Cruise With Top Chefs
Take your love of Bravo’s Top Chef to the next level and set sail with chef-testants from past seasons.
Stay: Celebrity Cruises has Top Chef at Sea signature sailings that travel to Europe, the Caribbean and Alaska.
Eat: Take private cooking classes, try your hand at a real-life Quickfire Challenge or watch the chefs recreate recipes from the show (and then taste them!). Of course, you’ll also have access to all of the usual activities on and off the ship, like spas and casino visits, nightly entertainment and shore excursions.
Hit Up a Food Festival
If you’re a hard-core Disney fan, you can’t go wrong with the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival that runs annually from mid-September to November in Orlando, Florida.
Stay: Disney’s nautical-themed Yacht Club Resort is just a quick walk from the action at Epcot.
Eat: With nearly 30 marketplaces focused on different global cuisines, your stomachs can travel from Ireland and Italy to Africa and Asia all in one day. Pick up new techniques and meet famous chefs at seminars and cooking demos, and then relax and enjoy the nightly concerts and the park’s famous fireworks.
Feast in Buenos Aires
With its Spanish and Italian influences, you’ll find way more than just steak in Argentina’s cosmopolitan capital (but you may very well still get the meat sweats).
Stay: The boutique Fierro Hotel in trendy Palermo has wine tastings and a renowned restaurant.
Eat: First stop, hit La Cabrera for the lomo (beef tenderloin) and a bottle of luscious malbec. For lunch, head to colorful La Boca for an old-school Italian meal at Il Matterello. Plan ahead for a delicious, authentic family-style supper with locals and other tourists at Adentro Dinner Club, run by a gracious American expat and her partner (an Argentine chef) out of their charming home. Menus focus on meat dishes (like steak with chimichurri sauce) or seafood ones (like salmon with garlic butter).
Nosh in New Orleans
From upscale restaurants run by celebrity chefs, like John Besh and Emeril Lagasse, to hole-in-the-wall joints known for down- home dishes, like gumbo and po’ boys, NOLA is a foodie’s dream.
Stay: In the heart of the French Quarter, historic Hotel Monteleone is home to the Carousel Bar, where Ernest Hemingway and Tennessee Williams drank.
Eat: A perfect day: Start at Café du Monde for beignets (fried dough covered with powdered sugar) and café au laits, saving room for Central Grocery’s epic muffuletta for lunch. Take a streetcar to Casamento’s Restaurant in the Garden District for fresh oysters, then head to The Columns Hotel for an alfresco drink (and people-watching along St. Charles Avenue).
