford’s on Third for delicious grab-and-go food or popping into a gumbo joint on Perkins Road, you’re going to see the Baton Rouge the locals love.

There is a unique joy to exploring the streets of a city, as opposed to being shuttled through it — walking around never feels sterile, and this is precisely where a food tour excels.

The result is a feeling you have truly gotten to know the place. Food tours are unlikely to herd you onto a bus and take you from restaurant to restaurant, but rather will get you into the center of the scene. You didn’t come to a city to be insulated from the cityscape — you came to live among it for a short while!

The Sights Less Seen

Anyone can spot the big-name restaurants in a city. They come up first in Google searches and draw huge throngs of diners. And although they are often wonderful, there is a unique pleasure in having discovered delicious restaurants that are off the beaten path.

A food tour of Baton Rouge is far more likely to introduce you to places you might not otherwise have found. Because local food tour guides are constantly on the lookout for food that is any combination of relevant, innovative, traditional and delicious, you will essentially be getting a backstage pass to the city’s best-kept secrets.

Baton Rouge is in the heart of Cajun country, and nearly every Cajun family has their own version of classic recipes. With that much diversity, it’s fun to let an expert help you make sense of it all. Many of the best meals are in the least obvious spots — a small nook, a food stand, etc. — and nothing is more fun than discovering great food where you hadn’t expected it!

New Friends

Connecting with other people is what life is all about, but it’s often hard to do when you’re a tourist in a new city. Hotels can be lonely, and even a standard sightseeing tour doesn’t necessarily afford you the opportunity to strike up an easy conversation. But with a food tour, friendships spring up naturally.

First, those who take them have one main purpose in mind — to eat delicious local food. You’re sure to find like-minded people in your tour group because it caters to a clear interest, and that means a more organic meeting of minds.

There will be plenty of information to absorb, as the guide will undoubtedly have a lot of absorbing history to share with you, but you’ll spend much of the time enjoying the food itself. This opens the door for conversation to flow!

Food tours are usually limited to smaller groups for logistical purposes. Only a certain number of people can fit in a small restaurant, after all. But the smaller group size has its benefits. You get closer interaction with the tour guide, and the bonding experience of eating food is also enhanced when there is a manageable number of people around the table.

Another benefit of meeting other foodies is that you can learn about even more restaurants to check out. Based on their recommendations, you may stumble upon restaurants in different parts of town your current tour did not have time for.

Chefs often enjoy coming out of the kitchen to say hello as well! This provides yet another opportunity to get a better feel for the cuisine’s personality.

Food Does Not Discriminate

The beautiful thing about food is that everybody enjoys it. It’s a pleasure that persists regardless of culture, age or gender, and it’s one of the truly universal links among humans.

If you are excited about seeing sights while devouring the best-tasting food in a city, you qualify to come along. You are always welcome on a food tour! Young or old, you will enjoy the ride.

Cost

The average food tour costs around $50. Included in this price are guided sightseeing, learning fascinating facts about the city and sampling high-quality food at many different restaurants.

Food tours are a good deal for the gastronomical delights and the knowledge you’re armed with for the rest of your stay in the city — only eating at restaurants that dazzle you is a good way to get more bang for your buck.

It’s a smart idea to book your food tour early in your trip so you can reap the benefits of it for the rest of your time there. It will be easy to remember your favorite restaurants and to come back to them for a full meal later!

How to Choose the Right Food Tour

No two food tours are the same, and it’s important to choose the one most suited to your tastes! Here are some things to look for when choosing a food tour:

What Sort of Reviews Does It Have?

The first thing you should research with any food tour is its reviews. Was the guide fun, knowledgeable and organized? Did customers feel there was good value in the tour? Nothing speaks more highly of a food tour than satisfied customers!

What Types of Food Will It Focus On?

Are you looking for something spicy? Are you more interested in pastries than pasta? Do you have any allergies that need to be taken into consideration?

A food tour should provide a basic overview of what styles of food will be sampled. Make sure you choose one that is right for you. And don’t hesitate to write to the company beforehand if you have any allergies or special requests — these can often be accommodated.

Is Alcohol a Large Part of the Tour?

Sometimes a city’s craft breweries, wineries or unique cocktails are a central feature of its dining experience. It’s important to ask if alcohol will be a primary focus in the tour. If so, have something in your stomach before starting. Also, make sure the tour will include some food, since you want a memorable and culinary-focused experience.

How Long Does the Tour Last, and How Many Restaurants Does It Include?

A food tour is typically two to four hours, though this time can vary widely from place to place. Equally important, though, is finding out how many restaurants you’ll be visiting in that timeframe.

Does the tour seem too fast-paced for your liking, or too slow? If you like to cover a lot of ground, look for a higher number of restaurants in the allotted timeframe. Or, if you’d prefer to spend more time sitting and talking, choose a tour that focuses more heavily on a few select locations.

A food tour is typically two to four hours, though this time can vary widely from place to place. Equally important, though, is finding out how many restaurants you’ll be visiting in that timeframe.

Does the tour seem too fast-paced for your liking, or too slow? If you like to cover a lot of ground, look for a higher number of restaurants in the allotted timeframe. Or, if you’d prefer to spend more time sitting and talking, choose a tour that focuses more heavily on a few select locations.

When You’re in Baton Rouge, Stop by Milford’s on Third

The New York deli — a Southern tradition!

At Milford’s on Third, we put a Southern spin on the classic New York deli. We specialize in breakfast, lunch and dinner grab-and-go snacks, as well as deli sandwiches heaped high with mouthwatering fresh meats. We offer the perfect combination of Southern flavor and NYC eats.

We are happy to have become a new staple of the Baton Rouge food scene, and are pleased to add to the incredible variety of culinary traditions here. You can enjoy a variety of flavors, like breakfast sandwiches, bagels and schmears. We enjoy introducing visitors and locals to new flavor combinations and tastes from our extensive deli menu. 

You can find Milford’s on Third on the bottom floor of the Watermark hotel in Downtown Baton Rouge. Stop by on your way to the office, on your lunch break or when you’re headed home — you’ll find the best deli experience in the city, as well as a heartwarming dose of Southern hospitality.

You can even take Milford’s to your next event, party or LSU tailgate to bring delicious local cuisine to your gathering. Check out the Tiger Tailgate menu for various grab-and-go tailgate catering options perfect for the next game. 

Our catering menu is also extensive, and we can help you create the perfect catering order that will impress every guest at your next event or party. From breakfast packages including breakfast burritos and biscuits to lunch-time options with NYC-style deli sandwiches and chips, your event will be complete with meals from Milford’s. Contact us today to learn more about our catering and tailgating menus, or stop by our store to place a catering order!